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The Elephant Listening Project
BIOACOUSTIC MONITORING portends a sweeping change in our ability to listen in on the cacophony of the wild world—and perhaps even make sense of it.
On the edge of this forest clearing in the Central African Republic, half a dozen researchers and Ba’Aka assistants perch on an elevated platform, sweating, swatting flies, and gazing through binoculars at the forest elephants below.
Ordinarily, this species of elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) stays hidden beneath the forest canopy. Their trumpets and rumbles are occasionally heard, but the elephants themselves are rarely seen—except in rare clearings like this one. They come here to dig pits in the sand and drink the briny water that lies below.
At present, 100-odd elephants are milling about, cavorting, scoping out mates, or digging for minerals. But the researchers’ attention is focused on a single mineral pit where a stout-tusked male named Eli stands, sucking brine into his trunk. Greyboy, a smaller male, lumbers toward the same pit.
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