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There’s a brief mention of a study that found that “merely playing recordings of angry bees through speakers in the field was enough to cause the elephants to f
by alehlopeh 3y ago
There’s a brief mention of a study that found that “merely playing recordings of angry bees through speakers in the field was enough to cause the elephants to flee” but it seems like that would be a far cheaper solution than putting actual beehives all over the border.
- amelius 3y agoWhen being attacked by an elephant, would it help to make bee noises? And is there a similar trick for dogs?
- lgas 3y agoYes, but it's hard to teach a dog to make bee noises.
- bitwize 3y agoElephants, and other savannah wildlife, apparently fear humans more than any other predator, so... make human noises?
- plonk 3y agoThe elephant's reaction to fear of humans might not be what you expected though? Do they flee humans more often than they charge?
- bitwize 3y agoWell, the test involved playing recordings of human voices, lions, hunting sounds, or control sounds at animals gathered at a watering hole and measured their responses. What they found was that the animals ran from the human sounds much more than the lion sounds; and elephants and rhinos ran particularly fast: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01169-7 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)... That said, elephants are smart, and have been known to seek out human camps for medical attention when injured: https://www.itv.com/news/2016-06-03/wounded-elephant-shot-by-poachers-seeks-out-humans-for-help https://www.itv.com/news/2016-06-03/wounded-elephant-shot-by...
- ben_w 3y agoUnlike loudspeakers, beehives do in fact grow on trees; this may make them cheaper for small farmers in Africa, even if speakers and a suitable power supply may be trivially cheap for us.
- alehlopeh 3y agoSure it may. But it also saddles them with a bunch of beehives that they have to maintain in perpetuity. It’s cute to think that a “natural” solution like “learn beekeeping” can solve this problem, but that warm and fuzzy feeling is for you, not the farmers in question. Practically speaking, a battery powered speaker is not going to have a higher opportunity cost for these farmers than a beehive.
- beezlewax 3y ago"Cute"? If elephants are as smart as we're lead to believe they'll eventually realise its a recording. Like birds do with those fake plastic hawks.
- ben_w 3y ago> But it also saddles them with a bunch of beehives that they have to maintain in perpetuity. Other way round: They'd have to maintain the speaker system, the beehives can maintain themselves.
- hoosieree 3y agoBut the honey produced by loudspeakers is not good.
- ChoHag 3y ago[dead]
- EamonnMR 3y agoThe elephants would get wise to that though.
- m4jor 3y agoAfter months/years of hearing bees but never getting stung or one fly up their noses, p sure the elephants would call the bluff and learn its fake.
- arcticbull 3y agoActual beehives though generate honey which can be sold, offsetting the cost.