The last zoo elephants: Why Johannesburg can no longer justify their captivity
Daily Maverick | 19.05.2026 02:35
The continued confinement of three elephants at the Johannesburg Zoo is often framed as a moral debate about captivity. It is now something more precise. On financial, institutional and welfare grounds, the City of Johannesburg can no longer sustain – let alone justify – the conditions required to keep them. As the last elephants held in a zoo in South Africa, Lammie, Ramadiba and Mopane represent not a legacy to preserve, but a model that has reached its inevitable end.
