Life in an Elephant Herd
Posted at 1:44 pm August 26, 2008 by Emily Rothwell
Samba and her son, Punga
As a new member to the San Diego Zoo's Behavioral Biology team studying the African elephant herd at the Wild Animal Park, I have a lot to learn! For starters, who are all of these big, beautiful animals and how do you pronounce their names? I spent the last week learning to tell apart each of the 11 individuals through their physical and behavioral differences. As the bull, Mabu is the largest. Swazi is tall and slender, a very elegant female. Umoya is often found next to her young calf, Kamile. Samba has a belly that sags down; she also keeps a close eye on her son, Punga.
Umngani has long, beautiful tusks and is the mother of the oldest calf, Khosi. Lungile is the smallest female with short tusks. Ndula has a "snaggle tusk" which hooks under her trunk and is only visible when she raises it to rest it on her son, the juvenile Musi. Now that I can tell the difference between each, it is on to the research and data collection!
We are currently outfitting our African elephants with collars that will hold both a GPS unit to track animal movement and a recording unit to capture vocalizations (see How Far Do Elephants Walk in One Day?). This collar will be worn together with the anklet pedometer to track the number of steps the animals take when moving around the enclosure. All of these units are designed to automatically collect data when worn by the elephants; the data is then downloaded for analysis.
You may notice that a critical piece of information is missing with all of the automatically collected data. What are the elephants actually doing and how are they behaving at the time? Is Musi playing in the pool on a hot afternoon? Is Swazi trumpeting at her nearest neighbor who is getting too close? Or are Umoya and Kamile simply wandering the yard munching on an afternoon snack? Over the course of the next year, I will be out with the elephants recording such daily behaviors.
How do you start when embarking on a project looking at animal behavior? The first step is to make an ethogram, a chart that describes all of the natural behaviors of the animals. Then we narrow down from this comprehensive list to the specific behaviors of interest. In our case, we will be looking for social behaviors between individuals, including trunk or body contact, chasing one another around the yard, and suckling by the calves.
Our data will give us a better picture of what the Wild Animal Park's herd of African elephants is doing on a daily basis. From this we will know where each animal is moving in the yard and why. We should be able to figure out whether their daily walking distance depends on the weather, or where their food is placed, or where the other elephants are. Finally, we will be able to see what vocalizations and behaviors are friendly and seem to say, "Hey, come over here!" and which ones politely mean, "Get out of my way!" All of this will help us to more effectively manage our herd and increase our understanding of wild herds in Africa.
Emily Rothwell is a Heller Fellow Research Associate with the San Diego Zoo's Behavioral Biology Division.
View the Park's elephants daily on Elephant Cam…
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August 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Great blog Emily! Hope you keep us updated on all the elephants.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Welcome Emily!
What a wonderful opportunity! I know you will fall in love with all of our wonderful pachyderms over the next year and we will be looking forward to all of your impressions about the interaction and dynamics of our herd. As laymen, I and my family and friends have already observed amazing behaviors of this wonderful family in caring for each other and the babies in particular. We have seen our Musi change from an endearing toddler into a very round and pesky juvenile and we will be interested in your observations on this. We still love him though–and we are pretty sure we have seen him being scolded by mom or aunties and given some 'time outs'! Especially when he has picked on Khosi! Wishing you the best of times in your observations and will be awaiting your updates!
Blessed Be with Love, Judy J
August 26th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I am looking forward to reading your posts on these magnificent and fascinating creatures. Please keep us informed of your work!
August 27th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Emily, Welcome. these are amazing animals, they are so family oriented and the little ones are so adorable. I have watched a few specials about elephants and they are so smart and loving to to the herd, even in death they still pause to remember a fallen herd member. You will learn so much and enjoy all the special moments they give you. I can't wait to hear more about your data and the elephants. Good luck.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Welcome, Emily! It sounds like you have an exciting time ahead of you. Thanks for the physical description of each of the elephants. It is hard to tell them apart from the camera, except for the relative size of the calves. I love to see the calves playing. Does Musi spend much time with his younger siblings, or is he pretty much off by himself now. With three males, 2 are future bulls, it seems likely that at least one of them will be going to another institution, or possibly the SDZ. I have read that it is hard to keep one bull elephant happy and with room enough to do what comes naturally. Three must be a huge challenge.
We look forward to your reports on your findings with the behaviors and social interactions of the herd.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hi Emily – Welcome and thank you for sharing the very clever way in which you learned to identify each elephant. On our next visit, I plan on bringing notes with me so that I will be able to single out all the elephants. (I hope)
I am looking forward to reading about this interesting research in your next blog.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Hi, Emily! Welcome to the " Blog Room" ! Read your article about the elephants, and the walking/vocal/behavior study that you all at WAP are doing with the elephants right now. This is pretty interesting stuff, and the info that will be coming from you about the elephants will be interesting to read. One of the keepers in an earlier article said that these studies will be important in how well elephants are managed in captivity, and then translate all of this info to the wild elephants in Africa to better understand their movements and behaviors that will hopefully help the reserves that manage them have a better understanding of the wild elephants that are in Africa. (UGH!! Hope I'm not repeating myself here!) Anyway, You will be a welcome addition to the elephant staff, and I'm sure that they are very excited about the info that you will be gathering with this great herd of elephants at WAP. HINT: Have an assistant to help you out!
