![\"wrege_deploy\"](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/04\/wrege_deploy-5-230x300.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cOne of the really key motivations for me, besides elephants just being very interesting animals, was [all] of my previous work. All of it had been very basic science kinds of research, not conservation-oriented, even though I had always been very interested in conservation. As a getting-toward-an-end-of-career trajectory, it was really motivating to me to work on a species where conservation was a top part of the job, and it seemed like a nice way to round out a lifetime of research.\u201d<\/p>\nSo he applied \u2014 and got the job.<\/p>\n
Now, seven years and 500,000 hours of audio recordings later, his stories reveal that Wrege has become enamored with the great beast and that he\u2019ll do everything he can to save the African forest elephant.<\/p>\n
One of three species of elephant, the forest elephant is \u201cthe one species of elephant that has the best chance of sort of staying wild,\u201d Wrege said. Although they\u2019re very large animals, they\u2019re difficult to see within their natural tropical rainforest habitat.<\/p>\n
ELP eavesdrops on them by placing recorders high in trees to monitor the animals\u2019 low-frequency vocal sounds for three or more months at a time.<\/p>\n
One of the key benefits to acoustic recording, Wrege said, is that there isn\u2019t any human bias in the data that are collected, and no human influence on the animals\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n
And the downside?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been going three or four times a year for about six weeks each time, so in the end it\u2019s almost half a year in the field. But almost all of that is hiking through the forest and putting recorders up, and collecting data and changing batteries and walking out again.<\/p>\n
![\"Vicky](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/04\/Vicky-III-inf-4.jpg\")
\u201cFor a behavioral ecologist, it\u2019s a bit frustrating because I actually don\u2019t sit and watch elephants all that often.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, by monitoring the elephants\u2019 communication, ELP can figure out what kinds of behaviors or interactions might be occurring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many, many questions that would be interesting to ask of forest elephant ecology and behavior,\u201d Wrege said, \u201cbut my focus has really been very much on practical applications of acoustic recording for their conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such as increasing anti-poaching efforts.<\/p>\n
Even though the dense rainforest allows elephants to move around as they always have and helps keep their social system intact, Wrege said it also is ripe for hiding ivory poachers. Government officials in the areas ELP currently works in \u2014 Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and northern Republic of Congo \u2014 can\u2019t easily use vehicles or planes to monitor forest elephants as can be done with the savannah elephants of eastern and southern Africa. There\u2019s almost no way to determine if you\u2019re in a national park in Central Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cEstimates we have at the moment, with the amount of ivory seizures going on, are that we may be losing 10 percent of the population a year,\u201d Wrege said. \u201cAnd the most recent estimate was about 100,000 forest elephants left, so that means we\u2019ve got a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
That problem can be identified very clearly, because of one particular sound that can be heard in the recordings of elephant communication \u2014 gunshots.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big project I\u2019m involved in now in Cameroon involves having quite a lot of sensors in a national park where we\u2019re recording gun hunting as well as elephant activity,\u201d Wrege said. \u201cThe idea is to specifically work with the conservator and use the hunting data from the acoustics to change how the patrols operate. Increase \u2026 the number of guys involved or the frequency of use, etc., and then see whether we can actually measure an effect of that change.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said their recordings in that park, approximately 15 months\u2019 worth, include about 4,000 gunshots. He estimates that a gunshot can be heard nearly every day, in every place they\u2019ve placed recorders.\u00a0It\u2019s frustrating, too, Wrege said, because he knows, whether that shot was for an elephant or another forest animal, by the time he\u2019s hearing it, it\u2019s too late to do anything.<\/p>\n
ELP is working on finding different kinds of automated detectors that will allow them to use high-performance computers to churn through the data more quickly. Wrege also has been training locals in Gabon and Cameroon to do some of the work ELP does to reduce the time lag between gathering data and getting it to someone who can use it.<\/p>\n
Ideally, ELP could use real-time audio detection equipment, where \u201cbasically you get the unit out in the forest and then it transmits the data.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe engineering and the stuff to do this is there,\u201d he said, \u201cbut in rainforest habitats where there\u2019s no sun, you have power problems, and there are no cell towers in most of these places \u2026 but we\u2019re working on all of those a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rainforest may present multiple challenges but the fact is, the elephants that call it home are still living an unconstrained life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally, it would be nice to see them remain so,\u201d Wrege said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Working to Save Jungle Giants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-9224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2015","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/04\/Fredas5-20.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9224"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9543,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions\/9543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Peter](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/04\/PW_boat_11.jpg\")
<\/a>