Captivity shortens elephants' lives

Clear evidence that captivity shortens the lives of elephants has been found in a study that could have an impact on zoos around the world.

Scientists, who included British researchers from the RSPCA and Zoological Society of London, examined data on more than 4,500 African and Asian elephants.

Those housed in European zoos had life spans up to three times shorter than animals from an African wildlife park or working in the logging industry in Burma.

Zoo elephants were more susceptible to both mental and physical ailments, the study showed.

Being born in a zoo had a particularly striking effect on Asian elephants, the most at-risk species. They died at a much younger age than animals captured in the wild and brought to zoos, suggesting an unknown factor at work during early infancy or in the womb.

The study focused exclusively on female elephants and included about half the global zoo population from 1960 to 2005,

For African elephants, animals in the middle of the survival range had a life span of 16.9 years in zoos compared with 56 years for those dying from natural causes in Kenya's Amboseli National Park.

Mid-range, or median, figures for Asian elephants were 18.9 years for animals born in zoos, and 41.7 years for those in the Burmese logging industry, the Myanma Timber Enterprise.

The findings were reported in the journal Science.

Speaking in a podcast interview produced by the journal, researcher Professor Georgia Mason, from the University of Guelph in Canada, said: "We suspect this study has implications for all zoo elephants."