elepant listenign project

CONTACT US | CONTRIBUTE

WHO WE ARE ELEPHANT LANGUAGE FOREST ELEPHANTS IN THE FIELD FOR KIDS NEWS BLOG SHOP

JUST FOR KIDSBegin your journey through the forest with our interactive learning center.

LEARN MORE ABOUT US Explore the world of the forest elephant by checking out our video library

THE ELP VIDEOView our video introduction

IN THE FIELDExprience our most recent adventures with the elephants in Africa.

LISTEN. LEARN. DISCOVER.

ELP is not just about elephants, but is also about people: researchers, supporters, colleagues, and friends, who together make ELP happen.

< 1 2 3 >

WHO WE ARE ELEPHANT LANGUAGE FOREST ELEOHANTS IN THE FIELD

Copyright © 2011 Cornell Lab of Ornithology

FOR KIDS ELP NEWS BLOG

SHOPCONTRIBUTECONTAT US

WHAT WECOULDN’T HEAR, WAS ALWAYS THERE.

ELP has discovered complex communication between elephants. Like humans, they are able to alert, express and inform eachother of various information through methods that we cannot hear.







< 1 2 3 >





THEY AREMORE LIKE US THAN WE THINK.

Elephants have complex relationships like we do. They develop parental intincts and bonds just like us. We are more alike than we think.







< 1 2 3 >





on the elephant’s lives by recording their vocal exchanges and learning to identify the contexts in which certain calls are used. In 1999, Katy and several colleagues founded ELP to further theuse of acoustic methods to study and aid in the conservation of forest elephants in Central Africa.

The Elephant Listening Project is a not-for-profit organization associated with the Bioacoustics Research Program (BRP) at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Since its inception, ELP has depended on financial support from a diversity of governmental and non-governmental organizations, private donors and BRP.

Some of the earliest research was focused on characterizing low-frequency communication in savannah elephants, but increasingly the focus has been on forest elephants in the rainforests of Central Africa.

TH

E T

EA

M

<>

A lifelong naturalist and amateur musician, Katy began her career studying the evolving songs of the humpback whale. She shifted her focus to elephants in 1984, when she and two colleagues discovered infrasonic calling in elephants by recording at a zoo. The studies that followed from this discovery have shown that elephants use their low-frequency calls to coordinate their social behavior over long distances. She founded ELP in 1999, and was the leader of the project until 2006, when she officially retired. Katy is now writing a book about forest elephants, and continues to play a critical role in all ELP’s activities.

KATY PAYNE PETER WREGE MYA THOMPSON MODEST DOUCKAGA

Peter became the director of the Elephant Listening Project (ELP) in January 2007. A behavioral ecologist, Peter has made Ithaca his base for more than 30 years, but has been fortunate to work for long periods of time in the field, observing animals in their natural environments and trying to understand what makes them tick. Although he has worked in such exotic places as Venezuela, Panamá, and the Galapagos, his eight years of research in Kenya, East Africa, were particularly influential. He is very happy to be back in Africa to carry on ELP’s research program in the equatorial rainforests of the Congo Basin.

A member of the Elephant Listening Project since its inception in 1999, Mya took a break to study for a PhD and have two babies! Her research focused on improving acoustic monitoring methodologies for African forest elephants and understanding the role vocal signals play in maintaining their social system. She was awarded her doctorate in September 2009.

Modest has been observing and identifying elephants in Gabon for more than five years. As part of the Wildlife Conservation Society elephant research team, he has been the key person establishing a database of elephant identities for Langoue Bai, Ivindo National Park. Modest is now working with Nico Bout in the Bateke region, teaching new researchers about elephant observation and identification.

WH

O W

E A

RE

In some ways, the Elephant Listening Project began at the Portland Zoo in 1984, when Katy Payne felt (more than heard) the low-frequency rumbling communication of two Asian elephants, a male and female, who were standing on opposite sides of a concrete wall. In the following years, Katy and a group of dedicated colleagues demonstrated that elephants often communicate using sounds below the threshold of human hearing, that these sounds carry over vast distances, and that elephants use vocal communication to bind their complex family social system together. Katy describes the fascinating trajectory of her interest in elephant communication in the delightful book Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants.One of Katy’s insights was that we could perhaps ‘eavesdrop’







ELEPHANT LANGUAGE

ACOUSTIC CONSERVATION

INFRASOUND

ELEPHANT GREETINGS

THE ELEPHANT LANGUAGE

ELEPHANT TALK

TOOLS OF THE ACOUSTIC TRADE

HEARD BUT NOT SEEN - ACOUSTICS AND RAINFOREST CONSERVATION

As we consider the size of elephants’ sensory world, the timing as well as the frequency and power of their vocalizations turns out to be important. The propagation of very low frequency sound varies with atmospheric conditions, which change on a diurnal schedule. On a typical dry season evening in the savannah a temperature inversion forms, potentially increasing the listening area of elephants as much as ten-fold -- from 30 km2 at midday to 300 km2 in the same evening (Larom et al. 1997). In light of this fact it is interesting that savannah elephants make most of their loud low-frequency calls during the hours of best sound propagation (Ibid.). We do not know whether this is an innate or opportunistic response to fluctuations in the size of their communication area, but in either case it is clear that as the area shrinks and expands, so does the network of potential associates and mates.

