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Working to create a world where

Each and every captive elephant has the best possible welfare

Our work is crucial for elephants and the people that care for them. This is what it involves. Together we can improve the lives of captive elephants.

From Observation to Action

We create tools for elephant caregivers, so that they can monitor and improve the well-being of their elephants.

Our App enables elephant caregivers to track observations of their elephants’ behaviours to assess and monitor their welfare. It’s the first validated App of its kind to exist. We provide it for free to anyone working with elephants, anywhere in the world. It’s based on our Elephant Behavioural Welfare Assessment Tool, which we developed and validated for the purpose of measuring the welfare of captive elephants’.

Data That Makes a Difference

We collect data to develop science-based guidelines on elephant care

We are using the data gathered from our app to establish a global elephant welfare database, providing data for science-based guidance on improving care and identifying best practices. Every elephant matters, so we take an individual approach to welfare, considering individual and environmental factors that influence each elephant’s requirements for positive well-being.

Elephant Conservation

Both African and Asian elephants are classed as endangered species, meaning they are disappearing from the wild. This means that ensuring the well-being of captive populations to enable them to thrive is increasingly important for conservation of elephants. The improved understanding from our research of what elephants need to thrive can inform how to better care for them in both captive and semi-captive settings in countries around the world

Enriching Understanding

We care about all elephants – both in captivity and in the wild – and our research aims to understand and support both.

We believe that the better we understand elephants, the more we can do to help them – in captivity and in the wild. We are currently undertaking scientific validation for a personality assessment for elephants. Once validated, we can explore the preferences, and even predict the likely behaviours, of different personality types.

This will help us anticipate how an elephant might respond to different situations, and help target interventions for those elephants most likely to need support when faced with a new situation. Measures of personality might also be used to predict the behaviour of wild elephants, including prediction of likely crop raiding behaviour – thus helping both farmers, and NGOs working to protect elephants, to predict and head off problems before they happen.

Listening
to Giants

We enrich elephants’ lives with research, understanding elephants better by letting them tell us what they want.

We are developing an ‘Elephant Jukebox’, an acoustic enrichment device for elephants which  allows them to choose (from three different sounds) what they listen to, and they have the  power to turn the sounds on and off. By letting them decide which sound they want to listen to and when, the elephants are in control. Having choice and control is vitally important for the welfare of any species (including our own!)

We are developing this device in partnership with colleagues in the School of Engineering at the University of Nottingham, Dr. Fiona French at London Metropolitan University, and with the elephant keeping team at Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm.

ELEPHANT WELFARE INTERNATIONAL

On the Side of Elephants

We advocate for better policies and inspire legislative change.

This work includes contributing revisions to, and helping to draft, important legislation, like the UK Secretary of State Standards of Modern Zoo Practice: Elephants, which governs elephant care in the UK, as well as the Irish Secretary of State Standards. We also contirbute to development of standards of elephant care for a consortium of captive facilities across southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa)

We don’t just advocate for better policies – we help create them.

Backed by Science

Below is a list of some of the resources and research that we’ve contributed to in our journey to better understand elephant welfare and conservation.

