To whom it may concern, I am conducting a project in my AP Research class in which I am designing a benchmark elephant habitat that can be used for guiding future zoological standards/ending the debate on elephants in zoos as a whole, and I was wondering something regarding the animal welfare requirements. How were those quantified? I ask because I want to calculate averages based off of Planet Zoo's stipulations, the AZA's stipulations, the EAZA's stipulations, WAZA's stipulations, etc. I have also read articles which state that space isn't as important of a factor as members of a multigenerational herd, keeper interaction, enrichment opportunities, etc. I wanted to contact Frontier through the direct means available but I am unable to see whether or not my message went through, so here I am doing it through this. Please let me know as soon as possible, my paper is due on May 26th at 11:59 PM EST. Sincerely, StoppableSan
Elephant Exhibit IRL Research (Please Help)
- Thread starter StoppableSan
- Start date
To be honest, I don't think a game (as good as it might be) can help you with this topic. I would recommend contacting zoos or other organisations working with elephants in RL.
And I don't want to doubt your work, but if the debate on elephants in zoos could be solved in two weeks of research... well... we wouldn't have it...
And I don't want to doubt your work, but if the debate on elephants in zoos could be solved in two weeks of research... well... we wouldn't have it...
I love Frontier, I love Planet Zoo, this community and the CMs are incredibly helpful - however, this game is no science and a gaming company should never be your first resoruce for IRL science. In fact, I don'tt even think Frontier can share their own research with you, as a lot of what they talked about with keepers and other important figures in zoos might very well be under disclosure.
I'd recommend contacting zoos that are leading in keeping elephants. The cologne zoo comes to my mind, Hagenbek as a contrast (those two couldn't be more different in elephant handling). I wish you the best of luck to even get an interviewpartner that fast.
And no, no paper will end the discussion for good, as the discussion for zoos in general can not be ended for good. I agree with @nightcat on this.
I'd recommend contacting zoos that are leading in keeping elephants. The cologne zoo comes to my mind, Hagenbek as a contrast (those two couldn't be more different in elephant handling). I wish you the best of luck to even get an interviewpartner that fast.
And no, no paper will end the discussion for good, as the discussion for zoos in general can not be ended for good. I agree with @nightcat on this.
I should probably state that Planet Zoo (in my case) started out as being used merely as a tool of illustration, the idea of combining averages came to me very recently.
I am curious, where do you see the difference?
As far as I know Cologne works with no contact and no keeper is ever in the herd and Hagenbek works with direct contact. That leads to a totally different base for social behaviour. Corrrect me, if anything changed in Hagenbek and I missed it.
Protected contact is another form of elephant handlingbut I have no zoo example on hand here.
I dont know about was Hagenbeck does now, but Cologne works with protected contact
Honestly I dont think there is a zoo that works with "no contact" at all Its probaly not even possible
But its true, protected contact does of course mean they dont go inside the herd. But they do have contac and train the elephants through the bars. For the German speakers here, there is actually an interesting WDR documentation about ethical aspects of zoos. Its not that long and it also dosent have "the answer", but I think its a good one^^ Colognes elephants are also featured in it
(Other than elephants, polar bears and apes are also a bigger topic there)
You can apply this to a lot/most documentaries.
A while ago someone posted a link documentary to an Elephant health situation in Canada. Documentaries are mostly made with a specific intention and most times leaving out certain facts to make a documentary stand out more. It's rumoured that some important info in that documentary is confirmed by the organization itself and not by an actual animal health expert. Or filming an animal for a long period and only use footage when the animal was in a bad mood.
Already mentioned by previous users but contacting various organizations for any documentation or free accessable research, looks like a more viable option.
But PETA/Greenpeace or other similar organizations could have a lot of research from their perspective. Not saying they are correct but could be very interesting to compare.
And contacting multiple zoos in different regions - but wouldn't count on much response, don't expect people don't handout info that easy to someone outside the zoo community. And even with this short time-frame, maybe not the best choice.
I dont know about was Hagenbeck does now, but Cologne works with protected contact
You are right,I re-checked. Cologne has protected contact, Hagenbek direct contact.
When I searched earlier today, there were some zoos with no contact. Those however are more like a national park, have habitats with over 20,000 hectar and are in a biome, where no closed shelteris needed. And because the animals can walk enough, there is no need in foot-care and things like that.
I doubt that you can conduct meaningful (or any) interviews in less than two weeks during a global pandemic. I would foray the zoological scientific papers for information and write some kind of summary.
No one should ask Peta about serious Research. They know absolutely nothing about Animals and hate them. Sometimes they even kidnap Animals that are absolutely healthy and happy just to kill them without a Reason. They shouldn't even be called a Animal Rights Organization
Well, if you are going to do research you should explore multiple options. Disproving other research/findings can support your own research.
Most likely they aren't able to back up their claims (seen it multiple times) and you can report in your paper you excluded some Animal Right Organizations because of lack of any facts or proper research. Or use some info which works for both sides of the argument. My personal believe is that research should be objective as much (hearing both sides) and filter out the bad/incorrect info. They are claiming AZA are horribly wrong. What info do they use to come to that conclusion?