I just checked the info profiles of the 3 elephant calves—Khosi, Kamile, and Punga. None of them have been updated since 2007, and I know that all of them have grown and gained a huge amount of weight since 9/2007. Plus, all of their pics on the profiles need to be updated! Hopefully, you all will get the chance to get them updated. Also, still wondering about the 2 female elephants that you are hoping will be pregnant this year. Please let us know what's up with them, ok?
Well, gonna go. Keep us updated about the WAP elephant herd!
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL
August 28th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I am fascinated by elephants in general, amazing creatures. I just wish that the cam would have more close up shots. Please post more videos of the " kids" playing!
August 30th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Welcome emily, look forward to more news from you.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:02 pm
welcome emily,
I think you will have a very interesting job ahead of you! animal behavior has to be the best , interesting,
and most fun. rewarding too when you learn something new about these massive, beautiful animals.
keep us informed and up-dated as much as you can about our favorite giants!
after being educated about these wonderful animals, I can't stand to see them having to perform in a
circus. how sad and miserable to live that kind of life. thank God that people care enough to save these
precious animals from endangerment and to make their life as good as possible and in an inviroment that
is as good as can be without bars and cages!!!!! researchers and great zoos!
September 7th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Welcome to you Emily, to the most fun and exciting place on earth, the San Diego Wild Animal Park, I know your job will be so interesting and knowledgeble for us, and I thank you for that. I can't wait to hear how far the elephants are walking in a day. I really want to hear more things about the babies. I love especially watching them in the puddles and the big pond. One day I watched when the keepers had a mother elephant back up against the fence to check her and her baby followed backing up, except he just threw himself on the ground, it was so funny, I never laughed so hard. Betsy in Penna.
September 11th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Hey everybody, there is a dog or a deer in the elephant yard. It walked up from the big elephant house, I could not tell if it was a dog or deer, but was not an elephant. It is 10:30 eastern time when I saw it and the sprinklers were on. Thought I would let you know in case you had to call animal control officers. Bye
Moderator's note: The Wild Animal Park shares habitat with wild mule deer that come and go as they please; they even stroll through the elephants' exhibit.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Dear Emily: Your blog on the elephant herd was excellent. I have taken video of the young elephants playing together and thought you might enjoy seeing them in one of their most playful periods when there were actually 4 babies, not counting Moose. It was taken about two weeks after Lungile's baby was born. Mindy took the video portion where Khosi and Punga were playing in the pool and I took the rest. Gave Mindy a copy of the video to give to you. Again, thanks for your great writeup and keep us informed of how things are progressing.
Don Stillwell
September 12th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
On thurs. I went to the best birthday party that I had ever been to, Khosi and her cousins and her Aunts spent the day climbing on a truckload on dirt with a lot of treats mixed in Wonderful- for them and anybody watching. Thanks guys for doing this.!!!
September 20th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Hi! Haven't written to the WAP gang in awhile!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ONE YEAR OLD KAMILE!!!!!!! (A day late!!) Hope she had a very nice birthday with her elephant family! Looking for some pics of her birthday party.
Not much to say right now. I am requesting that you all can get the 3 elephant calves' profiles updated with current info and pics. The info that is on Kamile, Punga, and Khosi are over a year old now! Will appreciate it a whole lot! What's the latest on elephant pregnancies?
Gonna go! Got on the cam for a little bit and saw some of the elephants in the big pool just having a splashing good time! Probably felt good after being out there in the heat all day!
Keep us updated!
Thanks,
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 am
VERY INTERESTING WORK IT'S A GREAT EXPERIENCE TO LIVE DAILY AND LEARN FROM THIS GREAT GIANTS.LOOKING FOWARD IF TIME PERMITS ME TO LOOK AROUND THE WEB CAM AND ENTER THE BLO G,HOPING EVERYTHING DEVELOPS AS EXPECTED. BY FROM HATILLO,PUERTO RICO
October 6th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Note to Chari Mercier, item 15. September 11, 2008 was Khosi's second birthday. Her birthday consisted of a huge pile of dirt, lots of goodies, and another huge pile of dirt over the top. The babies and adult elephants all had a great time digging down through the top layer of dirt to get to the goodies. Khosi was the first baby girl elephant born at the WAP, as I am sure you know. When the pile got low enough the babies appeared to be taking a slumber party on the top. Huge thanks to the elephant keepers who took the time to create the party and find a lot of goodies to spread throughout the entire yard.
Don Stillwell, item 13.