All language subtitles for Forest Elephants Rumbles in the Jungle BBC Natural World 2010 1080p EN SUB

Think of African elephants and most
of us will picture open savannah

where the largest land mammal mingles
with lions, giraffes and gazelles.

In fact, a third of
Africa's elephants live here...

in dense, dark rainforests.

Forest elephants stand just two
metres at the shoulder, are more

slightly built and have pinker tusks
than those on the savannah.

Little else was known about
them until one remarkable woman
began eavesdropping on their lives.

Andrea Turkalo
is no ordinary scientist.

By living alone in remote jungle,

she's learnt more about these hidden
giants than anyone else on earth.

This has placed a huge
burden on her shoulders.

Forest elephants
are now under greater threat
than their savannah cousins.

But Andrea could be in
a unique position to help them.

She's learnt their language and
understands what they're thinking.

She can even hear when
they're in trouble.

Incredibly, she believes that,
if we listen carefully enough,

they might tell us
what they need to survive.

The only thing most scientists
see of forest elephants
is what they leave behind.

Counting dung piles
has been the crude way of
guessing how many there are.

Their real secrets are hidden
away in the vast rainforest

that stretches over the Congo Basin.

But, in a small corner of
the Central African Republic,

there is a window into their lives.

This is Dzanga Bai.

A vast natural clearing...

and a Mecca for forest elephants.

The forest provides
all the food they need,

so what is it
that draws them out of the shadows?

The clearing contains
a vital ingredient
that's lacking in their diet.

Volcanic rocks lie close to the
surface, and the salts they contain

neutralise toxins ingested
with rainforest leaves and bark.

Generations of elephants
have come here

to prospect for these minerals
and settle their stomachs.

Blowing down, they churn up the mud,

then take a mouthful of
the mineral-enriched waters.

As soon as they've mastered
their trunks, they're hooked.

It may be that these mineral salts

are also vital for the elephants'
growth and fertility...

..which is why as many as 3,000
elephants visit Dzanga each year.

Dzanga Bai is not the only clearing
where they can get these salts,

but it's certainly one of
the biggest and most frequented.

When Andrea Turkalo first came here,
she had an instinct that this place

could help her unlock the secret
lives of forest elephants.

I knew immediately that this was
an extraordinary place,

because to see wildlife in the open

in the forest is
literally impossible.

I went there first in 1987
just to see the place and
actually slept there.

And all night there were these
extraordinary elephant sounds,

because elephants
don't sleep like we do.

There was just
this symphony of elephants.

And in the morning they were still
there and it was obvious that this

was probably one of the most special
places for them in the Congo Basin.

Andrea now understands
what the symphony means.

She can even hear
an individual elephant's voice.

But back then,
she was faced with a huge problem.

Each elephant visits for just
a few hours - at best, a few days -

so Andrea only had
snapshots to go on.

She might not see them again
for months or years.

From this constantly changing
cast of characters,

how could Andrea work out
the big picture?

There was another challenge.

Andrea wasn't a trained scientist,

but she had been a teacher
in the Bronx,

one of New York's
toughest neighbourhoods,

and she was single-minded enough
to commit herself long term.

She left her family and friends

and set herself up
in the middle of nowhere.

At the beginning,
I can honestly say there were
a lot of things I was afraid of.

I wasn't really
comfortable in the dark.

You're always in contact with
insects and that was something
I didn't like, but if you're

going to stay here, you have to get
used to that and deal with it.

Andrea's had to turn her hand
to everything, building a camp

from scratch and surviving
on minimal creature comforts.

She's also had to place her trust
in the local BaAka pygmies.

They come from an ancient tribe who
have always lived in this forest.

They have helped her to adapt.

Every day, Andrea sets off
with her loyal helpers

on the 45-minute walk to the Bai.

It's a routine
she's stuck to for 20 years.

Even though Andrea
sees individuals only rarely,

she's been able to piece together
their life stories.

She couldn't have reached
this extraordinary position

without first learning how to
pick out faces from the crowd.

By mid-afternoon,
the crowd can be 140 strong.

To keep track of so many individuals,
Andrea drew pictures of their ears,

which get ripped and torn
in distinctive ways as they move
through the jungle.

