Helping improve the care of elephants in human care
Assessing the impact of how elephants are managed - helping develop policies and practices to enhance elephant welfare.
In 2019 we launched the elephant behavioural welfare assessment tool, which was developed and validated as part of research published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. The tool allows keepers to quickly and easily monitor the welfare of individual elephants over time, based on their demeanour and behaviour.
The tool has been used by every zoo that houses elephants in the UK, as well as numerous other facilities around the globe. It is already helping them assess the impact of any changes they make in how they manage their elephants, and to develop policies and practices which are specifically designed to enhance elephant welfare.
User feedback from keepers in the UK
- It forces you to observe your elephants, which you normally don't have time for
- [it] is helpful to show trends and changes in behaviours
- It forces you to observe your elephants more, it can make any problems clear and the improvements you will see throughout the [tool]
- We improve enrichment or out of enclosure time based on behavioural issues seen [from the tool]
Next steps
New ground-breaking app
Our ground-breaking new android app could help elephant keepers at facilities around the world to monitor the welfare of their animals more easily.
This is the next step in our ongoing research to help improve the welfare of elephants in captivity across the globe.
Until now, the tool was completed over multiple days using separate sheets of paper, scores were manually entered into excel, and limited results were provided by the spreadsheet.
The new android tablet-based app has been developed to replace the tool in its current format.
It will enable keepers to rapidly complete the tool on a tablet, and they will be emailed with their results. Additionally, this exciting development for this welfare assessment tool will enable elephant carers in zoos and other captive elephant settings worldwide, to get instant reports tracking the welfare of their elephants.
We need your support
The app has now been launched, but there are substantial ongoing costs, including:
- the maintenance of the database that will house the data from all the app users
- creation of an online dashboard so that app users can create customised reports of their data
- potential creation of a separate version of the app for use on Apple ipads (iOS)
The team have set up a JustGiving page for donations to support the app. If you want to help improve the welfare of captive elephants please donate to our JustGiving page.
Get in touch
If you have a question about our research, or how you can get involved, please contact Lisa Yon.