Lifespan of elephants

@dragon: There is no proof that the elephants you list were really that old. The old male from Taiwan was NOT captive-born and there were NO relieable records about his life history before arriving at the zoo. It is far more likely that he was around 60 at death then 82! Mahouts in asian range countries have a long history of grossly overestimating the age of elephants, so unless the elephants has been born in the a camp with proper record-keeping, I have strong doubts that the mahouts knew/know the correct age.
 
2003 News of death of Taiwan's Lin Wang

Maybe he didnt live to be 86, but at least he was over 60 years of age.

Taiwan's legendary elephant Lin Wang is fondly remembered
2003-04-07 / Taiwan News, Staff Reporter / By Larry East
Taiwanese fans of legendary elephant Lin Wang read posters erected at the Taipei Zoo with a life story and war history of the elephant, which died on February 26 this year of heart failure at the age of 86. More than 500,000 Taiwanese have paid their last respects to the elephant. (DPA) No one in Taiwan enjoys the popularity Lin Wang had. Not even incumbent President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) or Taipei's charismatic mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The elephant Lin Wang (林旺) was simply unique. Shortly after his death on February 26 at the age of 86, the mayor finally bestowed honorary citizenship on him. Chinese troops took the elephant prisoner in Burma during World War II and later sent him to China and Taiwan: "Grandpa Lin Wang," as the elephant was fondly known, was the island's icon. After the news of his death, more than 500,000 Taiwanese have flocked to Taipei Zoo to pay their last respects to the octogenarian. Yellow ribbons were tied around trees. Countless white lilies and yellow chrysanthemums have been placed outside the empty enclosure. "I can't believe he was gone. How could he? He was the zoo. He should be there forever," cried Chen Lan-li, a housewife who had rushed to the zoo. Heavyweights of political parties temporarily set aside their rivalry to mourn Lin Wang's death, who had outlived several luminaries of the past five decades. On a wreath sent to the zoo, Taiwanese President Chen wrote: "For Lin Wang, a friend forever." Another wreath from Mayor Ma bore the inscription: "Thank you for accompanying us in the past half century." In a memorial ceremony at the zoo, the mayor said: "Lin Wang had become an icon to four generations of people in Taiwan. When I was a child, my parents took me to see Lin Wang. When I became a father, I took my daughters to see him." Having survived World War II and the Chinese civil war, Lin Wang had become a legend during his lifetime. "At 26, Lin Wang was the youngest of all 13 elephants we had seized from the Japanese troops in the jungle of Burma, where they dragged army cannon and supplies for the former Japanese imperial army," said war veteran Yang Yi-li. The 30th Division of the Chinese New Army One was ordered to reinforce the British colonial government in Burma in 1943 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. General Sun Li-jen, the rising star of the then Chinese Nationalist government, defeated the Japanese troops and imprisoned the elephants in 1943, according to Chinese military history archives. "The elephants later joined our force and had once formed a make- shift bridge to help us cross a river to attack the Japanese troops," recalled Yang. Lin Hua-ching, general curator of Taipei Zoo, said Sun and his expedition force were recalled to China in April 1945. Sun's superior instructed that the elephants be taken along. "As the elephants were unable to board the plane, they had to go by way of the rough roads linking Burma and the southwestern Chinese province of Yunan," said Lin. "Only seven survived the tough journey as the weather was hot, the barren mountain rocks cut into the swollen feet of the elephants and the feed was inadequate," he said. Six elephants died in 10 days. Sun later sent trucks to bring the other elephants to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. There a decision was made to take the elephans to Guangzhou in the south which meant a 1,000-kilometer journey. They reached Guangzhou six months later. Four elephants were later sent to Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Changsha respectively, while Lin Wang and two others stayed in Guangzhou. The Nationalist government, however, soon engaged in a civil war with the Chinese Communists, and Sun was ordered to train soldiers in Taiwan. In 1947, Gen Sun decided to take Lin Wang and its mate Ah Pei to Taiwan. A year later Ah Pei died. In 1954, Gen Sun gave Lin Wang to Taipei Zoo to mate him with a young female elephant Ma Lan, Lin said. "But Ma Lan was not interested as it was too young at that time. By the time it grew older, Lin Wang was no longer interested. So the couple never had children," Lin said. By the time of his death, Lin Wang had unconsciously become a treasured family member to many Taiwanese.
Click to expand...
 
Yassa said:
@dragon: There is no proof that the elephants you list were really that old. The old male from Taiwan was NOT captive-born and there were NO relieable records about his life history before arriving at the zoo. It is far more likely that he was around 60 at death then 82! Mahouts in asian range countries have a long history of grossly overestimating the age of elephants, so unless the elephants has been born in the a camp with proper record-keeping, I have strong doubts that the mahouts knew/know the correct age.
Click to expand...

ok, yep I'm not claiming that it is fully reliable, I mean yeah estimations aren't always reliable, but they provide at least a general idea of how the old the elephant is. On most examples yes there is no solid evidence. But some elepahtns arrive at a camp/temple at an very young age, and so estimation there is more so accurate. I never claimed that it was fully accounted for sorry if it seemed that way..........., .
 
Hmm...according to the Oregon Zoo website, Asian elephants reach their maximum size at 25 years old. Yin Wang would have to be pretty big in order to drag the army's cannons or haul enough supplies to make it worthwhile for the army to keep him around (or else, eat them out of house and home :p). So would a final age of say 70-80 be reasonable?
 