She had over 4,000
identity cards

before she realised her
phenomenal memory was taking over.

I think the big breakthrough
was when you realised you knew
the elephants, you felt empowered.

You could just go out there
and look and you knew them,

like you would see someone on
the street in your hometown
and recognise them.

Now, her encyclopaedic mind
holds details of countless
unfolding family sagas.

During the hours
she spends at the Bai,

she notes all the arrivals,

and crucially, who greets whom.

It's late afternoon,
and Andrea has noticed

two related elephants who've arrived
from different parts of the forest.

This is Mimi One,
who's the matriarch of this group.

Mimi One knows that
Mimi Two is there.

Yeah, they're heading
right towards each other.

Here we go, there's a nice
greeting going on right now.

Some very low frequency, yeah,
now they're trunking each other.

Yeah, yep,
that's a mother and daughter.

So some of these greetings are
very subtle and if you know

the individuals,
then you can predict them.

By understanding these relationships,
Andrea's made an important discovery.

In the forest beyond the Bai,

it's rare to see more than
one elephant at a time.

People assumed they lead
solitary, independent lives.

Andrea believes that, even though
relatives might not stay together in

the forest, they do appear to
know each other's whereabouts.

I think there was a general
misconception about

forest elephants
only having small family groups.

But they do have extensive networks
and they should because,

we know that about
savannah elephants,

why shouldn't forest elephants
still maintain these social groups?

Dzanga Bai,
as well as offering medicinal salts,

appears to be an important venue
for elephant family reunions.

Andrea is beginning to understand
why the BaAka call this place

'The Village of Elephants'.

But even the BaAka don't understand

how the elephants appear to second
guess each other's movements...

how they know when other family
members will be at the Bai.

To get to the bottom of this,

Andrea has had to start thinking
like an elephant...

..tuning in to this forest world
as they do.

It's at night, when they're
visible only by starlight,

that the elephants are
at their most sociable...

and most vocal.

It's also when Andrea
is most worried for them.

Huge reunions out in the open place
forest elephants in grave danger.

Every year, one in ten of Dzanga's
elephants is taken by poachers.

Andrea's no longer here
just to study them...

she feels a growing duty
to protect them.

She believes their conversations
are rich in meaning,

and that one way to help
is to listen to what they're saying.

Today,
she's adding to her vocabulary.

And to get a better view of
the clearing, she's working
from a viewing platform.

We're up pretty high, I think
we're up about maybe seven metres

and you can see one end
of the Bai from the other.

And you see all the entrances
to the Bai,

so I'm able to keep track of
all the individuals that come in.

From up here, she can compile
a kind of elephant phrase book

which links particular behaviour
to the calls they make.

What I'm doing is I'm trying to
capture vocal sequences between
elephants in the clearing

in order to build up
an elephant lexicon,

what these vocalisations mean.

Because I know the individuals,

I can also anticipate
these vocal events.

Someone's lost.

It's probably
a juvenile lost its family.

An elephant's hearing is phenomenal.

They can hear much
deeper sounds than we can.

Technology is helping Andrea to
record these very low frequency calls

that are normally
inaudible to humans.

Yeah, Milo's checking
out this female.

She's doing a very nice rumble.

Elephants often do that while
the female's being checked out

by a male,
they do this real low rumble.

Andrea can now identify
ten different types of call.

She's even discovered that each
family has a distinctive voice.

BABY ELEPHANT CRIES

Oh, separated from its mother.

Oh, the mother is coming,
here comes the mother -

the mother hears the baby crying.

Here she is, she's vocalising.

There's a lot of low frequency
going on now, reassuring the calf.

And probably the calf is learning
the family's

specific calls.

Back in camp, Andrea can analyse
the recordings

and start to see the pattern
of each elephant call.

This is a clip that I've pulled off.

It's to illustrate the distress call
in a young calf.

And it's crying,

and it makes this sort of very low,
mournful sound and what you'll see

next in the tape is the response
of two young sub-adult females.

They approach the calf and then
they discover each other and this

looks like a small greeting,
but then they go back and follow

the calf, who's probably heard
from its mother in the meantime

and is approaching its mother.

Each sound recording gets turned
into a spectrogram,

giving Andrea a detailed picture
of the call.

