Perceptions of Elephants' Labor and Autonomy in Zoos

Many modern zoos maintain charismatic megafauna, such as elephants, as their iconic residents, as these animals have been shown to hold the zoogoers' gaze more adeptly than demurer animals. This study sought to determine zoo supporters' perceptions of elephants' emotions and welfare under conditions in which elephants receive rewards and demonstrate behaviors within elephant-caregiver interactions in a zoo to generate key themes associated with those perceptions and to compare those perceptions to zoo professionals' through the lens of The Five Domains animal welfare assessment model. This qualitative study employed multiple methodological strategies, including surveys, autoethnography, interviews, and welfare assessments. The article explores two themes that were generated regarding participants' perceptions: elephants' autonomy and participation in labor. The discourse of elephant labor in a zoo is timely, as animal labor among domestic animals is a growing topic in social sciences research. Elephants' welfare was perceived as largely positive, though there was a small number of participants who felt the elephants did not enjoy their labor. Participants' perceptions were mostly aligned with zoo professionals' perceptions. As this is the first article to discuss zoo animal labor, it makes a unique contribution to the current literature and may have applications to other species' labor within zoos.