Zoo elephants live to advanced ages that require specialized geriatric care. Managing the welfare of aging zoo elephants, including end-of-life decisions, is an increasingly important welfare challenge.
Zoo elephant geriatric welfare requires confronting the reality that captive longevity, while sometimes celebrated, creates welfare challenges when aging animals develop pain that cannot be adequately managed. Arthritis in elderly elephants reaches a point where weight-bearing becomes severely painful - at this stage, humane euthanasia is the most welfare-positive option despite the emotional difficulty of ending the life of an iconic long-lived animal. The institutions that manage this transition best are those that have invested in geriatric care protocols, established clear quality-of-life assessment criteria, and built the institutional willingness to make humane euthanasia decisions when welfare cannot be maintained.