After decades in tourist camps and circuses, African elephants that were returned to the wild are behaving, in many respects, like elephants that were never captive. Eleven elephants living freely on South African reserves showed rates of vigilance, confrontation and self-directed touching broadly similar to those of wild elephants, researchers report July 29 in PLOS One. In the new study, researchers recorded behaviors of 11 African elephants (Loxodonta africana) on three fenced South African reserves and compared them with observations of wild elephants in a fourth, much larger open reserve system. The ex-captive elephants often displayed these behaviors at similar frequencies as wild elephants. Overall, the elephants do seem to adjust to the wild, Roos says, despite their varied individual personalities and past traumas.