Wild elephants are great at solving problems, scientists find

photo: Pixabay/stbaumgaertner

The more we learn about animals the more we realize their often stunning mental abilities. Ravens, for instance, are credited with the the capacity for abstract thought of the kind that was previously assumed to be possessed only by humans and possibly chimpanzees.

In what may come as less of a surprise elephants, long known to be highly intelligent creatures, can be excellent at solving problems, according to scientists who conducted a study documenting the abilities of individual wild Asian elephants in Thailand.

During the research, whose findings have just been published in the journal Animal Behaviour, the scientists examined how a group of pachyderms would access food by solving puzzles that unlocked storage boxes in the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi province in the Southeast Asian nation where herds of wild elephants still roam.

“An animal’s capacity for innovation or solving novel problems likely has important implications for how quickly they can adapt to environmental change,” the researchers write in their study. “Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, living in zoos have previously demonstrated a capacity to innovate, but problem solving has never been studied experimentally in a wild elephant population.”

To make up for that shortcoming, a total of  77 wild Asian elephants were being observed via motion-activated remote cameras for six months to see if they “decided whether to attempt opening puzzle boxes with three differently configured compartments that contained highly aromatic jackfruit,” the scientists note in a statement on their findings.

“Depending on the compartment with which the elephant interacted, the jackfruit could be accessed by pulling on a chain so the door opened toward the elephant, pushing the door so that it swung open into the box, or sliding the door open to the right. The elephants had to independently interact with the puzzle boxes to discover how the compartments could be opened,” the researchers elucidate.

As many as 44 of the elephants who approached the puzzle boxes interacted with them, but they tended to demonstrate individual differences in how innovative they were in trying to pry the boxes open to get at the fruit. Elephants that interacted with the puzzle boxes more frequently and persistently proved more successful in retrieving food from all three differently configured compartments.

“[S]uccess was influenced by persistence and exploratory diversity in both the first interaction as well as across multiple interactions,” the researchers write. In all, they add, a quarter of elephants (11) solved one compartment type and eight others solved two compartment types. Five elephants proved themselves the most innovative by solving all three puzzle types.

“This is the first research study to show that individual wild elephants have different willingness and abilities to problem solve in order to get food,” says Sarah Jacobson, a psychology doctoral candidate studying animal cognition at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Hunter College who was the study’s lead author. “This is important knowledge, because how animals think and innovate may influence their ability to survive in environments that are rapidly changing due to human presence.”

This especially applies to wild elephants in Thailand which frequently get into conflicts with villagers by raiding their fields and orchards.

“Conflict involving humans and elephants is increasing due to loss of natural habitat and agricultural encroachment into what is left of it,” stresses Joshua Plotnik, a psychology professor with the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College who worked on the research.

“Investigating innovation and problem solving in elephants can inform our understanding of wild elephant cognitive flexibility and its potential impact on conservation management and human-elephant conflict mitigation,” Plotnik says.