Oakland Zoo Tracks Elephants with GPS
26 Dec 2012Elephants in the Oakland Zoo are being tracked with GPS devices to better understand their movements and how to improve their environment.
Five elephants at the Oakland Zoo in California have been outfitted with GPS tracking devices. The trackers are located on their ankle, which look similar to a house arrest anklet, which a famous celebrity has been known to sport albeit in a much smaller size.
The five elephants, which includes “Donna”, a nearly 9,000-pound beauty, will be tracked in order to learn more about their behaviors, including how much exercise they get and how often they eat in a 6.5-acre habitat.
The GPS trackers are the newest addition to a study being conducted by the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums on the health and safety of elephants and other zoo animals who are living in captivity.
Jeff Kinzley, elephant manager at the Oakland Zoo, recently told reporters, “This is really just a way to find out how elephants are moving in captivity.” He said. “How much time they spend walking. How much time they just spend standing around.”
Elephants in the Oakland Zoo and other Zoos in the United States, don’t need to face the dangers of living in the wild, but they do have certain health risks. Elephants in captivity can face obesity, arthritis, reproductive problems, low fertility, high rate of stillbirths, foot infections, psychological disorders, easy mortality, difficulty giving birth and caring for their young and having abnormal behavior like killing their young of having aggression toward other elephants. Abnormal temperatures and a lack of exercise adds to these adverse health conditions. But with GPS trackers, the elephants are tracked, which helps scientists study the elephants and improve their life in captivity.
The data will be used to learn more about how often the elephants eat and decrease obesity and other health conditions. “Otherwise, they’re constantly getting fed, so they’re just going to get overweight,” Kinzley said. “They’re going to wind up getting arthritis and things like that, and stop moving. That’s really the death sentence for an elephant,” he further commented.
The five elephants were tracked with the GPS units for seven days, 24 hours per day. During the seven days, the elephants movements and eating patterns were monitored in real-time with data available to zoologists and scientists almost immediately.
One of the reasons the Oakland Zoo was chosen to perform the GPS study was because they have one of the largest free-roam elephant habitats among all zoos in the United States.
While the data can be reached already, the final results of the study aren’t going to be released until Spring 2013. These results will be used to better format the guidelines for proper elephant care while in captivity.
“From there we can make management changes,” said Gina Kinzley, the elephant manager’s wife. “Do they need to be walking more? Do they need to be grazing more?”
The Oakland Zoo will also incorporate their own studies for the best living arrangement possible for their beloved elephants.
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