Prolonged proximity to humans ensures better performance of semi-captive Asian elephants at discriminating between human individuals by voice

Abstract

To avoid risks, organisms must recognize threatening heterospecies from non-threatening ones via acoustic cues from a distance. With land-use change, humans have encroached considerably into natural areas. Therefore, it is beneficial to animals to use acoustic cues to discriminate between different levels of threats posed by humans. Our study aims at testing this discriminatory ability in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), animals that have been for long history subjected to human interaction. We tested whether eighteen semi-captive elephants could discriminate between voices of their own mahouts (i.e., who take care of the elephants exclusively) and of other mahouts (unfamiliar individuals). The results showed that elephants responded successfully to the commands from their own mahouts, with an average response rate as high as 78.8%. The more years the mahouts had been as their caretakers, the more the elephant showed active responses toward the commands. Female elephants responded to the commands more frequently and faster than males. Also younger elephants responded more frequently and faster than older elephants. We argue that Asian elephants can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans by acoustic cues alone. Proximity with humans may be a factor, as fundamental as domestication, for animals to develop heterospecies discriminatory ability.