This is the calf's call
and then you have these

very low frequency calls here.

I mean, you definitely see the calf
calling, you see the mouth open,

but to know who's making those
low frequency calls is difficult.

But, because the calf turned around
and went in the other direction,

I would assume it's the mother

and it recognised its mother's voice
and now it's approaching its mother.

If you collected enough
of these distress calls

of calves of a certain age,

you could compare them to see if
this is your typical distress call.

Andrea has developed
an amazing skill.

By learning their language,
she can interpret what they're doing.

This is a greeting between
three members of the same family.

They're all vocalising.

They've all recognised each other
and they've all grouped together

and you see their ears are flapping
and they're trunking each other

and they're very excited
to be together again.

So I assume that they were separated
for a bit of time because of

the energy involved
in their vocalisations.

Their rumbles can travel over
a mile through dense vegetation.

Even though family members
are spread out,

they can hear an invitation
to meet up.

Part of the call is inaudible
to our ears, it's infrasonic,

but a lot of it is audible
and that's what we're hearing.

But these low frequencies
are the ones that travel
the farthest through the forest.

If they're having this greeting
and there are individuals related to

them in the nearby forest,
they're going to hear it.

And a lot of times you see other
members of their family show up.

If their social networking
is this powerful,

they might even be able
to warn each other of danger.

The following morning,
the Bai is eerily quiet.

THEY CONVERSE IN LOCAL DIALECT

He's saying that

he's found blood on the trail and
there's a lot of elephant tracks.

Days like this remind Andrea
how vulnerable these elephants are.

I can see blood right here.

He ran here but we can see
tracks all around here...

There's more here...

..more here...

So you can actually see where
the elephant has trampled the earth.

He's probably panicking.

And he looks pretty big...
SPEAKS LOCAL DIALECT

You can see a track right here.

Pretty big male, that's
the track of the front leg.

Most forest elephants have tusks.

The biggest adults
carry the most ivory.

OK, this is a big patch of
coagulated blood.

It's pretty fresh,
so it was from this night.

And there's also a track...

Now they're saying
it might be a female.

Where we are now is only about
probably 30 metres from the Bai.

But we suspect the elephant was
probably shot on the other side

and ran because we didn't hear
any gunshot in the night and,

generally, somebody will hear
a gun if it goes off.

Dzanga Bai is within a National Park,

so all Andrea can do is report
the incident to forest guards.

It's a hard place to police, but
Andrea's very presence in the area

does make events like this less
frequent than they'd otherwise be.

Andrea wants local people to
understand the value of elephants,

not just as intelligent,
interesting animals,

but because, in their
secret wanderings,

elephants influence the shape
and richness of the forest itself.

The richer they make the forest,
the more food there is for everyone.

The most obvious way they do this

is by engineering pathways
through the tangle of vegetation.

Over time, elephant feet
have created wide trails,

highways that run for
hundreds of miles through the forest,

and which link key resources.

Their trails are used
by many other animals.

Western Lowland gorillas eat
the same kinds of fruit as elephants,

so elephant paths
are like signposts to food.

But there's one type of fruit
that only the elephants can get to.

Omphalocarpum fruits
are encased in a tough shell,

making them virtually impossible
to crack.

Elephants have
the perfect tool for the job.

They may devour everything,

but the seeds of all the fruits they
eat pass unharmed through the gut.

As they travel,
the elephants replant the seeds,

creating avenues of
their favourite fruit trees.

Where there's a lot of
elephant activity,

areas open up and
sedges and grasses can take hold.

They are fundamental
to the gorillas' diet.

These great apes would find life
much harder without the elephants.

It's now the dry season,
one of the busiest,

and for Andrea, one of the most
fascinating times at the Bai.

It's when most of the
big bulls show up.

This is Triple Bite.

Over the years, Andrea has
watched him grow from an adolescent

into one of the most
dominant bulls in the clearing.

But he hasn't been here
for nearly a year.

He has travelled hundreds
of miles to reach Dzanga,
where he knows he can find females.

It's not just the females that sense
the tension rippling across the Bai
when the big males arrive.

That's Gonya Five chasing Sitatunga.

For the younger bulls especially,
this can be a very exciting time.

