The
Elephant Listening Project Team
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Peter
Wrege
Peter became the new director of the Elephant Listening Project
(ELP) in
January 2007. A behavioral ecologist, Peter has made Ithaca his
base for
more than 30 years, but has been fortunate to work for long periods
of time in the field, observing animals in their natural environments
and trying to understand what makes them tick. Although he has worked
in such exotic places as Venezuela, Panamá, and the Galapagos,
his eight years of research in Kenya, East Africa, were particularly
influential. He is thrilled to be returning to Africa to carry on
ELP’s research program in Africa’s equatorial rainforests.
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Katy
Payne
A lifelong naturalist and amateur
musician, Katy began her career studying the evolving songs of the
humpback whale. She shifted her focus to elephants in 1984, when
she and two colleagues discovered infrasonic calling in elephants
by recording at a zoo. The studies that followed from this discovery
have shown that elephants use their low-frequency calls to coordinate
their social behavior over long distances. She founded ELP in 1999,
and was the leader of the project until 2006, when she officially
retired. Katy is now writing a book about forest elephants, and
continues to play a critical role in all ELP's activities.
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Mya Thompson
A member of the Elephant Listening Project since its inception in
1999, Mya is currently a graduate student in the Cornell department
of Neurobiology and Behavior where her research focuses on improving
acoustic monitoring methodologies for African forest elephants and
understanding the role vocal signals play in maintaining their social
system. See
here for more on her work. |
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Edward
Wiafe
Edward has been working as a Wildlife Ranger in Kakum National Park,
Ghana (one of ELP’s study sites)
since 2003, but has taken 2 years off work to study for an M.Sc.
in Forest Ecology and Management at Freiburg University, Germany.
Edward is excited about using acoustic monitoring to evaluate populations
of elephants and other animals in Kakum National Park: this method
holds many advantages over ones currently used there. Consequently,
he chose to work with ELP for the internship for his M.Sc, and will
base his M.Sc. project on acoustic monitoring in Kakum N.P. He hopes
to do a Ph.D. in the future using acoustic monitoring in Kakum.
ELP is very happy to have Edward as a colleague: we hope to have
a long and fruitful relationship with him.
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Liz
Rowland
Liz joined the Elephant Listening Project in 2004 as a data analyst,
concentrating on testing automatic detectors to find elephant calls
in long recordings that were made in the field. Now she is also helping
with the general running of ELP. |
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Melissa
Groo
Melissa Groo has been a research assistant with ELP since its inception
in 1999. Although currently on leave with her new baby girl, she continues
to be involved in and committed to ELP and its goals. She also keeps
up listserves on African/Asian elephant news and resources, sponsored
by Save
the Elephants. Contact her at melgroo@hotmail.com if you’d
like to subscribe to these |
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Andrea
Turkalo
A biologist with the Wildlife Conservation
Society and a member of the IUCN's African Elephant Specialist Group,
Andrea has devoted the past 13 years to the first demographic study
of African forest elephants. She has identified and catalogued over
2,500 individuals dwelling in the Dzanga National Park, Central
African Republic and continues to track their family lives and associations.
As a founding member of the Elephant Listening Project, Andrea's
knowledge of this population is an integral part of the project.
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The Elephant Listening Project
Team at the
Dzanga Bai, Central African Republic
The field team at the Dzanga forest
clearing, from left to right, are ELP's engineer Eric Spaulding,
Research Assistant Mya Thompson, Research Associate Andrea Turkalo,
Principal Investigator Katy Payne and Research Assistant Melissa
Groo.
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Bioacoustics
Research Program Staff
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The
Elephant Listening Project (ELP) is part of the Bioacoustics Research
Program (BRP)at Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As director of the BRP,
and a biological acoustician with decades of practical experience
in acoustic surveys, Chris Clark brings to this venture his own expertise
as well as the program's infrastructure and the collective skills
of its employees. The Bioacoustics Research Program has developed
the innovative hardware and software used in this research. |
Chris Clark mounting an ARU
up a tree
in Dzanga Bai, Central African Republic
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Wildlife
Conservation Society
WCS has been working in Gabon since 1985 when Richard Barnes
started a 4-year project to estimat the number of elephants
there. WCS has been working with Gabon National Parks Office
to manage a number of the protected areas there. We hope to
work closely with Steve Blake who is conducting telemetry
studies on elephants in several parks in Gabon. To read more
about their work in Gabon, click here. |
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Elephant
Biology and Management Team
The EBM team is a group of African wildlife biologists, funded
by Conservation International to specialize in the censusing
of forest elephants. The team worked with the Elephant Listening
Project in 2000 and 2002 to deploy recording units and carry
out simultaneous dung-count surveys.
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Dzanga Ba'Aka
Team
A team of Ba'Aka
'pygmies' provides support to the Elephant Listening Project
in the Central African Republic. Their intimate knowledge
of the equatorial rainforest and its inhabitants has proven
essential to the success of our field efforts.
More
on the Ba'aka and their culture (PDF)>> |
Contact Information
Elephant Listening Project, Bioacoustics
Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
159 Sapsucker Woods
Road, Ithaca, NY 14850
info@elephantlisteningproject.org
Support
This research is funded by a consortium of
conservation organizations including Conservation
International, Critical
Ecosystem Partnership Fund, International
Fund for Animal Welfare, US
Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife
Conservation Society, and World
Wildlife Fund. Additional support has come from the Harry
Frank Guggenheim Foundation and individual donors. |
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