News
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New paper from Jennie Crawley et al. on how the changing relationships between the elephants and their handlers influence the elephants’ health, welfare and behaviour
January 8, 2021Abstract Declining wild populations combined with accumulating captive populations of e.g. livestock, pets, draught and zoo animals have resulted in some threatened species with substantial proportions of their populations in captivity. The interactions animals have with humans in captivity depend on handler familiarity and relationship quality and can affect animal health, growth and reproduction with … Read More
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Diogo Santos et al. published a new study in Conservation Physiology about the seasonal health variation of long-lived Asian elephants in a monsoon climate
January 8, 2021Abstract Long-lived species are often predicted to be buffered against seasonal variation: longevity means low annual mortality and reproductive rates and annual variability in climate may therefore have a smaller impact on population growth rates of long-lived species in comparison to short-lived ones. However, little is known of the physiological mechanisms underlying such patterns in … Read More
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Lynsdale et al’s new paper out in Scientific Reports: Demographic and reproductive associations with nematode infection in a long-lived mammal
June 12, 2020Abstract Infection by macroparasites, such as nematodes, varies within vertebrate host systems; elevated infection is commonly observed in juveniles and males, and, for females, with different reproductive states. However, while such patterns are widely recognized in short-lived model systems, how they apply to long-lived hosts is comparatively understudied. Here, we investigated how infection varies with … Read More
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Nutritional content of milk from free-living Asian elephants reported for the first time by Dierenfeld et al.
April 29, 2020Dierenfeld, E.S.; Han, Y.A.M.; Mar, K.U.; Aung, A.; Soe, A.T.; Lummaa, V.; Lahdenperä, M. 2020: Milk Composition of Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) in a Natural Environment in Myanmar during Late Lactation. Animals 2020, 10, 725. Abstract: The nutritional content of milk from free-living Asian elephants has not previously been reported, despite being vital for better management of … Read More
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New paper out by Diogo Santos et al.: Sex differences in the reference intervals of health parameters in semicaptive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) from Myanmar
March 20, 2020Abstract The reference intervals of health parameters are valuable tools for veterinarians and conservationists to monitor the health status and viability of endangered species. Natural variation in the health of the long-lived Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is poorly understood, particularly in relation to differences between males and females. Longitudinal health data were collected from clinical … Read More