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A Legacy of Shame and Suffering: Chai the Elephant and the Problems of Zoo Captivity

Author Bio

Angela Grimes is Born Free USA’s Chief Executive Officer. She has more than 25 years... Read More

Elephants face many health issues in captivity, which often shorten their life spans by at least a decade. Common life-threatening health issues in captive elephants, which occur at a much higher rate in captivity than in the wild, include reproduction and birthing complications, contraction of the potentially fatal virus Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus hemorrhagic disease (EEHV-HD), foot and musculoskeletal issues, obesity, and the exhibition of stereotypic behaviors.

These major health complications contribute immensely to their already poor mental welfare state, as they are denied almost every opportunity to express the natural behaviors, they evolved to experience, including an extensive social structure with related kin and wide daily ranging patterns spanning over several miles.

Chai, an Asian elephant kept at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, sadly exemplifies almost every challenge that captive elephants face. She was born in Thailand in the wild in 1979. She spent only a year or so in the wild alongside her mother and other family; in 1980, she was captured, transported to the United States, and gifted to the Woodland Park Zoo by Thai Airways International. Her separation from her family happened around four years before she would have been naturally weaned from her mother in the wild.

Chai was forced to endure multiple stressful transfers, experienced at least 112 invasive and unsuccessful artificial insemination attempts throughout her lifetime, and suffered numerous health complications (many directly associated with being held captive) to birth one female elephant, who died prematurely — another tragic event in Chai’s life.

Chai’s story embodies all that is wrong with keeping elephants in zoos and exemplifies why we must end keeping them in captivity.

Wild Capture of Elephants Comes at a Great Cost to Wild Elephant Populations

Herd of Asian elephants in Thailand. Photo by Hasachai / Getty Images.

Chai is just one of approximately 1,000 elephants taken from the wild and imported into North America just for zoo exhibition purposes. As of 2018, in North America, around 76 percent of all African elephants and 58 percent of all Asian elephants were wild-caught, just within the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) captive population. These totals do not include elephants imported for circuses, animal shows, or non-AZA-accredited zoos in the United States. Therefore, these numbers likely underestimate the depletion of wild populations due to export for captivity.

Despite the population decline of elephants in the wild, zoos continue to restock their collections with individuals taken from the wild. Zoos import elephants because the captive population alone is unsustainable. Since 2000, in the United States, more captive elephant deaths have occurred than births; sadly, deaths have equaled or exceeded births in 20 out of the recorded 21 years.

Wild captures not only severely compromise the welfare and survival of the captured elephants but also disrupt the families and herds from which these elephants were taken. Elephants are captured by a variety of incredibly stressful methods, including harassing them with helicopters or shotguns until the target animals become exhausted and separated from their family groups. These methods can result in injury or death among both target and non-target individuals.

The full extent of the lasting psychological effects associated with the trauma of wild capture remains largely unknown but likely contributes to the expression of stress-related stereotypies in captive elephants, including repetitive rocking, swaying, and head bobbing.

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Captive Breeding of Elephants is Fraught with Pain, Hardship, and Tragedy

Chai in the interior part of her enclosure, 2012. Photo by Joe Mabel / Wikimedia Commons.

Artificial insemination remains the most successful method to increase the captive birth rate, despite a low survival rate and costs of more than 15,000 USD for a single session. Of at least 51 elephants that were conceived via artificial insemination in European and North American zoos, 35 percent were stillborn or miscarried.

When Chai reached reproductive age, zookeepers began training her to accept artificial insemination methods. These sessions were grueling – each lasted hours and involved chaining her feet to the ground and inserting a three-foot-long tube into her reproductive tract. This invasive process was repeated ten times per month, sometimes twice per day.

Despite the frequent attempts, Woodland Park remained unsuccessful in their goal of impregnating Chai. The zoo then petitioned the AZA for permission to move Chai to the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Missouri, to be bred to a bull, despite an outbreak of the deadly virus EEHV-HD that had emerged there. The AZA granted their request, and for 50,000 USD, Chai was sedated and transported more than 2,000 miles to Missouri.

