Male elephant killing female?

Roxxsmom

Roxxsmom
My male African elephant killed one of the two females in their habitat. This is the first time I've seen this, and it happened without any warning about fighting or anything. I just got the death notice. There is plenty of room in the enclosure, plenty of shelter, and the animals were in the 90s in terms of their overall welfare. The only thing is the weather got cold, but there are two heated shelters, plus some other heated areas in their enclosure, and as far as I could tell both elephants were out of the snow in a very roomy elephant and giraffe house.

The death notice said she'd been killed by the male. Anyone else have this happen? Any idea what the cause can be, or is it possibly a bug?
 

Tuky

Tuky
Sadly, I had this happen to me around last month, for the first time ever.

It was quite a shock and just like you I also cant explain it. Actually since she was an albino and I just send her into the habitat from the trade center, I thought she died from the "old age bug" to which I already lost 2 giant Pandas and 2 Indian Elephants in the past (all of those were albinos, basically just adult, came from one of my other zoos and died directly after they arrived and the cause of death was "old age" even though they were young.

I also got no fight messages or anything about the elephants. (yes, there is one fighting message, but this were just freshly matured cassowaries, nothing to do with them)
So when I clicked on her it was as if she was still alive at first. Everything was green, except stress.
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When the vet came to take her it finally showed her cause of death. Zapdos, the male killed her. And I got no clue why. I dont think I ever even had two male elephants kill each other in fights. I was quite bitter, I can tell. Genetically they would have been a great match. Also to the other 3 females. Since I didnt want to take risk that he did it again, I sold him on the market for 600 cc - hopefully his next owner had better luck :LOL: The next day I kinda regretted selling him, though. He was also pretty new in my zoo and only one of the females got pregnant by him and their daughter was great. But I didnt want to take the risk😅
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So just like for you, there was neither a warning nor a cause. I assume it is a bug (or I hope it was, it would be terrible if the male elephants could just decide to kill a female randomly, sure it could give them some personality, but it would be mean without even being notificated so you could try to save the female) Or could he have killed her because she was a bit stressed, when she arrived? But this also makes no sense😅

Another theory I have is maybe the male got stuck for a few seconds and thus everything was "overcrowded" for him and the female was close, so he killed her and everything happend so fast, that it didnt cause a warning? But yeah, not sure if it could work like that.

But I would also like to know if more people had this happen:unsure: At least we are 2 now^^
 

Firestar97

Firestar97
I think it doesn't have anything to do with low Temperatures. I do mostly build Zoos in the temperate Biome in a realistic Way (no Heaters that heat the whole Outdoor Enclosure) and it did never happen because of that. I assume too it was because the Elephant got stuck for a Moment. I think it also mostly happens with my Seals currently when one of them gets stuck
 

XT

XT
Hm. Might send it in as a bug. In the real world, you can't keep male elephants with females for any length of time (or with other males at all), it's one reason that it's so hard to keep and breed elephants in captivity. But, I'm pretty sure Frontier isn't blessing us with the same level of difficulty for elephants that actual zoos have to deal with.
 

iloveyourzoos

I
I had this happen with Indian Elephants just this week for the first time. I saw that someone posted on the Steam forums too (not sure if it was the same OP, or someone else), but the solution that was suggested there was that it's travesable space, which had never been a problem before in this habitat.

So maybe they got stuck temporarily, or maybe a bug/glitch in their transversable calculations, or maybe there has been an adjustment to hitboxes? It does seem strange that it would happen to several of us all at once, especially if we'd never noticed it before.

Anyway, just wanted to say I had this happen, and bring the confirmed count to 3.
 

Roxxsmom

Roxxsmom
Tuky said:
Another theory I have is maybe the male got stuck for a few seconds and thus everything was "overcrowded" for him and the female was close, so he killed her and everything happend so fast, that it didnt cause a warning? But yeah, not sure if it could work like that.

But I would also like to know if more people had this happen:unsure: At least we are 2 now^^
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I was wondering if that happened, as earlier I'd gotten a "low welfare" notice about the male, and he appeared to be stuck behind an enrichment item. I moved him and moved that item further away from the wall. Everything seemed good after that, but it wasn't long after that that he killed the female.

