What Are Elephants Really Saying? First-ever Library Reveals Communication Mysteries

[Hoas]

What are elephants really ‘saying?’ First-ever library reveals communication mysteries.

National Geographic Explorer Joyce Poole reflects on her life’s achievement: an ethogram cataloguing nearly 50 years of data on African elephant behavior.

www.nationalgeographic.com

In 1975, 19-year-old Joyce Poole was offered the chance of a lifetime: To study elephants in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park.

Elephant researcher Cynthia Moss, who had just started a study of female African elephants, asked the American college student if she would do the same for the males, whom Moss jokingly called “boring,” according to Poole.

Poole quickly proved the animals were anything but, discovering that male African elephants experience reproductive cycles, called musth—something elephant biologists had long argued against. This major finding launched her career, and in the 46 years since, Poole, a National Geographic Explorer, has become one of the world’s experts in how African elephants behave and communicate.

In 2002, Poole and her Norwegian husband, Petter Granli, founded the California-based nonprofit ElephantVoices, to educate the public on both how elephants communicate and the importance of conserving them.

Now, drawing on data and videos accumulated during decades of study in Amboseli, Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, and Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, Poole and Granli have created the African Elephant Ethogram—the most comprehensive audiovisual library ever made of African savanna elephant behavior.

 

[Newboomer]

That would make an impressive a/v presentation. If you understood what the ele was saying, you might not want to shoot him. Or you might wish to run like hell the other way.

 

[NamStay]

Problem planning, not problem elephants - Conservation Action Trust

Durban – Dr Audrey Delsink was afraid of elephants when she started out in the field of natural sciences, but now has a real passion for them, as well as managing and conserving the iconic species which are now on the endangered list. This week, Delsink, 46, was awarded a PhD in Biology for her…...

conservationaction.co.za

Problem planning, not problem elephants​

Durban – Dr Audrey Delsink was afraid of elephants when she started out in the field of natural sciences, but now has a real passion for them, as well as managing and conserving the iconic species which are now on the endangered list.

This week, Delsink, 46, was awarded a PhD in Biology for her research focusing on the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), in particular issues of spatial ecology, population control, and human interactions, and the implications for management.

“It’s been a long journey and getting my doctorate this week has been a tremendous relief and absolute satisfaction,” said Delsink on Thursday.

She said she was afraid during her first encounters with elephants when she was a young field guide, but then she was put on a task force to identify elephants and it sparked her “real love and passion for elephants”.

With a Master’s degree focused on the costs and consequences of immunocontraception implementation in elephants and having worked in 40 reserves across the country on contraception programs, Delsink said her doctoral research focused on how human interactions drove African savannah elephant movements and behaviors over space and time and how this understanding could lead to better management and planning.