ElephantVoices

I can now say “jambo” or “habari” here from Nairobi, where I arrived Friday night after a pleasant flight from Europe with KLM. I used the many hours of travelling to prepare for several meetings in Nairobi during the coming week. Unfortunately, I will not be visiting our AERP colleagues and elephant friends in Amboseli on this 10 day trip.

My first job yesterday morning was to collect our field vehicle, a strong and rustic looking (read: beaten up) ’93 Toyota Landcruiser, from a workshop in Karen, Nairobi. The 4-wheel-drive has been there since we left in the middle of January, and three months and kshs 141,740 (approx. USD 2,300) later it’s back on the road. Some of you may remember our appeal in December – sadly the bill ended up worse than we feared especially considering the substantial costs that we incurred even during our last stay. Being a car on Kenyan roads is no joke… Hopefully, the car the elephants know so well won’t give us any trouble for a long time!

One of the many other tasks I have is to work with a Kenyan web- and database-programmer who we hope will become a close collaborator of ElephantVoices. We have several databases that we want to get online in the next few months – one of which is our long-awaited elephant calls database. Kenya has a large contingent of clever IT-people, and we always try to use local partners in our work. Support for Kenyans is especially important right now. The economy and people’s livlihoods are really suffering as a consequence of the unrest and the collapse in the tourism industry following the December 27th election.

We are very grateful for any support toward our use of Kenyan programming capacity to get our elephant calls database online – so that you all can listen to elephant sounds and learn more about how they communicate. While I admittedly enjoy computer-work and html-coding, the efficiency of ElephantVoices depends on our ability to have high focus on the many elephant-related issues lined up. ElephantVoices and WildlifeDirect are only two of many channels through which we are trying to reach out.

Thank you for following our work!

Petter

Early morning on Wednesday last week I started on a long journey – ending up in Longyearbyen at Svalbard in late afternoon. The occasion was a trip for suppliers and customers of the company BK Gisholt Finne where I am a board member. Being one of the founders of Basecamp Explorer (winner in the Maasai Mara of a prestigious ecotourism award), and having visited these arctic islands under Norwegian sovereignty several times before, I had taken the job as guide for 20 men on tour. I was certainly looking forward to exploring more of Svalbard’s amazing nature.

After one night in Longyearbyen we took off on our snow scooters, aiming for Isfjord Radio at Kapp Linne 120 kilometres away. The station was established in 1933 to act as an intermediary for traffic between Svalbard Radio and ships in the waters around Svalbard. During the second world war, Isfjord Radio was destroyed by German occupying forces. The station was rebuilt and set back into operation in 1946. Most of Isfjord Radio’s functions were moved to Longyearbyen a long time ago, and the station is today operated as a tourist destination by Basecamp Spitsbergen.

During hours taking in Svalbard’s spectacular nature, with temperatures of 15 below (Centigrade), I also contemplated my upcoming trip to Kenya. You may say that a job not far from the north pole, in polar bear country, brings in money we use toward our work for elephants on the other side of the globe. This is also my excuse for posting this on WildlifeDirect… Some of the challenges facing polar bears and elephants are partly connected. Global warming may lead to disastrous loss of habitat for both species. The headlines are melt-down of ice and snow – and more drought.


It’s fair to tell you that I arranged the photo above just for fun. I couldn’t resist getting my guys to pretend that they were waiting for their turn in front of this toilet-like construction on the very edge of Kapp Linne. The tiny house has obviously been used at one point as a look-out towards the often very rough Isfjorden.

We didn’t see polar bears during our stay, but on Svalbard one is always prepared to meet them. Our trip was nonetheless fantastic, with spectacular views in all directions. After two sunny and clear days we ended up in a snow storm on the way back. My group was lucky enough to see the real arctic – in which the weather changes in minutes from crystal clear to almost zero visibility.

Our world is full of contrasts, and Svalbard and Kenya are obvious examples. While preparing for my morning flight this Friday 18th I feel privileged to be able to experience both!

Best wishes, Petter

P.S. I will let you know in my next posting what I will be doing in Kenya.

Anita mentioned in a recent comment that her favourite photographs of ours are one of an elephant peering into the car and another of an elephant biting the spare tire. They are some of my favourites, too, for at the time I had the strangest feeling – that I was the one under observation not the elephants! I was very concious of interacting with intelligent individuals who, at that moment, had their own thoughts about me! I remember being very moved by the experience and to this day am trying to put words to that kind of conscious meeting of the minds that I felt.

The images were taken in Sri Lanka when Petter and I were invited by Lalith Seneveratne (known for his work on elephant rumble detectors and trip wires to keep elephants out of farmers fields) on a tour of elephant habitat. I remember that safari with great fondness and it holds some of my most memorable elephants experiences. Lalith took us on a two week safari to see elephants in four different national parks.

The first stop was Uda Walawe and this particular group was one of the first that we met. The adult females were quite stroppy, standing tall forming a defensive wall. At the same time they were so engaged with us – coming up close, staring at us and rumbling and touching one another. Their behavior was very like African elephants, but with some subtle and not so subtle differences that I still find so fascinating. It is these subtle differences that make me yearn for the possibility of finding a way to study Asian elephant communication.

