Release from captivity allows African savannah elephant movement patterns to converge with those of wild and rehabilitated conspecifics

The release of captive animals through rewilding or conservation translocation is an important strategy for the rehabilitation of individuals and ecosystems. Assuming that wild animals are better adapted to their environment than captive ones, comparisons between the behaviour of released animals and their wild counterparts would allow the evaluation of rewilding success. We compared the movement patterns of six captive African savannah elephants, subjected to a three-year soft release in the western Okavango Delta, Botswana, with those of two elephants released over a decade previously and of four wild elephants. GPS fixes at 1800hrs were used to calculate daily displacement, 30-minute diurnal and nocturnal distances, cumulative daily distances, and home ranges for all study animals; the effects of elephant group, phase, year, and season on these movement metrics were analysed. Captive elephants were most affected by the phase and changed their movements after release. After relea..., , # Data from: Release from captivity allows African savannah elephant movement patterns to converge with those of wild and rehabilitated conspecifics

### Analysis Dataset and Code

**General Introduction**

The project \"Release from captivity allows African savannah elephant movement patterns to converge with those of wild and rehabilitated conspecifics\" investigates the movement of rewilded African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) in the western Okavango Delta, Botswana. This study compares movement patterns of captive, previously released (rehabilitated), and wild elephants using GPS data from collared elephants to evaluate rewilding success. Four R scripts—30_minute_script.R, Cumulative_Daily_Distance_script.R, Displacement_script.R, and Home_range_script.R—analyze are saved in the zip file called R_Scripts.zip. Four key movement metrics: 30-minute movement distances, Cumulative daily distances, daily displacement (net displacement between consecutive days at 18:00), and month...,