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With increased scrutiny surrounding the welfare of elephants in zoological institutions, it is important to have empirical evidence on their current welfare status. If elephants are not receiving adequate exercise, it could lead to obesity, which can lead to many issues including acyclicity and potentially heart disease. The goal of the current study was to compare the walking rates of elephants in the wild versus elephants in zoos to determine if elephants are walking similar distances relative to their wild counterparts. Eleven wild elephants throughout different habitats and locations in Botswana were compared to 8 elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Direct comparisons revealed no significant difference in average walking rates of zoo elephants when compared with wild elephants. These results suggest that elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park walk similar rates to those of wild elephants and may be meeting their exercise needs.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Randy Rieches and Drs. Allison Alberts and Matt Anderson for their continued support for research on elephant welfare. Special thanks to Jeff Andrews for all of his efforts regarding elephant welfare research at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Additionally, we would like to thank Mindy Albright, Jason Chadwell, Keith Crew, Brian Greco, Brian Harmon, Erin Ivory, Curtis Lehman, Weston Popichak, Karissa Reinbold, Heather Rogers, Rick Sanchez, and John Walko for all of their effort and hard work training the elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park to make this project possible. We would also like to thank Kelly Landen and the rest of the Elephants Without Borders staff for all their hard work and efforts. Finally, we would like to thank Dr. James Sheppard for geographic information system (GIS) assistance in creating the maps. All research was approved by the Zoological Society of San Diego Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) under proposals #251 and #10-018.