Fake Buzzing Bees Scare the Mighty Elephant

How do you keep elephants and humans apart? In Africa it’s an urgent problem, as human populations grow and encroach on elephants’ wild habitat. Now conservationists are trying out a novel form of deterrence: “technologically generated bee sounds.”

A single elephant can destroy an acre of farmland in fifteen minutes, so keeping them away is crucial in farming villages all over Africa. Elephants really don’t like bees, so many farmers have been placing honeybee hives on the perimeters of their crops. The bees not only ward off the pachyderms, they also generate honey.

The ELRECO elephant conservation project is one of a few groups deploying the bee teams to protect crops. But real, live hives are not always practical, so ELRECO has been trying out a device that emits bee sounds when motion-activated. Local farmers have said the device – called a Buzz Box – works, but now there is video evidence.

A camera trap in remote Liberia recorded a wild bull elephant buzzing off when he heard the sound of “bees.” ELRECO describes the encounter: “As the foraging bull approaches a community boundary, he triggers the Buzz Box which plays the sound of agitated bees buzzing. The bull stops mid-munch, recoils, seems to stare in aghast at where the sound is coming from and then turns on his heels and races away.”

The BuzzBox costs about $100 and is relatively easy to construct. Its solar-powered mechanism triggers 30 seconds of audio and can be programmed to blast other sounds elephants don’t like: barking dogs, chain saws, human voices or, God help us all, screaming goats.

Watch the bull elephant buzzing off here.

Photo credit: Francesca Mahoney / Wild Survivors