Leptonyx said:
Hmm...according to the Oregon Zoo website, Asian elephants reach their maximum size at 25 years old. Yin Wang would have to be pretty big in order to drag the army's cannons or haul enough supplies to make it worthwhile for the army to keep him around (or else, eat them out of house and home :p). So would a final age of say 70-80 be reasonable?
Click to expand...

Just according to various articles he was recruited in 1937. But he was captured in 1943 by the chinese. so yeah Probably at the time he would of been adult size.
 
BlackRhino said:
I kind of disagree. Sunita, the Asian Elephant at the San Diego Wild Animal Park is 59 and Gunda the Asian elephant at Tulsa Zoo is 58. Both are in very nice enclosures.
Click to expand...

I don't mean they all live inc rap enclosures but im just saying some older animals seem to do really good in crappy exhibits
 
Zoogoer2000 said:
I don't mean they all live inc rap enclosures but im just saying some older animals seem to do really good in crappy exhibits
Click to expand...

I visited the San Francisco zoo and they had a seal that was being housed in a horrible exhibit. However, there was a huge sign on the exhibit whereby the keepers acknowledged this, and said they couldn't make changes because of the shock it would cause to this older animal, who was also blind. I'd imagine it would be the same for some other animals too...it's not the best...but it's what they're used to.
 
I can't find the words for it but perhaps, considering everything that is going around with elephants these days a new average needs to be calculated. ( Like here in Melbourne where a new average of rainfall needs to be calculated) Though naturally, if an elephant has all essentials I think the wearing down of the molars is the only way to go.... ( around 60)

There is arguement released by the news york times that captivity critically shortens an elephants life.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/science/12zoo.html?_r=2&ref=us
 
Apparantly the conclusions were based on the average data are from all European zoos from the last 100 years! So that includes at least 60 years of animal dealers importing 6 month old elephants for zoos (there's enough evidence of this young age in many cases).

If you want to prove something, there's always a way with statistics ...
 
Unfortunately, many people (zoo visitors) have actually become aware of the European study. Within the past two weeks I have had at least a dozen people (at the Columbus Zoo alone) come up to me and ask me the validity of the study. Most people actually believed it and berated me with questions about "premature" elephant deaths. Frankly, I had no idea what to say to them only that the study was conducted in a biased manner, NOT a scientific one. This has been a really bad publicity year for US zoos, I hope 2009 brings a good public attitude!
 
Thanks for the link! It has such a passage:

Improvements in ensuring cows are in the correct breeding situations and allowing these animals to breed will lead to improved long-term survivorship of adult cows, given the research findings that indicate continued non-fertile ovulations result in pathological alterations of the uterine tract (Montali et al 1997). (...)

Stopping cows in the European population from breeding, as suggested by some commentators, will result in declines in health and welfare, as well as impacting the ability of the population to persist without wild imports, and is therefore unacceptable.
Click to expand...

I always felt that raising a baby is the best enrichment for elephant cow and the whole herd. This is what elephant females do throughout all their adult life.

These so-called rescue centers or sanctuaries who don't breed elephant females are doing it wrong. Humans commonly choose to be childless, but elephants should not be forced to do so.

Now it looks that there is 'hard' medical reason to it as well.

I hope also that zoos which still have young (9-25y) female elephants but no or juvenile bull will read this and send their elephant females on a loan to bull holding institution immediately.
 
Most females at the 2 elephant sanctuaries in the USA are too old for breeding and/or have physical or emotional issues that make them very poor breeding candidates. Of the 17 female elephants at the sanctuary in Tennessee, only 1 of the asian elephants (Tarra) would have been a good candidate for breeding some years ago (now she should be too old, too). The only african elephant there who was in breeding age when she arrived there, Flora, has major emontional issues and is agressive against other elephants, which make it highly unlikely that she had ever been able to raise a calf.

By the way, while I agree that breeding and raising a calf is super important for female elephants, and that females develop abnormalities in their uterine trackt if they don`t breed, I`ve never heard that the life of a female had been cut short due to these anomalies (cysts ect.). It`s not life-threatening. and not painful, neither.
 
For me it's very easy, but maybe I just a simple mind. If you want to improve the lifespan of an animal, any animal, you just have to study how they are living in the wild and copy it to your zoo. It's far from easy, I understand, but that's the only way how you ever should keep animals.

Elephants have a higly social structure, they need companionship, or better a family group. Females born in a zoo should stay with their mothers, and raise their own offspring.

Breeding should not be just for the breeding itself but for the building of a social group in your zoo. Once you have a succesfull family the elephants will take care for their own offspring. Just look at Emmen Zoo; their family of elephants are a pleasure to look at. When you take your time to watch them for a longer period - and I did several times - you can recognize some behavior. In fact, what you see is a more or less social structure as you can see in the wild. And so are the pregnacies a normal natural event, and not a forced one like some American zoos are doing with AI.

The concept of Amersfoort, and I hope also of Emmen in the future, is to let the bull choose to go with the females today or just let him stay in his own enclosure (which are just a few days per year). Instead of bringing a female into a bulls enclosure hoping for some matings. In my opinion that is also a forced kind of breeding.

With this said I believe that the lifespan of elephants kept in the way I just wrote will improve to a more normal one like in the wild.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top