Chai experienced several negative changes from her previous home at Dickerson Park: keepers suddenly described her as dangerous and allegedly required the use of bullhooks, restraints, and even anti-anxiety medication and tranquilizers to handle her. Her handlers at Woodland Park reported no such difficulties. She also did not integrate well into the new herd; one aggressive altercation ended with Chai’s tail being bitten off by another elephant. Despite all of this, when Chai finally returned to Woodland Park in 1999, despite weighing 1,300 pounds less than before the transfer and having overcome significant health challenges, she was pregnant.

In November of 2000, Chai gave birth to a female calf named Hansa. Tragically, Hansa died at the age of just seven years from a new variant of the virus EEHV-HD – an all-too-common fate for captive elephants held in zoos.

Zoo Captivity Leads to Health and Welfare Issues for Elephants

Chai the elephant and her enclosure mates at Woodland Park Zoo. — Chai and her enclosure mates at Woodland Park Zoo in 2008. Photo by Chuck Battles / Flickr CC).

It is impossible to replicate elephants’ wild environments in captivity, such as space allowance, substrate composition, appropriate climate, adequate physical activity, sufficient mental stimulation, and complex social structure. All elephants held captive suffer a lifetime in extremely small living spaces, live on hard substrates that actively compromise their musculoskeletal function, develop foot disease, exhibit stereotypies, experience shorter lifespans than their wild counterparts, and struggle with obesity.

For example, the AZA recommends a minimum enclosure size of just 0.12 acres per elephant, which is less than twice the size of a double tennis court. At Woodland Park Zoo, Chai shared her enclosure, which included a cramped 8-by-18-foot south room and a 20-by-42-foot north room, with three other elephants. The zoo reportedly chained each elephant at night to prevent them from rolling over each other. According to the zoo’s medical records, Chai and each of her enclosure mates developed foot disease.

Elephants in Zoos Suffer Shortened Life Expectancy

In 2014, after several years of mounting criticism over the condition of its elephants, Woodland Park Zoo officials announced that they were closing their elephant exhibit. In the following year, Chai and her enclosure mate, Bamboo, were moved to Oklahoma City Zoo to join a larger herd. Just one year later, in 2016, Chai was found dead in her yard.

A post-mortem revealed that Chai died at the young age of 37 from a combination of a systemic blood infection and severe fat loss. By contrast, Asian elephants in the wild have been known to reach the age of 70 years. Oklahoma City Zoo reportedly suspected that the infection was a result of pus-filled lesions on the side of her body, possibly sustained during an episode in which she was unable to stand and had to be raised using a hoist. Oklahoma City Zoo’s medical records indicated that Chai had suffered injuries, weight loss, skin lesions, chewing problems (likely a result of deformed teeth), and other incidents in the months before her death.

It is Time to End the Keeping of Elephants in Zoos

Chai at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Kim Bartlett, Animal People Inc./Flickr CC. — Chai at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Kim Bartlett, Animal People Inc. / Flickr CC.

Sadly, captive elephants around the world continue to struggle with many of the same devastating issues as Chai. As of 2021, there were around 1,000 elephants held captive throughout Europe, the UK, and North America, 410 of which are kept in North America alone, where 299 elephants are still in zoos; 39 in circuses; 46 at private facilities; and 26 in GFAS-accredited sanctuaries.

These numbers have increased over the previous 40 years largely through the import of wild-caught individuals, despite zoos’ attempted “Conservation efforts” failing to improve elephant population status in the wild. Both African and Asian elephants remain Endangered with Decreasing Populations on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

As underscored by Chai’s story and the statistics summarizing the insurmountable challenges that captive elephants face around the world, it is clear that elephants suffer in captive environments, captivity offers no real improvements to their conservation in the wild, and continuing to keep elephants in zoos, primarily for public entertainment, cannot be justified. The only environment in which elephants can thrive is in the wild, where they belong.

For more detailed information describing the plight of captive elephants, please read and share Born Free USA’s report, Elephants in Zoos: A Legacy of Shame.

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