End Captivity

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo keep the following African elephants captive in their zoo.

Missy

Kimba

Lucky

LouLou

Jambo

As mentioned above, all are African elephants, the largest land animal on earth. African elephants have two species: forest (a bit smaller and endangered) and savanna elephants. Reproduction in zoos is rare, and those born in zoos don't usually live long. Gestation for elephants is eighteen to twenty-two months. Of course, captive elephants are not hunted or poached, but their captive life is not ideal.

This zoo's stance on cold weather for elephants, that normally exist is warmer climates, is that in forty-degree weather, they can go inside, and the doors to the building are kept open.

Regarding arthritis: all of them get pills for arthritis and meds for other conditions.

The zoo seems proud of the exercise they provide to the elephants - each gets a daily quarter-mile walk. In the wild, elephants may travel thirty miles daily, maintaining healthy feet and flexible joints from movement over their native habitat. This zoo has a two-acre area they can roam out of sight of visitors, according to their website. For flexibility, human caretakers in the zoo have trained the pachyderms to let the keepers help stretch them via what they call elephant yoga. Captive elephants develop foot issues due to the unnatural areas of their life, including concrete.

Elephant Encounters: paid human encounters allow visitors to feed them and watch them paint a picture. In some parts of the world, a stick is inserted vertically into an elephant's trunk so that the elephant can grasp a paint brush. It is painful for them. I don't know how this zoo has the elephants painting. They say, "Animal artists at the Zoo are taught how to paint using operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. Our animals enjoy painting as a fun form of enrichment, and you will too!"

**No humans have ever reported seeing elephants painting pictures.**

Captive elephants cannot conduct all of their normal behaviors or interact socially compared to what they do in the wild, where they live in a large herd. In the wild, there is a matriarch who leads the group on the normal migration routes. She teaches them the paths, the best food, and how to cross a deep river and ensure the babies get across. The matriarch shows them the best bathing spots in rivers or watering holes or where to get a dust bath. The knowledge is passed down. Elephants live in families and mourn when a member dies. They touch the body and hover nearby. Orphaned elephants that are rescued by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya are raised and released into the wild when old enough. They have numerous accounts of the females returning with their babies to show the keepers. The Trust reports on all the different personalities and likes regarding food of their rescues.

It is impossible for the Matriarch to act normally as an elephant in a zoo - she isn't roaming free, showing others which branches, twigs and fruit are the best, or ways to protect a baby from predators. She cannot teach the youngsters how to behave properly or the family structure of the herd works. No wonder some attack their zoo or circus keepers.

Elephants don't eat hay in the wild, but zoos feed it to them.

The NhRP is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation.

"Today, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) issued the following statement in response to the Colorado Supreme Court’s opinion in our elephant rights case, which denied the right to liberty to five elephants held captive in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo: This Colorado Supreme Court opinion perpetuates a clear injustice, stating that unless an individual is human they have no right to liberty, “no matter how cognitively, psychologically, or socially sophisticated they may be.”

Elephants are herd animals, in complex social structures. There are sanctuaries with thousands of acres that are willing to introduce zoo elephants to a more normal life.

Copyright © 1/22/2025 by Andrea O. Corwin

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