The young elephants,
they come and they're very feisty

and they'll just run around in
the Bai for the entire afternoon.

He's like a young male in puberty,
so he's learning how to be a man.

Unlike on the savannah, elephants
rarely see each other in the forest.

This clearing offers
rare moments of contact,

time for the bulls
to get to know each other

and learn each other's strengths.

And everything they do
is copied by the youngsters.

Sort of like a schoolyard.

Elephants are so much like humans.

We learn to be human,
we end up being socialised,

and elephants
undergo the same process.

Andrea calls this "Bull School",

a time and place to learn their
position in elephant society.

When I started this study I had no
idea about how conscious they were

and yes, they do have good memories
and they have personalities.

And watching an elephant grow
from childhood to adulthood

has been astonishing,
to see the changes

and how much they really have
to learn to become an elephant.

Understanding the central importance
of Dzanga Bai

places an even bigger burden
on Andrea's shoulders.

Her presence here is not just
preventing elephant deaths,

but the possible disruption
of their entire way of life.

Elephant meat is a delicacy,
but it's rarely on the menu.

They are hard to kill
with a normal shotgun.

And Andrea's work is
making a difference.

When I first started working
with the BaAka,

I think we all had this vision
that they know the wildlife.

But they didn't know elephants

in the way that they've
gotten to know them with me.

But because now they've spent many
years observing elephants first hand
their ideas have totally changed.

In fact, one of them
said to me one day,

"Madame, these aren't elephants,
these are people,"

and it was very touching
to me to hear that.

Sadly, local opinions are
increasingly affected by

bigger changes
sweeping across the region.

Andrea's seeing more and more
elephants entering the Bai.

She thinks they're
being pushed into Dzanga,

as commercial logging disrupts
their extensive network of paths.

What's more, ivory is back in demand.

And the tusks of forest elephants
are most sought after.

They are pinker and much denser
than those of savannah elephants,

resulting in a "rose ivory"
that's highly prized for carving.

Its value is astronomical.

A pair of tusks raises $90,000
on the black market.

It's no wonder some local people
get drawn into poaching.

It's the easiest place to find
and kill forest elephants -

unless, of course, Andrea is there.

I will react immediately
to any threat.

I can be out at the clearing
having a nice afternoon and then
I hear a gunshot and I'm gone,

I'm back to camp, on the radio
trying to get guards motivated.

In many ways,
Andrea is the only person

standing between the elephants
and mass slaughter.

After years of wanting to be here,
she now dare not leave.

With the stakes becoming higher,

even Andrea cannot live in such
remote forest without protection.

She needs to share
the weight of responsibility,

and a chance has come.

She's been asked to help with
a pioneering study

at the other end
of the elephants' range.

It means, for a few weeks,

she will have to leave
the elephants at Dzanga Bai.

Forest elephants inhabit a huge area

stretching over
two million square miles.

But there could be fewer
than 125,000 left.

This is Gabon...

..where the African rain forest
meets the ocean.

It's considered to be one of the last
safe havens for forest elephants.

It couldn't look more different
from Dzanga.

Beyond the endless beaches there's a
mosaic of savannah, forest and swamp.

It's a new experience for Andrea.

She's used to seeing groups
of over 100 elephants together.

Here, just seeing one is a challenge.

You don't see many,
but when you do see them

they're doing extraordinary things

that I've never seen before
in my life.

Elephants have adapted to
this diverse range of habitats,

even snorkelling
across flooded channels and swamps.

This place gives me
a lot of hope in terms of

elephant conservation, just because
the elephants aren't accessible.

People can't hunt in these swamps
and so that is a refuge for them.

However, there's
no clearing like Dzanga

to see elephants
and monitor what they do.

Researchers have had to find

a different way
to tune into their lives.

Andrea's joined Peter Wrege

from the Elephant Listening Project
at Cornell University.

He's an expert in acoustic research,

something he hopes will reveal
more about forest elephants.

So, this is the hard drive
to store the data and then this is

the computer, microcomputer, that's
actually processing the sound.

He's putting up remote listening
devices to eavesdrop on them.

But he needs Andrea's help, because
only she can translate their calls.

We're still in kindergarten

in learning exactly
what their vocalisations mean

and the social contexts
in which they occur,

and this is where Andrea is
so vital to what we're doing now,

is that she knows the behaviour
of the elephants very, very well.

