The Friend Zone: Elephants Need Friends More Than A Spacey Home

Dumbo needs friends, too. Because they friendly creatures, elephants, despite being the largest land mammals on the planet, need to have social lives more than they need solitude.

Baby elephant drinking. When they are this young, they don't yet know how to use their trunk pic.twitter.com/XhbISNPTWR

— Life on Earth (@planetepics) July 17, 2016

A recent report from the National Geographic said that when it comes to zoo enclosures, it is not the size that mattered, but rather the size of their social circle. Elephants are revealed to engage with their surroundings, which means that opportunities to engage with their surroundings - aka have friends and company - may be more important to these creatures than space.

The research, which is the largest of its kind to date, showed that interactions and engagements are the most important for these creatures. Cheryl Meehan of the University of California said that this is the first coordinated set of studies that have been aimed at evaluating the behavioral and physical aspects of welfare for the North American Zoo Elephant Population. It is said that the research factored in behavior, body condition, and foot-and-joint health of the creatures.

Findings showed that spending time alone is an important risk factor for elephants, while spending time in larger social groups, especially those that included young animals, had a protective effect on them - meaning that they are social animals and their exposure to larger groups affect their behavioral health.

The study, published in the journal PLOS noted that among the social behaviors that should be of concern is when elephants sway or rock - as this indicates that their welfare has been "compromised," as seen in 75 percent of the elephants studied, but the exact causes of such behaviors are difficult t pinpoint.

That being said, scientists recommend zoos elephant programs to consider management changes to support larger group gatherings, preferably multi-generational. Seeker.com also noted that enrichment programs for elephants could also help their reproduction issues - a problem most commonly found in African elephants.