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Kimani, a huge bull elephant, can be seen with his collar containing a sim card, Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 in the Ol Pejeta conservancy near Mt. Kenya. Save the Elephants has set up a project where they placed a mobile phone SIM card in an elephants collar, then set up a virtual "geofence" using a global positioning system that mirrored the conservatory's boundaries. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)
By CATHERINE BRAHIC
By CATHERINE BRAHIC
Dec. 12, 2008
Zoos are "consuming" elephants, says a team of researchers and conservationists who have, for the first time, compared how the captive animals fare in comparison to their wild cousins.
The findings are not good for elephants looking forward to a life in a zoo: their life expectancy is significantly shorter than for those in African and Asian wild or working populations.
Despite the care elephants receive in captivity and the absence of predators, the study found that death rates in Western zoos are greater than birth rates, making the captive elephant population unsustainable. "The zoo population consumes rather than produces elephants," says Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Canada....
The findings are not good for elephants looking forward to a life in a zoo: their life expectancy is significantly shorter than for those in African and Asian wild or working populations.
Despite the care elephants receive in captivity and the absence of predators, the study found that death rates in Western zoos are greater than birth rates, making the captive elephant population unsustainable. "The zoo population consumes rather than produces elephants," says Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Canada....
