Campaigners have long warned that highly intelligent elephants suffer from mental illness in captivity, including crippling arthritis, and live on average for just 17 years compares with more than 50 years in the wild.
HELENA HORTON: Keeping elephants in zoos or safari parks is to be banned… Legislation will prohibit importation of any new animals and the existing population will be allowed to die out naturally. The move by environment minister Zac Goldsmith is likely to delight Boris Johnson’s wife Carrie, who is a champion of elephant welfare.
Campaigners have long warned that the highly intelligent animals suffer from mental illness in zoos. They are also plagued in captivity by illnesses, including crippling arthritis, and live on average for just 17 years according to the RSPCA. This compares with more than 50 years in the wild. The legislation will bring to an end more than seven centuries of elephants being kept in captivity in Britain…
The Government is due to receive the results of a report on the welfare of elephants in captivity soon. It is understood that it argues against keeping them in zoos. A senior source said: ‘Once the current load of elephants die out we will say you can’t replace them…
‘It’s impossible to keep them in conditions where they are happy, the space is too small’. ‘In the UK the biggest elephant enclosures are so minute. They grub up the environment so quickly too – they have an incredibly important role in that but if they are in such a small area they destroy everything.
‘It’s very likely we are going to say you can’t make elephants happy in zoos, we should instead be focusing on elephant conservation in areas that have elephants.’ This policy is part of wider zoo reforms, due to be announced as part of the Kept Animals Bill later this year.
Government officials told the Daily Mail that the use of animals solely for entertainment will be phased out… There are 51 elephants in 11 zoos across the UK, including at Woburn, Whipsnade, Colchester and Chester. It has been illegal for circuses to keep elephants since January 2020…
Mark Jones of the charity Born Free said: ‘There are many species that don’t belong in zoos, elephants are very much one of those species. It should be phased out, the needs of these very wide roaming, very complex social animals cannot be met in a captive environment’…
Public outrage was triggered in 2011 when welfare campaigners revealed footage of Anne, the last circus elephant in Britain, chained in a Northamptonshire barn with shackles around her legs. Daily Mail readers raised £410,000 in donations, to help pay for a retirement in a state-of-the-art enclosure at Longleat, where she remains. SOURCE…
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