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Elephant Communication Dialects

elephantgirlmarie's picture
Wed, 2010-09-01 14:12 by elephantgirlmarie · Forum/category:

I was wondering, do elephants from different regions of Africa have different communication dialects- lets say for example, do elephants from South Africa have a different dialect in their communication than elephants from Kenya??

~Marie Taoukdjian~

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tiasa's picture

Re : elephant conservation in India

Sat, 2010-09-04 14:36 by tiasa

Hi Cynthia,

I am a student pursuing postgraduation in Zoology, a wildlife and environment reporter as well as a wildlife conservationist, in India

I think you have already heard this. You suggested the use of pepper spray to mitigate man elephant conflict in India. Well, that is finally being put to use.

I have been thinking but could we put to use your knowledge of elephany dialect and resolve human animal conflict, in India. I mean, if they have a particular phrase by which they give out the signal that they are a very powerful lot, so that other herds might keep off their way. Maybe, we could play a recording system in a pilot project in India, in a village in South Bengal and see if this succeeds in keeping elephant herds off the paddy fields. India is launching an Elphant Project like its Tiger Project.

DO LET ME KNOW IF THIS IS A GOOD IDEA TO WORK ON AND IF YOU WILL BE ABLE TO CONTRIBUTE.

Hans's picture

Deceive elephants

Sat, 2010-09-04 22:16 by Hans

I'm not Cynthia, but I'm already wondering for how long, if at all, you could deceive elephants that way. My guess is, not for long.

But who knows? I may be wrong. Unless the elephant communications researchers already know the answer, it would have to be tried out. It requires special sound equipment with a low and strong bass.

cmoss's picture

Dialects

Fri, 2010-09-03 07:41 by cmoss

We don't know if they have different dialects but we do know that elephants can detect the calls of strangers. Karen McComb and Graeme Shannon from Sussex University have been carrying out playback experiments in both Kenya and South Africa. The elephants react differently when they hear a call from an elephant from the other country. This work is still in progress. We will let you know when the results are out.

elephantgirlmarie's picture

Thank you Cynthia- I am

Fri, 2010-09-03 14:26 by elephantgirlmarie

Thank you Cynthia- I am currently participating in the Disney College Program at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom and have talked to the scientists here conducting elephant communication research if I can shadow them and see how they record the elephants vocalizations. I went to their meeting they had about elephants and bees (the Save the Elephant foundation has partnered up with Disney for this research). It was about how they are using bees to keep elephants away from croplands in Africa and how they discovered that elephants have a specific call to warn others about the presence of bees and to keep away. I am sure you are familiar with it. During the meeting I asked this question to see if maybe, for example, elephants in South Africa had a different warning call than elephants in Kenya- and they were not sure themselves but knew that not much research has been done in this area of elephant communication. I was just wondering if you knew. Thanks again Cynthia. Please keep me updated when the results are out. Thanks

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