Doesn seeing a real elephant help people to care about elephants in the wild?
There is not a shred of evidence that seeing a captive elephant inspires an individual to take action to conserve wild elephants. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) often quotes a study where zoo patrons were asked if seeing an elephant makes them care about them (paraphrasing), and the zoo patrons overwhelming answered yes. This type of study is meaningless. The AZA has not, nor has any zoo, conducted meaningful research on whether seeing animals in captivity results in educating patrons or inspiring them to care about nature. Such research would require interviewing people who actually contribute time or money to help conserve animals and determine what inspired them to do so. It is very telling that the AZA nor any zoo has never conducted even one such study.