  • Allen Wild C, Yon L. Commentary on the Adaptive Significance of Sociality Around Parturition Events, and Conspecific Support of Parturient Females in Some Social Mammals. Animals. 2024 Dec 13;14(24):3601. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14243601.
  • Moullec H, Berger V, Santos DJ, Ukonaho S, Yon L, Briga M, Nyein UK, Lummaa V, Reichert S. Testosterone variation in a semi-captive population of Asian elephants in Myanmar. Conservation Physiology. 2024;12(1):coae076. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coae076.
  • Elisa M, Caro T, Yon L, Hardy ICW, Roberts S, & Symeonakis E (2024). Wildlife corridor degradation and human-wildlife conflict: A case study from Tanzania. African Journal of Ecology, 62, e13264. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.13264 
  • Williams E, Clark N, Rendle-Worthington J & Yon L. (2022). Behaviour and Welfare Impacts of Releasing Elephants from Overnight Tethers: A Zimbabwean Case Study. Animals 12(15), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12151933. 
  • Sach F, Fields L, Chenery S, Yon L, Henley MD, Buss P, Dierenfeld ES, Langley-Evans SC, & Watts MJ (2022). Method development to characterise elephant tail hairs by LA-ICP-MS to reflect changes in elemental chemistry. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-022-01207-x 
  • Sach, F., Dierenfeld, E. S., Langley-Evans, S. C., Hamilton, E., Lark, R. M., Yon, L., & Watts, M. J. (2020). Potential bio-indicators for assessment of mineral status in elephants. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64780-0 
  • Sach F, Yon L, Henley MD, Bedetti A, Buss P, de Boer WF, Dierenfeld ES, Gardner A, Langley-Evans SC, Hamilton E, Lark RM (2020). Spatial geochemistry influences the home range of elephants. Science of The Total Environment. Apr 28:139066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139066. 
  • Hartley, M., Wood, A. and Yon, L. (2019): Facilitating the social behaviour of bull elephants in zoos. International Zoo Yearbook 53. DOI:10.1111/izy.12245 Yon L, Williams E, Harvey ND, and Asher L (2019). Development of a Behavioural Welfare Assessment Tool for Routine Use with Captive Elephants. PLOS ONE 14(2): e0210783. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210783. 
  • Sach F, Dierenfeld E, Langley-Evans SC, Watts MJ, and Yon L (2019). African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) as an example of a herbivore making movement choices based on nutritional needs. PeerJ, 7:e6260. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6260. 
  • Harvey ND, Daly C, Clark N, Ransford E, Wallace S, and Yon L. (2018). Social Interactions in Two Groups of Zoo-Housed Adult Female Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) that Differ in Relatedness. Animals: an open access journal from MDPI, 8(8). https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8080132 
  • Williams E, Chadwick CL, Yon L and Asher L. (2018). A review of the current indicators of welfare in captive elephants (Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus). Animal Welfare, 27 (3): 235-249. https://doi.org/10.7120/09627286.27.3.235 
  • Chadwick CL, Williams E, Asher B and Yon L (2017). Incorporating stakeholder perspectives into the assessment of captive elephant welfare. Animal Welfare, 26 (4): 461-472. 
  • Wyse JM, Hardy IC, Yon L, and Mesterton-Gibbons M (2017). The impact of competition on elephant musth strategies: A game-theoretic model. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 417: p. 109-130. 
  • Wong EP, Yon L, Purcell R, Walker SL, Othman N, Saaban S, Campos-Arceiz A (2017). Concentrations of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites in Asian elephant’s dung are stable for up to 8 h in a tropical environment. Conservation Physiology. 2016 Jan 1;4(1):cow070. 
  • Sulak M, Fong L, Mika K, Chigurupati S, Yon L, Mongan NP, Emes RD & Lynch VJ (2016). TP53 copy number expansion is associated with the evolution of increased body size and an enhanced DNA damage response in elephants. eLife, 5, e11994.
  • Bennett L, Dunham S, Yon L, Chapman S, Kenaghan M, Purdie L, & Tarlinton R (2015). Longitudinal study of Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, indicates intermittent shedding of elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus 1 during pregnancy. Veterinary Record Open, 2(1), e000088. 
  • Williams E, Bremner-Harrison S, Harvey N, Evison E and Yon L (2015). An investigation into resting behaviour in Asian elephants in UK zoos. Zoo Biology. doi: 10.1002/zoo.21235 
  • Nilsson EM, Fainberg HP, Choong SS, Giles TC, Sells J, May S, Stansfield FJ, Allen WR, Emes RD, Mostyn A, Mongan NP and Yon L (2014). Molecular characterization of adipose tissue in the African elephant (Loxodonta africana). PLOS ONE, 9(3): e91717. 
  • Yon L, Faulkner B, Kanchanapangka S, Chaiyabutr N, Meepan S, Lasley B (2010). A safer method for studying hormone metabolism in an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus): accelerator mass spectrometry. Zoo Biology, 28: 1-7. 
  • Yon L, Chen J, Moran P, Lasley B. (2008). An analysis of the androgens of musth in the Asian bull elephant (Elephas maximus). General and Comparative Endocrinology, Jan 1;155(1):109-15. 
  • Yon L, Kanchanapangka S, Chaiyabutr N, Stanczyk F, Dahl N, Meepan S, Lasley B. (2007). A longitudinal study of LH, gonadal and adrenal steroids in four intact Asian bull elephants (Elephas maximus) and one castrate African bull (Loxodonta africana) during musth and non-musth periods. General and Comparative Endocrinology, May 1;151(3):241-5. 
  • Yon L, Kanchanapangka S, Chaiyabutr N, Stanczyk F, Meepan S, Lasley B (2007). ACTH stimulation in four Asian bull elephants (Elephas maximus): An investigation of androgen sources in bull elephants. General and Comparative Endocrinology, May 1;151(3):246-51. 
  • Uemura Y, Asakuma S, Yon L, Saito T, Fukuda K, Arai I, Urashima T (2006). Structural determination of the oligosaccharides in the milk of an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A, Dec;145(4):468-78.
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ELEPHANT WELFARE INTERNATIONAL