Can Rumbles Help Protect Endangered Elephants?
Elephants use their rumbles to communicate a variety of messages. One of the most important is communicating mating behavior. Dr. O’Connell-Rodwell has been studying the possibility of playing the rumbles of female elephants to entice male elephants away from dangerous areas where poachers lurk or where farmers resent the rampaging of elephants in their fields and into more elephant-friendly protected areas, such as Etosha National Park. Sources: Soltis, J., Leong, K., and Savage, A. 2005. “African elephant vocal communication II: rumble variation reflects individual identity and emotional state of callers,” Animal Behaviour, 70: 589-599. Katherine A. Leighty, Joseph Soltisa, Christina M. Wesoleka and Anne Savagea. Rumble vocalizations mediate interpartner distance in African elephants, Loxodonta africana. Animal Behaviour Volume 76, Issue 5, November 2008, Pages 1601-1608. Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell, The Elephant’s Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa. University O
