Herd Orientation
Families are extremely important to elephants. The fact that they have the ability to process and create many different signals to communicate with others proves this, so of course, the relations and amount of individuals in a herd is extremely important to an elephant's wellbeing.
Wild Herds
Wild elephants have herds that can be up to 20 related individuals, sometimes more. “Breeding herds” consist mainly of related females and young calves, while “bachelor herds” consist of bull elephants. Both herds have an experienced, usually older elephant called the “matriarch” or “patriarch” that leads the herd to good territories and organizes the herd during disasters. Elephants are extremely family-oriented and rarely are seen alone for long. Social interaction is vital to an elephant's development. When they don't have the proper variety and amount of social interaction with other elephants, an elephant can become overly stressed, frustrated, and depressed.
Captive Herds
Since most captive elephants are incapable of producing a calf that lives to adulthood, zoo elephants are constantly moved around different zoos, and many of them are rarely paired with a relative. Since the captive elephant population is not self-sufficient, zoos will supplement the decreasing population by taking elephants from the wild, even though these elephants are already considered a threatened species. The makeshift herds will then consist of diverse elephants that come from all different backgrounds, and sometimes species. Unlike wild herds, which have a matriarch based on age and experience, captive herds need to declare a leader. This adjustment period is extremely stressful for elephants, especially when some elephants—like humans—are incapable of getting along.
Zoos also do not have the space or money to house a herd of a proper size. Many elephants are seen with two or three companions their whole lives, and in worst cases, none. The American Zoo Association (AZA) protects other animals' mental needs like chimpanzees, but their protection for an elephant is insufficient, stating that zoos must “have a minimum of three females (or the space to have three females).” Therefore, an elephant can be left solitary as long as an accredited zoo has the space to house three females; and this guideline only applies to female elephants, completely ignoring bulls.
Nashville Zoo
Two Female Elephants
Bull elephants in zoos are often treated worse than their females. Their strength makes them dangerous, which is rectified by putting them in steel cages called “squeeze cages” when they need to be handled. These enclosures are small cages made of steel that an elephant is forced into. While females may have multiple companions and acres of land to travel on, a bull elephant is left solitary and in a small pen. Not long ago, bulls were seen as primarily solitary, since they were hard to track and study from how much they travel. New studies have proven this belief false, as it shows that bull elephants require the same amount of companionship and interaction as females. Bachelor herds have similar dynamics to female herds, so they need the same size herd. However, because of their size and strength, they are much more dangerous and harder to care for. They need more space than females and resources. Zoos barely can house one bull, let alone a proper herd of them, which makes it often that a bull elephant’s captive housing is much more insufficient than a female's, but one thing both males and females suffer from is lack of space.