A wall of adult females.

After the adults created a hullaballoo about us, the calves and juveniles formed a little gang of six and decended upon us. They surrounded the car and then peered in through the windows, oggling us! I had the distinct feeling of being an elephant pet. This kind of behavior – adults standing back making a commotion while the juveniles made a play thing out of us, is not typical of African elephants.

Feeling like the elephants’ pets.

Asian elephants have different eyes than African elephants whose eyelids are more prominent causing them to appear less engaged, perhaps. An African elephant (at least in the wild) has to be very curious to look you straight in the eye. But these “little” guys came over and literally studied us! I felt like a fish in a tank, or rather an animal in a cage! And then one boy goes to the rear of the car and chews on the spare tire.

A juvenile bites the spare tire.

Some of our contacts were very enthusiastic at the possibility of learning more about elephant behavior via our blog, so I am going to continue to share some elephant behavior with you.

As I mentioned, our new photo database means that we can easily search on a specific behavior and find all the images that we have of that behavior. This new system is essential for updating our visual and tactile database on www.elephantvoices.org.

The other day a colleague sent me a photograph of elephants engaged in Floppy-Running. I knew that we had even better images in our database and found them with a quick entry of the behavior. The pictures taken in January this year are so lovely that I thought I would share them with you and take the opportunity to write a bit about Floppy-Running.

The term was originally coined by Cynthia Moss to describe the loose, floppy running gait of a playful elephant. In Amboseli Floppy-Running is most often observed when elephants have had plenty to eat and are leaving the swamps at the end of the day. Playful behavior is often contagious, and though juveniles and calves are the most likely Floppy-Runners, adult females sometimes lose all sense of decorum and join in. I have laughed aloud as I watched several families Floppy-Run across the plains to the tune of a cacophony of pulsated play trumpets. The elephants go all loose and floppy, shaking their lowered heads from side-to-side, allowing their trunk to flop about, their ears to flap wildly against their necks and curling their tails up high.

Have a look at the sequence of beautiful images taken by Petter as a family Floppy-Run across the open plain. A wonderful, funny sight…

New versions of software for photo and video editing are high on our priority list right now. They are essential to our educational outreach, including for this blog on WildlifeDirect, for our website, ElephantVoices, and for lectures.

And after spending a couple of months in a workshop in Nairobi our research vehicle will soon be ready again for Kenya’s rather bumpy roads and the bush.

We are extremely grateful for contributions towards the substantial costs of these two items. We know that there are so many good causes out there worth supporting – and we hope that you make ours one of them.

Meanwhile, we thank Keith M. for an open donation of USD 25.

Best wishes, Petter and Joyce

Around the world people watched yesterday as Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga finally reached an agreement. Kenyans are celebrating – and those of us who love Kenya hope that a foundation for a new and constructive era has been put in place. While the price has been high, we have been reminded about the value of democracy, fair play and long term stability.

We urge Kenya’s leaders to maintain good spirit during the hard work and reconciliation efforts that lie ahead – the current enthusiasm and the desire of the Kenyan people for peace should be of inspiration. Poverty and desperation do not make a viable environment for engendering harmony between people and animals. Agreement between the political camps means that we can all get back to working for a more prosperous future for all.

And what about wildlife conservation in general? In a comment Ann asks what the accurate situation is. In truth it is highly variable, species to species, country to country, and place to place. From our perspective the future is dependent on how people deal with the fact that resources are in limited supply and are dwindling. Are we individually and collectively willing to put enough aside for other creatures, like elephants, gorillas, and chimpanzees as well as the myriad of less charismatic species that share our planet? It is as simple and as difficult as that.

Despite the recent spearings, Amboseli is a success story. The work of Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) over 35 years has contributed substantially to the conservation of the ecosystem’s elephants, which today number around 1,500 individuals. The challenges are many for those in Kenya Wildlife Service, the local community and AERP who work tirelessly to achieve this success. While poaching for ivory is not a problem, confrontations between people and elephants can be. It is more than fair that local people feel that a share of the money generated by wildlife tourism helps to improve their lives – which is one reason why AERP and the Amboseli Trust for Elephants has initiated numerous community projects.

For the lives of Amboseli’s elephants and the many other species, including people, who inhabit the ecosystem, the conservation struggle is certainly worth the effort. The benefits don’t stop there, however, for millions of people from around the world have visited Amboseli and have benefited from the joy of seeing these magnificent animals – and millions more have watched and learned from Amboseli’s elephants on TV documentaries.

Studying elephants and being in their presence is a continuous reminder of why elephants deserve our attention and support. Experiencing their affection, compassion and loyality for one another and witnessing their extraordinary teamwork is a humbling lesson in the meaning of humanity – or perhaps a better term would be “elephanity”.

‘It is not possible for a free man to catch a glimpse of the great elephant herds roaming the vast spaces of Africa without taking an oath to do whatever is necessary to preserve for ever this living splendour.’
Romain Gary, Roots of Heaven, 1958

Best wishes, Petter and Joyce