4 minute read
Breaking Away from the Herd: Elephant Management at Zoo Miami
by Agi Sapi
We get this question many times during our Keeper Talks or behind-the-scenes tours at Zoo Miami. The simple answer is to reinforce the behaviors you would like to see and keep in mind that you might not get what you ask for, but you always get what you reinforce! Everything that goes beyond that is a little more sophisticated.
Managing elephants in human care goes back centuries and is an ever-evolving process. Zoo Miami is home to five elephant residents. Our oldest elephant, Asian bull “Dalip”, had been with Zoo Miami for 54 years (since we were Crandon Park Zoo!) The African females, “Peggy” and “Mabel,” both 47 years old, have lived here since the age of four. “Nellie,” our 53-year-old Asian female, joined us well over a decade ago and “Ongard” (“Ardy” for close friends), who just turned 12 years old, arrived in 2018. All of them have been part of a major shift in how elephant management and training is done over the years.
Elephants can be dangerous due to their large size, pure force, and intelligence. Choosing the safest and most respectful training setting is a priority at Zoo Miami. Historically, elephants have been managed in a “free contact” setting where there is no barrier between the animals and their keepers. Zoo Miami, on the other hand, is now part of an increasing number of facilities around the world that interact with elephants in a “protected contact” setting. This means that there is a barrier of some kind, like cables, mesh, fencing, or a moat, that separates the animals and keepers when interacting. While both settings have their pros and cons, what really matters is the approach, mindset, and training techniques used. Positive reinforcement is a type of operant conditioning in which you reward behaviors you want to see, in order to increase the likelihood that they will be repeated. Applying these principles encourages our animals and their keepers to learn and accomplish training goals in a safe, fun, and motivating environment. Both parties are teaching and learning from one another and can choose to take a break at any moment. It is our job to create an environment in which the elephants want to participate, always seeking more interaction. This is the opposite of traditional elephant training that used aversive tools such as bull hooks (or other very punishing methods, like cattle prods) to create a fearful and painful scenario in order to control the elephants physically, mentally, and emotionally.
One of the big differences between these approaches is the consequence of failing. Just like us, elephants make mistakes when learning new things or even just interacting with their environment. In a correction-based method, these failures are heavily punished with painful consequences meant to stop the behavior from happening again. In a positive-reinforcement-based environment, we teach them to accept failure as a normal step of learning new things, bounce back, and move on quickly.
We have taught our elephants a broad variety of behaviors that help us to provide the best care for them. We can ask them to participate in sessions which allow us to draw blood, give injections (including yearly vaccinations), take x-rays of different body parts, trim tusks, maintain healthy nails and cuticles, do daily stretches to maintain mobility as they age, look into their mouth, eyes, ears, and much more. Since their participation in these behaviors happens on a voluntary basis, it means the elephants take part in their own health care! This is a huge step toward true collaboration between humans and animals in a peaceful and mutually respectful way.
