African elephant populations face ongoing threats from poaching, habitat loss, and human-elephant conflict, with welfare implications both for individual animals and for the stability of complex elephant societies.
Elephant welfare is inseparable from elephant society. Poaching disrupts family structures, removes cultural knowledge holders, and traumatizes surviving herd members. Habitat compression forces elephants into conflict situations where they face persecution. Individual elephant welfare cannot be optimized without addressing the social and ecological contexts in which elephants live.