Elephant With Its Trunk Grabbed By Crocodile

There is growing resistance against the capture, confinement, and use of wild elephants. Animal rights advocates allege elephants in zoos and circuses "suffer a life of chronic physical ailments, social deprivation, emotional starvation, and premature death". Zoos argue that standards for treatment of elephants are extremely high and minimum requirements for such things as minimum space requirements, enclosure design, nutrition, reproduction, enrichment and veterinary care are set to ensure the well-being of elephants in captivity. Circuses continue to have a mixed record. Recently, the city of Los Angeles closed an elephant act with Circus Vazquez due to numerous instances of abuse and neglect (April 2008) , and, according to PETA, 27 elephants owned by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus have died since 1992.
Elephants have traditionally been a major part of circuses around the world, being intelligent enough to be trained in a variety of acts (for example P.T. Barnum's Jumbo and John L. Sullivan, the famous "Boxing Elephant"). However, conditions for circus elephants are unnatural (confinement in small pens or cages, restraints on their feet, lack of companionship of other elephants). Perhaps as a result, there are occasional instances of them turning on their keepers or handlers (examples include Black Diamond and "Murderous Mary").
Elephants raised in captivity sometimes show "rocking behavior", a rhythmic and repetitive swaying which is unreported in free-ranging wild elephants. Thought to be symptomatic of stress disorders, and probably made worse by a barren environment, rocking behavior may be a precursor to aggressive behavior in captive elephants. This link is to an image of Devi (little princess), a 30-year-old Asian elephant raised in captivity at the San Diego Zoo showing "rocking behavior".