Hello, I am currently studying a degree in Animal Management and my chosen topic for my dissertation is the study of the different behaviour of wild and captive elephants. I would greatly appreciate any examples or happenings they may know of and specific stereotypical or abnormal behaviours which may take place with captive elephants depending. **Also relative websites would be very helpful** Thanks, Lauren
These might be helpful, especially the first one. Elephant Husbandry Resource Guide http://docs.burningbird.net/circus/aspca-vs-feld/courtdocuments/document479-1.pdf AZA Standards for Elephant Management and Care http://www.aza.org/uploadedFiles/Co...s/Elephant_Conservation/ElephantStandards.pdf BIAZA Elephant Guidelines 2010 http://www.biaza.org.uk/uploads/Animal Management/Elephant Guidelines 2010.pdf Management Guidelines Developed by the Rotterdam Zoo (Elephant) http://www.rotterdamzoo.nl/import/assetmanager/5/6125/Elephant Guidelines.pdf http://www.elephant.se/ has a good database of elephant collections.
I can't help thinking that you cannot do justice to the topic if you cannot study their behavior in the wild. All you will end up doing is repeating things others have said without any means of forming your own opinion. So you can do a review of the literature but not a behavioral study really
I believe there are some zoos that hold elderly elephants who picked up stereotypical behaviour when they were kept in worse conditions, and continue to do them even when they are in a much better environment. However, off the top of my head I can't tell you which elephants at which collections.
