Page 23 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 1 2025

NATURE

frequency for the human ear but capable of being heard by
elephants far afield and which can then be relayed to more
distant groups.
Most if not all field biologists remark how elephants, when
not being persecuted by poachers and by ‘sportsmen’, are
the most social, family-conscious, altruistic and friendly
of all creatures. It is the family discipline within elephant
society that most impresses, and the admirable, selfless
behaviour of mothers.

Left: Bull elephants
frolicking at Isimangaliso.

The field biologists working in Africa are, without exception, Above:
impressed by the degree of cooperation within the herds Elephants
and the way mothers and their offspring stay together in listen with
tightly-knit groups. When danger threatens, the females their feet.
immediately form circles around the young.
Joyce Poole provided compelling evidence of the way
elephants use role models in calf development and
how important, in elephant society, the attitude of its
individuals is towards the upbringing and discipline of the
young. She found mothers even teach their daughters
appropriate courtship behaviour and observed how, when
an older bull approaches a young female, the relatives stay
close.
Mating, after all, can be fraught considering the tonnage
involved and how time is of the essence because
females are in oestrus for only three days a year. It has
recently been discovered that receptive females emit a
unique infrasonic sound that attracts lone males from
many kilometres away. As Poole wrote, “Being part of an
elephant family is all about unity and working together for
the greater good.”
Elephants use vocal sounds, infrasounds through the air,
and seismics by stomping; they scream, they trumpet, they
chirp, they signal via smelly chemical secretions; they use
body language quite as much as we do with our nods and
waves and they touch each other just as we do when we
tap somebody on the shoulder or give them a playful nudge
in the ribs.
Sadly, it is only now, since we’ve shot the hell out of them,
that we are beginning to realise how close we are - how
very close - and how much we owe them in the way of
apologies.

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