Unsurprising News of the Week (Elephant Edition)

[snurri]

Zoo elephants live far shorter lives than their counterparts in the wild; according to a study published in Science--between 22 and 39 years shorter. Naturally the zoo administrators are saying that facts aren't true.

Comments

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

One thing that surely would skew the data and conclusions is elephant infant mortality -- I'm guessing that the wild population might very well have uncounted dead babies. I'd want to see data that matches up elephants of similar ages over similar periods of time.

I'd also love to see some data about circus and other 'working' elephants in SE Asia -- if they're kept busy, socialized, and skinny, I bet they do pretty well.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I have a copy of the study (it's behind the Science subscription wall, sadly), which states that the "wild" populations are the protected populations in Amboseli National Park and Asian elephants in the Burmese logging industry. I don't know about the Burmese observational practice, but Cynthia Moss (who is one of the authors of the study) and Joyce Poole run a project at Amboseli which definitely tracks infant mortality; the gestation period of an elephant is 22 months, so it's a simple matter to track who's pregnant, who's given birth, and who's lost a baby.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

This is heartbreaking and makes me furious.