Population management of wild African elephants sometimes involves culling — a practice with profound welfare implications for highly intelligent, socially complex animals.
Elephant culling involves welfare harms that extend far beyond the individuals killed. The standard approach — shooting entire family groups to prevent orphaned survivors — means killing highly intelligent animals with clear awareness of the deaths around them. Studies of elephants at culling sites show acute fear responses and traumatic memory formation. Survivors of partial culls — those that escaped — show post-traumatic behavioral patterns for their entire remaining lives: hypervigilance, aggression toward humans, and disrupted social hierarchies. Calves orphaned by culling show developmental trauma manifesting as abnormal social behavior in adulthood. The evidence for long-term psychological harm in surviving elephants is among the strongest of any wildlife management practice.