Elephant Voices

Category: Elephant Sounds | Date: Dec 12 2007 | By: admin

Hi, it’s Joyce again

Last week I mentioned that I was making some MP3 sound files as stimuli for playback experiments that Petter and I will carry out when we are in Amboseli. I have just completed preparing them and I thought perhaps you might like to listen to one or two. Elephants produce quite a range of trumpeting sounds, but they trumpet only in specific circumstances. For instance, trumpets are associated with play, with social excitement, with anti-predator behavior, and with alarm or surprise.

Inexperienced filmmakers tend to overlay trumpets whenever they have an image of elephants doing anything. An elephant walking slowly along trumpeting is like a person calmly eating dinner while screaming; it looks so out of place!

What we have noticed is that not all trumpets are alike. Trumpets have a different tone and emphasis depending upon what the elephant is doing. Petter and I think that we are pretty good at telling what an elephant might be up to just by listening to the sound of its trumpet. Through the reactions of elephants to playbacks we are going to test whether elephants can tell the difference, too. We wonder how good you are at discriminating. Be aware that these short vocalizations may not play well on your system, and that we are having some technical challenges with audio files on the blog that we will have to look more into.

Elephant 1Elephant 1
Elephant 2Elephant 2

Which one of these elephants do you think was chasing a lion?
Which one was playing?

11 responses so far

Category: 1. General News, 4. Welfare News, Elephants in captivity | Date: Dec 10 2007 | By: admin

Hi this is Joyce again. It has been a very hectic period because we are trying to complete a year end newsletter for our friends and supporters, and also to prepare all of our playback stimulus “tapes” before we leave for the field early Friday 14th December. But I did promise to say something about the case against Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus for which I am an expert witness.

You may wonder why a scientist interested in elephant cognition, social behavior, communication and conservation gets involved in a legal case against a circus. The more that we learn about the social complexity and intelligence of elephants, the harder it is to ignore the mistreatment of them - wherever it occurs. My research and understanding of elephants in the wild has led me to advocate on behalf of both wild and captive elephants in many different forums and contexts on issues such as the ivory trade and culling, and the abuse and mistreatment of elephants used for “entertainment.”

One example of the advocacy work I do is my involvement as an expert witness in a lawsuit brought by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, The Animal Welfare Institute, The Fund for Animals, The Animal Protection Institute, and a former Ringling Brothers’ employee, Tom Rider, who worked as a barn man with the elephants for two and a half years, against Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Feld Entertainment (Ringling Brothers) for violations of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The Asian elephants used by the circus are endangered species and the consortium argues that by chaining elephants and using bullhooks on them Ringling Brothers is violating U.S. law, which prohibits any conduct that “takes” an endangered species. A “take” constitutes acts that harm, wound, injure, harass, or kill an endangered species and applies to animals in captivity, as well as those in the wild. The lawsuit claims that Ringling Brothers “takes” Asian elephants through the forceful use of bullhooks and other instruments on the elephants and through the confinement and chaining of the elephants for long periods of time. The case is expected to go to trial in 2008.

I hope to get back online before we depart with an example of one of the MP3 files that we will be playing back to elephants….so check back in the next couple of days!

Trumpets!

Joyce

9 responses so far

Category: 1. General News | Date: Dec 05 2007 | By: admin

Hi out there,

I was traveling when the ElephanVoices blog was set up so this is my first entry. It is a very busy time for us because we are preparing for a month-long field trip to Amboseli and at the same time we have been on the road so much during November. Petter to Brazil and Denmark and me to South Africa and the United States. I was in Pretoria, South Africa, in early November as an invited expert to a meeting evaluating the ethics of capturing and training wild African elephant calves for elephant back safaris and circuses (more later). And then I was in Florida last week for an inspection of Ringling Brothers Circus as part of my expert witness report for a legal case against Ringling for their treatment of Asian elephants (more later).

Now that I am back in the office I am working hard to prepare our stimulus “tapes” (really MP3 files) for playback experiments that we plan to carry out in Amboseli. Playbacks (playing back the calls of elephants to elephants) allow you a window into the minds of animals. We have some ideas about the meanings of some of the elephant calls and we want to test whether we are correct in our supposition.

It is extremely dry in Amboseli because the long rains failed in March/April and its not looking good for the short rains either - they should have started in mid November. When is it extremely dry the elephants have very little energy and are less likely to respond to playbacks - so we will have to play it by ear, so to speak, and may postpone the experiments for another time. Nevertheless, there is always plenty to do in Amboseli. We have numerous meetings scheduled with our colleagues as well as with the students who are involved in various elephant studies there. And any spare moment we will be out observing elephants and recording their voices!

Trumpets, Joyce

3 responses so far