Infrasound is sound below the level of human hearing. The discovery that elephants use infrasound in communication led from a hunch Katy Payne had when she was working with elephants in Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Oregon. She was studying communication, when in addition to the rumbles she could hear, she thought she felt, rather than heard, other rumbles. She suspected these were infrasonic rumbles. Further work with William Langbauer, Jr. and Elizabeth Thomas showed that the elephants were indeed making infrasonic calls. Subsequent studies, in association with Joyce Poole, William Langbauer, Cynthia Moss, Russell Charif, Rowan Martin and others, took place in Kenya, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, and led to the conclusion that elephants use their powerful deep calls in long distance communication.

This finding offers a solution to many old mysteries about elephant society, particularly the mystery attending the ability of males to find females for breeding, and the ability of separated family groups to coordinate their patterns of movement for weeks at a time without losing communication or converging on the same scarce resources.

Aerial view of Congo Basin RainforestThe dense habitat makes counting elephants from a plane impossible. Counting elephant calls instead is a viable alternative.





OVERVIEW

Animals in rainforests present a special challenge for conservationists because they are difficult to monitor. However, if the species uses sound to communicate, acoustic monitoring may be an effective tool for estimating abundance and population trends over time.

© Andrea TurkaloNatty2, an adult male forest elephant, enters the Dzanga forest clearing in the Central African Republic

Z

Z









ELEPHANT LANGUAGE


INFRASOUND

ELEPHANT GREETINGS

THE ELEPHANT LANGUAGE

ELEPHANT TALK

TOOLS OF THE ACOUSTIC TRADE

HEARD BUT NOT SEEN - ACOUSTICS AND RAINFOREST CONSERVATION

As we consider the size of elephants’ sensory world, the timing as well as the frequency and power of their vocalizations turns out to be important. The propagation of very low frequency sound varies with atmospheric conditions, which change on a diurnal schedule. On a typical dry season evening in the savannah a temperature inversion forms, potentially increasing the listening area of elephants as much as ten-fold -- from 30 km2 at midday to 300 km2 in the same evening (Larom et al. 1997). In light of this fact it is interesting that savannah elephants make most of their loud low-frequency calls during the hours of best sound propagation (Ibid.). We do not know whether this is an innate or opportunistic response to fluctuations in the size of their communication area, but in either case it is clear that as the area shrinks and expands, so does the network of potential associates and mates.

Infrasound is sound below the level of human hearing. The discovery that elephants use infrasound in communication led from a hunch Katy Payne had when she was working with elephants in Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Oregon. She was studying communication, when in addition to the rumbles she could hear, she thought she felt, rather than heard, other rumbles. She suspected these were infrasonic rumbles. Further work with William Langbauer, Jr. and Elizabeth Thomas showed that the elephants were indeed making infrasonic calls. Subsequent studies, in association with Joyce Poole, William Langbauer, Cynthia Moss, Russell Charif, Rowan Martin and others, took place in Kenya, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, and led to the conclusion that elephants use their powerful deep calls in long distance communication.

This finding offers a solution to many old mysteries about elephant society, particularly the mystery attending the ability of males to find females for breeding, and the ability of separated family groups to coordinate their patterns of movement for weeks at a time without losing communication or converging on the same scarce resources.

Aerial view of Congo Basin RainforestThe dense habitat makes counting elephants from a plane impossible. Counting elephant calls instead is a viable alternative.

OVERVIEWAnimals in rainforests present a special challenge for conservationists because they are difficult to monitor. However, if the species uses sound to communicate, acoustic monitoring may be an effective tool for estimating abundance and population trends over time.


Z

Z


NEXT

FOREST ELEPHANTS

FOREST ELEPHANTS

ELEPHANT ECOLOGY

ELEPHANT SOCIETY

ELEPHANT FAMILIES

BABY ELEPHANTS

UNIQUE THREATS TO FOREST ELEPHANTS


FOREST ELEPHANT INFANTS

One of the joys of studying forest elephants in the field is being able to watch the infants. Perhaps it is because elephants are so large that the miniature form of a baby is so arresting. Our researchers have been privy to many magical moments in the field, both endearing and amusing. Some of these have been captured on film, and you can see a selection of these if you click on the Photo Gallery tab below.

Elephants have the longest gestation period of all mammals - 22 months, and they produce a calf only once every 2.5 to 4 years. This lengthy time interval allows the mother to devote the attention that the calf needs in order to teach it all the complex tasks of being an elephant, such as how to use their trunk to eat, drink and wash, and what to eat.

Elephant babies weigh about 105 kilograms (232 pounds) at birth. They can stand up and move around almost immediately, which allows the mother to roam around to forage, and is essential to avoid predation. The calf suckles using its mouth (its trunk is held over its head). The tusks erupt at about 16 months. Calves are not weaned until they are about 4 or 5 years old. At this time, the tusks are about 14 cm (5.5”) long, and begin to get in the way of sucking.

Female forest elephants, and juveniles of both sexes live in small family groups, and the arrival of a new infant is always a source of great interest to the females in the family. They help the mother to guard and watch out for the infant; for example if a predator approaches, they will all circle the infant to protect it.





Grabbing the towbar! © Melissa Groo < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >



elepant listenign project

Education