Welfare science of social structure in wild African and Asian elephants, examining how family group disruption, culling, and habitat fragmentation affect elephant psychological and physical welfare.
Elephant welfare cannot be understood at the individual level — these are profoundly social animals whose wellbeing depends on the integrity of family relationships developed across decades. The disruption of social bonds through culling, ivory poaching, and habitat fragmentation creates welfare harms that extend far beyond the individuals directly killed. Orphaned calves suffer measurably without appropriate family care; families that lose their matriarch lose the experiential knowledge she carried about their landscape; young bulls without elder male guidance develop aberrant aggressive behavior. Understanding elephant welfare requires ecological and social framing that recognizes how individual wellbeing is embedded in family and community relationships.