The Woman Who Knows What Elephants Are Saying

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For almost 50 years, National Geographic Explorer Joyce Poole has been carefully watching the elephants of Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. Over that time she’s gotten to know them by name and has started decoding their sounds, smells, and body language to figure out just what the world’s largest land animal is talking about. For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard. Want More? Check out even more coverage on elephants this month, including Secrets of the Elephants, a four-part National Geographic series streaming April 22 on Disney+. Visit NatGeo.com/elephants to learn more. Also explore: Joyce Poole has a lot more to say about elephants. To learn more about her work and to hear more of the sounds she collected in the field, take a look at her website, Elephant Voices If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the sound of an African elephant.
0:10.0	Actually, it's a whole group of them.
0:14.0	And they're celebrating the birth of one more.
0:18.0	The African elephant is the largest land animal in the world,
0:21.0	and they also have the largest babies.
0:24.0	A newborn elephant weighs more than an average adult man
0:27.0	and pregnancy lasts 22 months.
0:30.0	All that is to say, a new baby is caused for celebration.
0:34.0	Here at National Geographic, Earth Day is a big deal.
0:41.0	It's as big as, well, an elephant.
0:44.0	And we're charging into the topic Tusks First,
0:49.0	magazine articles, maps, animated video,
0:52.0	and a documentary series called Secrets of the Elephants.
0:56.0	The clip you're hearing now is from that series.
1:02.0	And the podcast team didn't want to get left behind.
1:05.0	That's how we're putting together three episodes for you.
1:08.0	Each one, a different look at elephant behavior and their relationship to humans,
1:11.0	all featuring interviews with female National Geographic explorers.
1:15.0	This week, our guest is Joyce Poole,
1:18.0	elephant researcher and natural explorer who's been studying
1:21.0	wild African elephants for 50 years.
1:24.0	I feel we were so lucky, you know, because we were in a way the pioneers.
	...

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