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October 16, 2007 -- The Buzz Is That Elephants Fear Bees
Elephants squeeze into ever smaller habitats as people move into their territory. And this causes problems. Hungry elephants can charge into villages and towns, destroying crops and buildings. Sometimes people respond by shooting. But these conflicts between humans and elephants may soon get some help from a simple, low-tech solution: bees. It turns out elephants are afraid of them.
It was known that elephants went out of their way to avoid bees. So scientists in Kenya decided to test whether bees could be used deliberately to scare elephants off. They recorded sounds of disturbed hives. Then they placed those recordings near trees around known elephant families. In other trees they placed a control, a white noise buzz. Within just over a minute, sixteen of seventeen elephant families had fled the scene of the bee sounds. Half of them split within only the first ten seconds. In contrast, none left the white noise in the first ten seconds, and only four moved away after a minute. Scientists believe that beehives may be one more tool to help avoid elephant-human clashes, not to mention the money to be made from selling honey. A winning solution all around.
