Andrea Turkalo, Elephant Listening Project

For two decades, a group of wild African elephants has been watched over, studied and protected by their own guardian angel: an extraordinary American scientist named Andrea Turkalo....Elephants communicate in a complicated, sophisticated language that scientists are trying to decipher and compile into the world's first elephant dictionary.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/01/...in6045121.shtml

http://therevealed.wildlifedirect.org/2009...ts-with-andrea/

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/...hants/belt-text

Audio interview, Nat Geo, Jun 2011 [see box on right]
http://radio.nationalgeographic.com/radio/...-archives/1125/

VIDEO: Secret Language of Elephants, 60 Minutes, Jan 2010
http://z13.invisionfree.com/Elephant_Comme...p?showtopic=671

VIDEO: Gabon: The Last Eden, Nat Geo, 2007 (Netflix streamable)
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/National-G...t-Eden/70072995

VIDEO Excerpts: Rumbles from the Jungle, BBC, 2010
Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDWaRJu2iU
Ivory Trade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHCXakWDPgg&feature=related
Corridors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHMIw11UiXk&feature=related

VIDEO Excerpts: Mysteries of the Jungle Giants, Animal Planet version of BBC "Rumbles...", 2011
http://animal.discovery.com/videos/mutual-...-elephants.html [playlist]

The 2 thermal images are astonishing ...

Forest Elephant Chronicles
Using infrared to monitor social dynamics

One of the biggest surprises was the beauty. You see dozens of elusive elephants scattered like hot coals across a cool plain that is surrounded by forest trees radiating the heat they absorbed during the day.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pu...hant-chronicles

Trouble in the Central African Republic

“[25 March] We evacuated Bayanga yesterday going downstream to the Wildlife Conservation Society camp [in Ouesso, Congo] for a few days to see how the situation evolves. This was precipitated by news that rebels were heading east. We didn’t want to wait, so packed up a few things and headed south on the river. It was a beautiful night with almost a full moon on a beautiful river. We had a close moment when we tried to run the border. The gendarmes on the CAR side started firing into the air, so we headed toward them. One of them was acting absolutely crazy threatening us. I passively listened making some lame excuses. Then a few of the younger men recognized me in the moonlight and started saying my name. This diffused the situation and the maniac then turned into a collaborator. It was eerie to see how fast the situation changed because once this guy started in on us I was sure we were stuck for at least a few hours, but all of this transpired in about 15 minutes. As we headed off we all put our heads down as the boat sped away and I was waving with my head down. I think our one advantage is that we were five women with two African men managing the boat. This was one memorable incident and after we arrived in camp in Congo at midnight we recounted the experience with a lot of laughter.

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b35ddb...12&e=1189d65c1b

The collapse of government in the Central African Republic, and general lawlessness, has forced Andrea Turkalo to evacuate twice from the Dzanga area in the last month. We just heard that she has decided to come back to the U.S. for awhile to try getting other work done. When the situation stabilizes enough that she can focus on her work at the bai, she will return to Dzanga.

A very hopeful sign, at least for now, is that the anti-poaching team that helps protect the Dzanga elephants is still in place and doing patrols.

via ELP Facebook page ...