Animal rights advocates are heralding the decision, announced this month by officials with India's Central Zoo Authority, that the country's zoos and circuses will no longer be allowed to keep captive elephants.

The decision means that all elephants living in India's zoos and circuses -- an estimated 140 pachyderms in 26 zoos and 16 circuses -- will be moved to "elephant camps" run by the nation's forestry department. (Those elephants currently employed in logging camps or living in Indian temples -- by all accounts, a larger number than those in zoos and circuses -- are unaffected by the decision.) In the camps, the elephants will be able to move freely in a large space and graze as they would in the wild. A group of mahouts will be employed to monitor their well-being.

"It's a free-roaming animal that travels a long distance, and very few zoos have large areas to provide free movement," B.K. Gupta, the zoo authority's evaluation and monitoring officer, told the Agence France-Presse of the decision to move the elephants. "The issue was with keeping them chained for long hours."