I am a bit miffed about the sizing of animals with respect to moving thorough doorways and so on. Lately I've been getting a lot of animals that don't have enough hard shelter, even though the space inside the shelters, and the head room, seem more than adequate. I'm not sure why a smallish pack of wolves needs a huge cave instead of one of the smaller dens that are always up on the workshop as "wolves' dens." According to the game, some of these aren't even big enough for one animal. It's odd having a habitat that is more than large enough, yet it is still too "small" to comfortably fit a shelter of the dimensions the animals within it need. The screenshot is of a shelter in an enclosure with just two wolves in it. As you can see, there is more than enough space for them both to fit comfortably. I get that some animals do have bigger social space bubbles than others, but this is a mated pair of wolves--animals that use much smaller burrows than this in the wild.

It seems this has been more of an issue lately, so maybe they have been messing with animals' hitboxes, though why they'd make them bigger so animals get stuck more is beyond me. Unless it's an attempt to deal with the issue where some animals are constantly escaping or being registered as escaped. If so, it doesn't seem to have fixed that issue.

At least my wolves have never killed each other. Yet.

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Roxxsmom

Roxxsmom
XT said:
Hm. Might send it in as a bug. In the real world, you can't keep male elephants with females for any length of time (or with other males at all), it's one reason that it's so hard to keep and breed elephants in captivity. But, I'm pretty sure Frontier isn't blessing us with the same level of difficulty for elephants that actual zoos have to deal with.
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This is also true. Adult males tend to be solitary, or to hang out in bachelor herds, and only hang with the females to mate. The game seems to think it's okay to put a male with a herd of females long term, however. You're probably right that the game is simplifying things, so we wouldn't have to keep them in separate areas or to have them in different zoos.
 

Firestar97

Firestar97
I do also think they might have adjusted the Hitboxes for some Reason. My Jaguars always need to be transported manually by me because since a While they get stuck behind the Plants at the Entrance
 

PaulaM

PaulaM
Roxxsmom said:
I was wondering if that happened, as earlier I'd gotten a "low welfare" notice about the male, and he appeared to be stuck behind an enrichment item. I moved him and moved that item further away from the wall. Everything seemed good after that, but it wasn't long after that that he killed the female.

I am a bit miffed about the sizing of animals with respect to moving thorough doorways and so on. Lately I've been getting a lot of animals that don't have enough hard shelter, even though the space inside the shelters, and the head room, seem more than adequate. I'm not sure why a smallish pack of wolves needs a huge cave instead of one of the smaller dens that are always up on the workshop as "wolves' dens." According to the game, some of these aren't even big enough for one animal. It's odd having a habitat that is more than large enough, yet it is still too "small" to comfortably fit a shelter of the dimensions the animals within it need. The screenshot is of a shelter in an enclosure with just two wolves in it. As you can see, there is more than enough space for them both to fit comfortably. I get that some animals do have bigger social space bubbles than others, but this is a mated pair of wolves--animals that use much smaller burrows than this in the wild.

It seems this has been more of an issue lately, so maybe they have been messing with animals' hitboxes, though why they'd make them bigger so animals get stuck more is beyond me. Unless it's an attempt to deal with the issue where some animals are constantly escaping or being registered as escaped. If so, it doesn't seem to have fixed that issue.

At least my wolves have never killed each other. Yet.

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Try putting more bedding down. I think that's more of an indicator of shelter than the shelter itself. You can also use the heat map to see just what each animal considers "hard shelter" space.
 

Roxxsmom

Roxxsmom
I've tried playing around with bedding, but it doesn't generally seem to make a difference. I've gotten away from using it in some habitats, because it has a tendency to "carve out" or distort the ground, and with shelters I've hollowed out of hillsides and dug in the ground it can even poke holes through the top.

Maybe bedding is more of an issue with some species than with others? That would make sense.
 

Firestar97

Firestar97
Not a Bug. Musth Update :D
I wonder if Bull Elephants in that State sometimes also attack females.
I think if I get Elephants in my current Zoo, I'll build a Enclosure for females and a second one for a male where I sometimes transport a female to for Breeding
 
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