These recording units contain
state of the art microphones,

specially designed to pick
up low frequency calls.

They can be left running for
three months, 24 hours a day.

Each one records rumbles from
over a square mile of jungle.

It's better than CCTV. That's OK.

So, we're finished, ready to go.

Peter already has
33 of these bugging devices

deployed in the
rain forests of Central Africa.

Now, he needs Andrea's help
to decode the latest recordings.

ELEPHANTS RUMBLE

It's pretty deep.
Hmm. The different rumbles tell

Andrea how many elephants are present
and what they're doing.

OK, that, for me,
this first call

may be an adult female

and this might be a response
to that call.

Let's try this one, then.

This is a young animal again.
Young animal.

Just by listening, she can tell
which members of the family
may be vocalising and why.

Would you call those
all protest calls, or...

you said also sometimes
they just get separated...

No, I think they're lost calls,
I think they're separated.

So you can, you're actually
hearing a difference

between a protest and a lost?

Yes, those sound like
to me lost calls.

It starts low and it goes up.
The structure looks

the same. Yeah, well,
that's one of the problems.

I need to know more from your ear

what do I need to be looking for
to make that distinction.

Andrea's knowledge
will help Peter create

a visual record
of specific elephant calls.

He can then refer to this library

and learn even more about
elephant life here.

You don't have anything
before that, do you, recorded?

Oh, I'm sure I do.

This is clipped out.

It almost sounds like mating.
Really?

Yeah, because you've got a lot of
these high pitched things going in.

Without even seeing elephants,
it's possible to translate

their rumbles into information
about breeding success.

They've also revealed
the dangers elephants face.

Before his study began,

Peter was told there was
no poaching in the area.

That's not the case.

These, I'm pretty sure,
are high powered rifle shots.

So, these devices also
spy on the poachers.

By pinpointing hotspots
of illegal hunting,

guards could target areas
more strategically and efficiently.

Lot of frogs.

LOUD CRACK ON TAPE

Yeah, those are
definitely guns.

I'm very concerned, actually, about

the huge knowledge that Andrea
has about these elephants.

I find it phenomenal
what she remembers.

No-one else comes
anywhere close to what she has,

so I think it is critical
that we basically

kind of extract this information
from her brain.

This experience has shown Andrea

how her knowledge could help
elephants across their whole range.

But she will always feel a strong
connection to the individuals

back at Dzanga
that have been her life for so long.

I probably think about these
elephants

during my waking hours
about 90% of the time.

I'm very concerned about them.

I mean, I feel it's my moral
responsibility to be there.

Hopefully when I get back,
you know,

the numbers will be
the numbers I'm expecting to see.

When Andrea returns to Dzanga,
there's depressing news.

More poaching has been
reported in the area.

The demand for ivory
is now threatening

the very existence of
forest elephants.

Recent data has shown
we've maybe lost between

40 and 50% of the population
in the Central Africa area.

So there's increasing pressure
on this area

where there are still
animals left over.

Dzanga Bai continues to be
a magnet for forest elephants,

and a privileged window
into their lives.

(That's Marnie.)

(Oh, there's a new calf.)

For the next 60 years, this calf
could return time after time

to take the salts, meet up
with family and to find a mate.

(That's nice.)

(That's a new baby for today.)

He's trying to figure out
what to do with his trunk.

But if Andrea were to leave,

who knows what upheavals
he and his family would face?

I'm not an optimist about
the future for animals here.

So I mean, I get a
little bit emotional about it,

but the reality is, these animals,

if they're not protected,
they're going to be poached.

For two decades, she has carried
this responsibility on her shoulders.

But she cannot stay here for ever.

I've been here for 20 years
and I'm beginning to feel my age.

I think I'll stay here
as long as I can walk

and I can get support to do what
I do, because I love this place.

There's a lot of downsides
to my job, but coming here every day

is what makes it all worthwhile
and just seeing them right here.

Maybe the pioneering study in Gabon

will eventually
take the pressure off her.

And the remote listening devices
will become her ears in the forest...

..allowing elephants to tell us
of the dangers they face,

as they continue their conversations
through the jungle.