SCB: Elephant noises
Here's an update on interesting research trying to a get a handle on the number of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in Africa. These animals, which are smaller and thiner-trunked than savannah elephants, live beneath trees, so are harder to count. But they do make noisel—low deep rumbles that travel great distances. Once it was determined that the elephants call at a fairly constant rate, researchers at Cornell began counting the calls to estimate of the number of animals.
Nature has written about this neat project before: here. Mya Thompson, a graduate student on the project, told me that they are working on funding to use the equipment to detect more sinister sounds: gunshots, chainsaws—the sounds of illegal logging or poaching. The ultimate idea is to equip their stations with the means to alert the authorities when one of these suspicious sounds is recorded.
Comments
As an American living abroad with my family for the past seven years, few experiences have been as moving as encountering several of these creatures while traveling in Africa. Their unusual calls excited and then frightened my son, but when we actually got a glimpse of two of them his eyes widened and every vision of exotic animals he had ever dreamt up in his young imagination suddenly became tangible. Thanks for jogging this fond memory.
Posted by: Daniel Obarski | February 9, 2007 05:25 AM