page_title: Captive elephants
section_title: Behaviour and training
hierarchical_section_title: Captive elephants / Behaviour and training
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Slon z thajska kresli. English: An elephant painting in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
context_page_description: Elephants in captivity are elephants kept in a confining area, such as a zoo, circus, or camp, where they are fed, cared for, and mostly under veterinarian supervision, by humans and usually exhibited for entertainment or educational purposes.
  In the past most elephants were captured from the wild, since this was legal and rather easy. Between 1880 and 1980, a low rate of captive births meant that they breed poorly in captivity, while in USA, from 1962 until 1994, 85 births were recorded, with a birth almost every second year. In 1994 about 50 of these were still living. Today, Zoos in general have a sustainable captive bred population, both in North America, and Europe, as well as the captive population in Thailand, where since 2008 more elephants were born, than dying, therefore balance out captive mortality. Selective breeding of elephants is impractical due to their long reproductive cycle, so there are no need for domesticated breeds. There are less than 400 elephants in USA today, and totally, about 2 000 elephants has been kept in US Zoos throughout history, while at least one third of the Asian species are in captivity, with at least 4 000 captive elephants only in India.
context_section_description: Elephants have the largest brains of all land animals, and ever since the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, have been renowned for their cognitive skills, with behavioural patterns shared with humans.  Pliny the Elder described the animal as being closest to a human in sensibilities.  They also have a longer lifespan than most livestock. Elephants exhibit a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and language. The adult male elephant annually goes through a musth period, making him dangerously aggressive.
caption: An elephant painting.
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