Buzzing bees terrify elephants
2007-10-09 09:10
London - The buzz of angry bees frightens
African elephants into fleeing, according to a study in Kenya
that provides evidence this type of sound could help keep the
massive animals from trampling farms and threatening people.
Lucy King, a zoologist at Oxford University, who led the
study, said on Monday nearly all the elephants exposed to
recordings of angry buzzing bees ran away immediately, in
contrast to pachyderms who heard a recording of white noise.
"It was an extraordinary reaction," King said.
"They stopped immediately what they were doing, turned to
the speaker and very dramatically turned their heads from side
to side trying to locate noise. Their trunks were all up in the
air until one signalled a retreat for the herd."
The study, conducted alongside Save the Elephants research
group, is a step toward figuring out a way for elephants and
humans to co-exist.
Kenya's elephant population is slowly recovering from the
ivory trade, which the government outlawed in 1989, King said.
But Kenya's human population has tripled in the past 30
years, resulting in new schools, houses and farms that have
pushed into the elephants' wildlife areas, she said.
The growth of both has seen elephants trampling on valuable
crops and angry residents responding with guns.
"We are trying to find out ways to control the elephants
without shooting them," she said.
Building electric fences is not practical so the researchers
decided to see if science could back up a Kenyan folk tale that
buzzing bees terrify elephants, she said.
The researchers tested the response of 32 groups of
elephants - about 284 animals - living in the Samburu National
Reserve in northern Kenyan.
Sixteen of the 17 groups left their resting places under
trees within 80 seconds of hearing the bee sound with half
scattering in less than 10 seconds, the researchers said in the
current issue of Current Biology.
But of the other elephants in the groups that heard only the
white noise, none had moved after 10 seconds and only four
families had moved after 80 seconds.
"It shows elephants are aware of bees and can differentiate
the bee sounds," King said. "What we are looking at is whether
we can apply this to a deterrent system."