Yeah, I've seen a video of a group of an animal rights organization, aggressively taking a dog from their owner because they decided it would be better off in their care. And I know about the shelter killings from PETA. Paying actors to mistreat farm animals for footage. Or releasing animals from a farm into the wild, which also means a guaranteed death for those animals. They have some really horrible supporters. But you are not asking their supporters but insert name animal organization directly.
And I know from personal experiences they will try to publicly "shame" you if you tell them "Sorry, not interested" if they ask for donation. I always win those confrontations because like you said: They know nothing about animals - just pushing their agenda and using the mob/crowd against you. Which really doesn't work in my town
(for a lot of people it's a sport to respond to them in the most creative ways - it's a lot of fun doing this or seeing this happening. which also means many people are well educated about animal care/general information).
If you want my opinion a elephant enclosure needs
2 water lakes
2 separate areas
Free access
Natural barriers (they just look better)
At least 6 enrichment items
A crossing area where
Personally the elephant exhibit in my state that is the best is Clevelands African elephant crossing for the elephants however the worst I would have to say is Toledo there just nothing much of it which makes sense as they only got like 3 elephants
I would ask aza facilities and while I do not trust peta what so ever because well we all know what they have done.
I want to work with elephants when I become a zookeeper and I think in order to make a habitat welfare of the animal and education are the most important screw the rest as long as the animals are happy and we can teach I will support zoos and I can't talked about non us zoos which from what I have seen not the greatest except for some European ones
2 water lakes
2 separate areas
Free access
Natural barriers (they just look better)
At least 6 enrichment items
A crossing area where
Personally the elephant exhibit in my state that is the best is Clevelands African elephant crossing for the elephants however the worst I would have to say is Toledo there just nothing much of it which makes sense as they only got like 3 elephants
I would ask aza facilities and while I do not trust peta what so ever because well we all know what they have done.
I want to work with elephants when I become a zookeeper and I think in order to make a habitat welfare of the animal and education are the most important screw the rest as long as the animals are happy and we can teach I will support zoos and I can't talked about non us zoos which from what I have seen not the greatest except for some European ones
Didn't knew that they are also doing this. I hope someday this terrible Organization will cease to exist.
About the Topic of the Thread: I think I've heard somewhere that it is recommended to use Sand in the Indoor-Enclosures because it's better for the Feet of the Elephants
I think it is also very important to have a Area where the Bull Elephant can be separated from the rest of the Herd (but I think most if not all Zoos in Real Life do this anyways most of the time) because of musth which leads to the Bull Elephant becoming very aggressive and dangerous.
AFAIK it's hard to get these information just by searching the net. If I were you I would contact AZA and EAZA, which both seem to have working groups for each species overed, i.e. also for elephants. Those working groups have heads, which should have the best overview. Other sources could be scientific papers from zoological institutes at universities.
I have done quite a bunch of research myself in the past and most public figures on the net are unreliable or nor specific enough, especially when it comes to space figures. These often are total space, i.e. include space for guests, staff etc. as well.
Yeah, this correct. But I wouldn't call that the direct opposite, nor that this automatically leads to whole different social behaviour. The major difference is that keepers have not be accepted as herd members and the additional hope is that the bulls can be more or less constantly be part of the group.
Which is a different social structure. Plus, as no one ever really enters the habitat, no human needs to take the place of the leading female. This also can effect natural social behaviour. Leipzig has showen, that even a calf in the herd can change social behaviour among all members of the herd drastically.
In contrast, enriching the elephants via tasks they have to do is often easier in direct contact, depending on what you do with them. Medical training doesn't change much, but interacting with visitors together with a handler, taking walks (not done in Hagenbek anymore, done in Pairi Daiza as far as I know still) does. For me that is a strong contrast with different pros and cons, though of course not that strong as in the difference between direct contact and hands off.
Elephants are extremly sensitive that react to the slightest change in their enviorment. So I think every difference in handling should taken into consideration.
Probably not useful in the short time frame you have but if you are interested in this topic then I would suggest looking at peer-reviewed literature on animal welfare rather than zoos or animal welfare campaigning organisations (they can be useful sources but both groups have skin in the game!). That's not to say that academics are completely unbiased but they are usually one step removed. Google scholar is ok as a search engine for scientific papers but you'll find most of them are behind paywalls unfortunately. Top tip though, look for reviews of other literature and then most of the time if you drop the lead author a line via email or twitter they can send you a full copy of their work without getting in to trouble - most journals allow for direct requests and many scientists are active on twitter and will direct message you back if you have a genuine reason for wanting to see their work - they want people to be able to see it.
Hayo! I would have to agree with the first few comments on this thread about this question. We referred to experts and documentation while creating Planet Zoo, we aren't the experts ourselves. I would very much like to recommend you speak with zoos and habitat specialists. Thanks!