How musth — a hormonal state in male elephants — affects welfare and management in captive settings.
Musth management in captive elephants represents one of the most difficult intersections of animal welfare, keeper safety, and institutional capacity. Facilities using traditional free-contact management — where keepers share space with elephants — face impossible choices during musth: restrict the elephant severely, accept serious safety risks, or euthanize the animal. Protected contact management, where physical barriers always separate keepers from elephants, allows elephant behavior including musth to be expressed without forcing management choices that harm welfare or risk human safety. The transition to protected contact is one of the most significant welfare improvements in modern elephant management, allowing natural behavioral expression while protecting both animal and keeper wellbeing.