I would love to have Joyce, Cynthia or Harvey jump in on this and give their impressions.

While staying in Tsavo at a tented camp, the elephants would approach the waterhole coming up from behind and then perhaps 15 - 20 feet from the side of my tent. I would be sitting on the veranda filming. Most often the females would all stop, raise their trunks, sniff me, and watch me, sometimes looking very nervous. I would simply say, “It’s OK, you’re alright” – and all the trunks would go down and they would continue on to the water. Now obviously they don’t know the words I am saying to them, but somehow they seem to understand, perhaps by the tone of the voice, that I am no threat to them.

When they leave the waterhole often they will approach the tent and I’ll tell them what beautiful babies they have – and they just stand and listen.

On one occasion a huge bull was standing in the waterhole looking toward my tent, a distance of perhaps 50 yards away. He filled his trunk with water, and then instead of inserting the trunk in his mouth, he blew the water all over the outside of the waterhole. I laughed at him and called him a “silly boy”. Didn’t that bull keep it up! As long as I reacted by laughing at him or talking he would continue blowing the water.

I know that many of the Amboseli elephants know your voices, though perhaps not the actual words. Do you get the same type of reaction where you see the animal trying to understand what you are saying?

This brings up to me how little we really know about elephants. I think they are much more intelligent and understanding than the average person gives them credit for. I know, the scientists would call us all “tree huggers” for getting anthropomorphic, but I am certain in my own mind that there is something to this, and I would love to get your opinions.

Thus I guess the big question is, at a time when researchers/scientists are trying to decipher “elephant language”, are elephants also trying to decipher ours?