Elephant Voices

Category: 1. General News, 4. Welfare News, Elephants in captivity | Date: Jul 24 2008 | By: elephantvoices

Every day we receive messages about how captive elephants are being treated, often with disturbing photos or video footage. A mission of ElephantVoices is to promote responsibility for securing a kinder future for elephants. Our aim is to do this is primarily through education - by inspiring wonder in the intelligence, complexity and voices of elephants - rather than jumping on one campaign after another. We are a small team and we are not able to take on individual battles for each and every elephant. But sometimes we feel compelled to make our opinions known and below is an example. It’s a letter to journalist, Robert Wilonsky in The Dallas Observer e-mailed today, as a response to his request for Joyce to comment on video footage (linked below) of elephants in Africam Safari Zoo in Mexico where the Dallas Zoo plans to send their elephant Jenny.

Dear Robert

The music is hauntingly beautiful and put to the swaying of confined elephants brought tears to my eyes. Why do we humans feel such a need to confine and control other animals? Is our pleasure in seeing them worth the cruelty that we inflict on them? Elephants are intelligent socially complex individuals who have the same basic needs that we have: Freedom and autonomy, companionship and affection, just to name a few.

The first elephant in the video looks very unhealthy; she is too thin; all of the elephants in the video are swaying - a behavior only seen in confined elephants. Like so many captive elephants they are bored and frustrated with nowhere to go and no one to see, no new smells to investigate and nothing to strive for. The result is standing in one place and rocking, slowly losing their minds. Well, wouldn’t we do the same given similar circumstances? I often try to put myself in the elephants’ shoes, so to speak. Ever had to stand for hours and hours alone waiting for that bus that never comes? Feet and back aching? I, too, start to step from one foot to the other. I, too, rock back and forth, I sway. But I don’t wait for a bus for days, for weeks, for months, for years. I have the freedom to choose to go.

We need to wake up to the reality of what we are doing to other creatures and stop hiding behind a lot of constructed arguments for keeping elephants in this way.

Jenny should go to a sanctuary.

Regards, Joyce Poole

Tags: behavior, behaviour, elephants, elephantvoices, jenny, welfare

8 responses so far

Category: 1. General News, 4. Welfare News, Elephants in captivity | Date: Jul 23 2008 | By: elephantvoices

In August Joyce will travel to Washington DC to give her deposition in the case against Ringling Brothers for its treatment of elephants. Preparations have taken literally months of work. Joyce is also likely to go back in October when the court case takes place.

The basis for all of the contributions we make toward the interests of elephants is our long term studies of wild elephants. Some people try to argue that elephants held captive are different from wild elephants because they are domesticated. There are two uses of the term domesticated - one meaning “of the household” and the other a biological one. It is the biological one that is important and in this sense there is no such thing as domesticated elephants. All species of modern elephants are capable of being - and routinely have been - habituated and tamed by humans. They remain, nevertheless, wild animals.

The traditional bullhook used to control an elephant in Thailand (Photo credit Robert Poole). ElephantVoices’ standpoint is that this instrument contributes to misery for elephants held captive, for with it elephants are trained and controlled.

Tags: elephants, elephantvoices, welfare

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Category: 1. General News, Support Appeals | Date: Jul 09 2008 | By: elephantvoices

Dear All,

Portable computers are vital for the work that Petter and I are doing, and my 6-year-old Compaq has needed to retire for some time! Several key functions does not work… The worst aspect of it is that the sound system has gone silent - which isn’t great for someone who works on elephant communication. A “cheap” dollar makes it sensible to buy a replacement when I am in the US on an elephant-related task in late August. We do understand that some of you may feel that computers are rather boring items compared to other field equipment, but without one I can’t do any field work and neither can I bring what I do to share with you when I am on lecture tours. We would be extremely grateful if you would be willing to contribute towards this resource.

We’re happy that the numbers of visitors on our blog is steadily increasing - and any donation is an inspiration to continue what we do for elephants! Thank you for caring!

Best wishes, Joyce

3 responses so far

Category: 1. General News, 6. Behavior, Elephant Photos, Elephant Sounds | Date: Jul 03 2008 | By: elephantvoices

Hi all,

I am back for another installment of elephant sounds 101 and we are still working our way through how elephants respond to predators. Since humans are the most dangerous predator an elephant has to face, I have been on the sharp end of some of these reactions, though these frightening assaults have almost all been in places other than Amboseli. If you visit the visual tactile database on our website, and search under the word “bunching”, you can read in more detail how after freezing and perhaps “commenting”, the first response to potential danger by members of a family group is to gather together or “bunch”. Once elephants have bunched together, older individuals at the fore and calves occupying the center, one or more larger individuals may charge the predator while emitting the trumpet blasts or roars that I have already described. Throughout a confrontation with a dangerous predator the bunched elephants may continue to vocalize with noisy, throaty, rolling rumbles, their heads raised, ears extended, temporal glands streaming and trunks reaching out to touch one another. These rumbles have a roaring quality and appear to have the effect of both intimidating the predator and calling in support from any more distant family members. I refer to the powerful noisy rumbles given in this context as roaring-rumbles.

I recorded a lovely example of roaring rumbles in Amboseli one day when I happened to witness a lion pounce upon a year old elephant calf. The calf screamed, which prompted an immediate response from its mother and other allies, who rushed to the calves side, and confronted the lion with a series of roaring-rumbles. The calls attracted the attention of other family members who responded by calling and arriving at the scene minutes later.


Bunched elephants confront a predator.

Tags: amboseli, bunched, elephant birth, elephant sound, elephants, elephantvoices

4 responses so far