Chit-Chat on the Savannah

Mysterious conversations among the planet's largest land animals

Spending an afternoon with Joyce Poole was one of the highlights of my reporting for the latest season of Threshold. You’ll meet this renowned elephant-whisperer in the episode out today, Trailblazers. Tune in to hear Joyce’s impressive imitation of a “let’s go” rumble, and so much more.

One of the many types of acoustic communication that Joyce has documented and named over her decades of research is the “cadenced rumble.” For some reason, this one really stuck with me after we talked, maybe because there’s so much mystery around it. Elephants often produce specific types of rumbles in connection with particular behaviors, and the combination of the action and the sound provides strong clues as to what the animal is attempting to communicate. With the “let’s go rumbles,” for example, Joyce says:

Someone stands on the edge of the group, and faces the way they want to go, and gives all these intention movements, and looks back to see if anyone's coming.

But the cadenced rumbles are different. Two or more females make them while doing a variety of other things, not one particular behavior. They trade rumbles back and forth in a sing-song sort of way for a few minutes or an hour. What are they saying? What could these rumbly conversations mean? We don’t know, but it was fun to hear Joyce speculate:

I think they have to do with planning and negotiation. But what precisely are they saying? Are they saying, “well, I want to go to Old Kaya Rock?” “No, I want go to the swamp.” “Well, no, I don't want to do either of those things.” What kind of level of detail are they able to communicate to one another? That's what we don't know.

Here’s a video of elephants making cadenced rumbles from ElephantVoices, Joyce’s nonprofit research and conservation organization.

Watch and listen to more cadenced rumbles at the ElephantVoices website. Some other fun recommendations among the vast catalog there are these “let’s go rumbles…”

…and the very sweet “little greeting rumbles,” which Joyce said was one of her favorite sounds the elephants make.

I love being a journalist. But I’ll confess, part of me wonders if I should try to become a professional elephant listener. What a privilege, to share the planet with these remarkable beings.

And what an honor, to meet one of their most devoted and attentive human observers.

If you’d like to support Joyce Poole and ElephantVoices, click here.