Database reveals the mysteries behind elephants' communication

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In 2002, researcher Joyce Poole and her Norwegian husband, Petter Granli, founded the California-based nonprofit ElephantVoices, to educate the public on both how elephants communicate and the importance of conserving them.

Now, drawing on data and videos accumulated during decades of study in Amboseli, Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, and Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, Poole and Granli have created the African Elephant Ethogram—the most comprehensive audiovisual library ever made of African savanna elephant behavior.

On May 25, the database will go public, allowing anyone from a high schooler to a university professor to search for a particular behavior—say, an elephant calf butting its head—and find several videos that explain why the animal is making that particular action.

JP: I want to know what elephants are saying to each other. I know they say really complicated things, and I think they “talk” a lot about us—about humans—and how they should respond to us.

 

Elephants matter because they are part of the spectacle of biodiversity on our planet. Elephants also matter because they are self-aware and empathetic, and capable of caring not only about their own lives but the lives of their family and friends. 

I hope the ethogram inspires people to contemplate the moral dilemma they pose. Do elephants have the right to live on Earth just as we do? If yes, how do we carve out space for them? These are big questions, and there aren’t simple answers, but we must try to find ways that we can all live more sustainably.

 

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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/new-elephant-library-reveals-communication-mysteries

[Guest]

Idk why anytime i see or watch an elephant I get so emotional, they are so beautiful it's insane