Elephant Listening Project

Listening to better understand and protect forest elephants

The Elephant Listening Project (ELP) tests, develops and implements innovative passive acoustic monitoring technologies to listen and better understand the communication system of forest elephants. But eavesdropping on elephants also enables to understand their use of the landscape and to identify gunfire and other threats.

OUR APPROACH

Led by Cornell University for the past 15 years, the ELP aims to:

Monitor forest elephants and their habitat through 50 autonomous recording units deployed in the canopy, nearly 8 meters high, in the Park and its periphery.
Improve recording and analysis tools to refine our knowledge and develop practical conservation applications.
Transfer skills and expertise to students, biologists and conservationists in Congo and more widely in Africa.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

The data collected by ELP allow to:

Understand better the sound and infrasound vocalizations of elephants.
Develop methods for extracting important demographic information from vocalizations alone (age, sex classes, sex ratio).
Correlate vocalizations with caller identity and behavior to identify key resource sites and potential breeding areas.
Characterize how elephants, and potentially other species, change their use of the forest after selective logging operations.
Identify the location and frequency of poaching events in order to respond to and better anticipate them.
Identify movement corridors into and out of the park to recommend increased protection or patrols at critical times.

CONSERVATION PRIORITIES

Data obtained by ELP, unavailable by any other method, are essential to facilitate evidence-based decision-making in conservation management.

The development of real-time recording and analysis tools would enable the development of uniquely effective monitoring solutions (e.g. gunshot warning system, elephant triangulation).