A researcher working in a reserve in Namibia seeks to harness the courtship characteristics of elephants in order to return male elephants to the reserve and thus prevent them from being killed by angry farmers
The ability of the elephants to communicate with the help of low-frequency sounds that are carried on the ground is tested and studied, recently zoologists in Namibia are trying to harness this ability to make the males return to the protected reserve.
Elephants are organized in an extended family structure where the females stay in the family while adult males are expelled and continue their lives alone. The migrating males leave the reserve, graze in agricultural areas and cause extensive damage to the fields, of course the farmers are not satisfied and do everything to prevent the damage, in many cases it all means killing the elephants.
The bilateral damages are a problem in all of Africa, in different places they are struggling with the problem by capturing and moving "stray" elephants, but capturing and moving them is a difficult and expensive task, so they often choose the cheap solution... killing the elephants.
A body called Utopia Scientific finances a study conducted by Dr. Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell from Stanford University, who has been studying elephants for about 15 years, most of her work in the Etosha Reserve in Namibia. The reserve is partly fenced and yet male elephants manage to destroy the fence and invade agricultural fields and farms that border the reserve, invasions that cause great damage to the farmers, damage that sometimes the farmers shoot the elephants to prevent! Dr. Caitlin tries to attract the migrating elephants back to the reserve using the elephants' communication skills.
The elephants communicate by stomping on the ground, cheers, blasts and what we hear as snoring, the snoring in low frequencies (at the limit of the frequencies heard by humans) are carried by the ground and are absorbed (as vibrations), through the front feet and through the bones of the legs the sounds are carried to the skull and the middle ear, it turns out Because the variety of sounds differs from detail to detail to such an extent that the elephants are able to recognize the identity of the "speaker", its sex and when it is a female in court, the male is able to recognize her season.
Until today, it was known that males are attracted to females attracted mainly by the smell, a pheromone that evaporates in the air from a (grease-like) secretion from glands under the elephant's eyes. The males react with a similar secretion and then they are in heat called "must". This is also how it is possible to visually identify estrus females or males in the mast, since a female elephant only goes into heat every five years or so, it is clear that males will be attracted to her.
At a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Kitlin said that in an experiment she conducted by playing a female's "estrus snores" she managed to get the male to follow the sounds. The snoring was played by speakers that were buried in the ground. According to her, "the males who participated in the experiment reacted positively, that is, they turned to the direction of the sounds and continued walking while lowering the trunk to the ground in an attempt to identify a smell and a direction." The experiment was done near a water hole, when a male arrived the voices were played and caused a radical change of direction and attempts to follow the "snoring". All 26 males who heard the voices responded and the extreme / best responses were from adult males.
It is known that the elephants are able to receive subsonic communication through the ground up to a distance of tens of kilometers. In Dr. Kitlin's favors, the "snoring" was played through loudspeakers that were buried in the ground, and the response was from a distance of 500 meters. In the researcher's opinion, males will respond to estrus "snorts" from great distances, since it is known that males respond to estrus "cheers" from a distance of 10 km, and in her opinion, males will respond to estrus "vibrations / snorts" from much greater distances. Even in the short distance of 500 meters, an elephant can be led along a continuous route to the reserve, a cheaper and simpler procedure than any other option,
Dr. Kitlin suggests allowing reserve inspectors to use "snorts" as a tool that will allow "stray" elephants to be returned to their owners. If the method works, it will be possible to make "stray" males return to the protected reserve and thus prevent violent encounters between elephants and humans.
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I received your claim. I focused on another goal in the article - that they want to group the elephants to a certain area, to the reserve complex.
The idea of a sound that distances and does not lead to a certain area is indeed a solution to keep away from human surfaces. But if you want to lead it in a certain direction (a "stray" elephant as they called it in the article), for example to a reserve, then the process of "pushing" voices is not as effective as "pulling" voices.
Maybe it really is possible, but the idea of a threat would then work against all of a competing male, especially when you know that there are sounds meant to warn of threats.
Again, all speculations of a person who can't really say that he knows elephants in detail.
Pine:
You didn't get my point across.
If you make them move away from a certain point (because they think there is a threat in it) then they will move away from that point and never find out that there was no threat there.
I explained it.
There is also no need to direct them to a certain point. They only want to keep them away from the areas that are necessary for man.
Since a male elephant lives alone (and not in a herd) it is quite likely that the noise of another male will deter him.
There can be many reasons for this - such as availability of food and just a desire to avoid friction and conflict.
I only brought it up as a possibility.
I don't know at all if there are noises that characterize a male elephant.
As mentioned - I just wanted to bring up a consideration that ignoring it could lead - in the end - to the extinction of elephants.
If this consideration is taken into account, there is a chance that a better solution will be reached. don't you think so?
I had a jump of letters:
alone = lose*
the behavioral=behavioral*
(This A ended up where it wasn't supposed to be...)
Michael,
But this will lead to the same problem you presented. If we use the sounds that the elephants recognize as threats to target them, this alone may give them this ability/behavior as threat recognition. And in order to direct all the elephants in the reserve to the same place, the sound has to be produced from many directions, which I'm pretty sure is not really healthy for them (from a linguistic point of view, to think that they are surrounded by prey animals...). Maybe the technique will work on them one by one, but even then, unlike the idea of heat, you can't control how far he will run especially if you want them to reach a certain point (they run from something, not to something).
And I don't think the elephants are really homophobes 🙂 and male elephants are always teased, aren't they? As long as there is an elephant around that is willing that is... (not that I'm an expert on the sexual tendencies and behavior of elephants)
Pine:
If there is a tenderloin - you no longer need to make the sounds because she makes them.
I just pointed out a possible problem that needs to be thought about.
I don't know if there are noises that repel male elephants. Maybe the noise of another male? Maybe a noise produced by a male being euthanized? If there are such noises it is a much better idea because an elephant that moves away from the source of the noise will never know that it has been worked on.
It works with wolves and other pests.
So what do you suggest? that in addition to the voices that they make, they should also arrange for them to be treated so that it does not cause a behavioral change?
What are the elephants stupid? They will be attracted to the voices and see that there is nothing there and in the end they will stop paying attention.
I agree with Michael. Elephants are intelligent mammals and there is no reason for them not to ignore the sounds or develop other means of courtship and estrus.
That's right Michael. I was just thinking about that.
What also appears on the face of it is much cheaper to field a more massive fence and that's it.
I want to go back and mention the quote "how much unreliability can be tolerated before the letter simply becomes meaningless." From the article https://www.hayadan.org.il/from-darwin-to-facebook-1902098/
There is a danger that over time the elephants will stop responding to the sound and as a result their reproductive process may also be affected.
It may take a long time, but it cannot be ruled out.