Research Agenda
This page is dedicated to the sources that I found and am planning on using for my research on elephant cognition, intelligence, issues surrounding the endangered species, and solutions to mentioned issues. The sources will include a short summary of what they discuss and how they have contributed to, both, my Literature Review and Advocacy Project.
Sources of Literature Review of Elephant Cognition
Bates, Lucy A, et al. “African Elephants Have Expectations about the Locations of out-of-Sight Family Members.” Biology Letters, vol. 4, no. 1, 2007, pp.
34–36., doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0529.
The main author of the article “African Elephants Have Expectations about the Locations of out-of-Sight Family Members”, Lucy Bates, Ph.D., is a fellow at the University of Sussex under the psychology department that mainly studies the intelligence of elephants and great apes as well as their social skills. This article was published by Biology Letters and ultimately explores an elephant’s abilities to connect the scent and location of their members, in order to keep track when traveling. The researchers tested this skill by placing urine samples of the elephants’ family members in certain locations that don’t match up to the elephant’s current location and then observing their reactions when encountering the scents. These experiments are intended to give researchers insight into an elephant’s memory and how that will play into cognition. This source fits into my research because, although it doesn’t directly address cognition, it explores behaviors that reveal information about their ability to process information and it is also a well-cited source when it comes to elephant intelligence or cognitive abilities.
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Nissani, Moti. “Do Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus) Apply Causal Reasoning to Tool-Use Tasks?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal
Behavior Processes, vol. 32, no. 1, 2006, pp. 91–96., doi:10.1037/0097-7403.32.1.91.
The author of “Do Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus) Apply Causal Reasoning to Tool-Use Tasks?”, Nissani Moti, Ph.D., was a biology professor at Wayne State University who primarily focuses his research on animal cognition, animal behavior, and human behavior/tendencies. This article was published by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes and discusses whether elephants have the ability to comprehend the cause and effect of actions. This topic was explored through a series of tests where they would pre-train the elephants to open lids of a bucket or lift boxes to obtain treats, however, they found that the elephants would often display fixated behavior/learning instead of causal reasoning. This source is connected to elephant cognition because if the elephants show causal reasoning, it indicates that their cognitive abilities are advanced enough to correlate actions with consequences. It also connects to the two other sources because they all are attempting to explore an elephant’s ability to process the situation they are in.
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Plotnik, Joshua M., et al. “Self-Recognition in the Asian Elephant and Future Directions for Cognitive Research with Elephants in Zoological Settings.” Zoo
Biology, vol. 29, no. 2, 31 Mar. 2010, pp. 179–191., doi:10.1002/zoo.20257.
The main author of this article, Joshua M. Plotnik, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Emory University under the Department of Psychology that focuses his studies on animal cognition and their behaviors in efforts to conserve species such as elephants. The article “Self-Recognition in the Asian Elephant and Future Directions for Cognitive Research with Elephants in Zoological Settings” was published in the journal called Zoo Biology. This piece of research mainly addresses an elephant’s basic cognitive abilities to recognize its existence and is tested by the Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) test where the researchers will observe how elephants react when placed in front of a mirror. The researchers conducted a series of pre-trials and actual trials where they observed the elephant’s behaviors when in front of a mirror, as well as when one-half of their face was marked with an “X”. This source is the first to ever test the elephant’s ability to recognize themselves and is vital to the study of animal cognition because this is a basic test that researchers like to conduct on most animals to see what their brains are capable of.
Sources of Advocacy Project on Elephant Poaching Issues
Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa, and Steve Blake. “Megagardeners of the Forest – the Role of Elephants in Seed Dispersal.” Acta Oecologica, vol. 37, no. 6,
2011, pp. 542–553., doi:10.1016/j.actao.2011.01.014.
The main author of this article is Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, Ph. D., is a research scientist that focuses his studies on wildlife conservation and ecology. Ahimsa also writes the majority of his articles on the environment and how it can impact certain countries. This specific article is on how elephants are vital to the environment and with the rapid decline in their population, this can pose a threat to the ecosystem. The study consists of researching the seed dispersal of elephants and how they are vital to our world. The article plays a role in the project because it reveals the consequences if elephants become extinct and it works to emphasize the importance of these creatures.
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Chase, Michael J., et al. “Continent-Wide Survey Reveals Massive Decline in African Savannah Elephants.” PeerJ, vol. 4, 2016, doi:10.7717/peerj.2354.
This article is written by many authors, but the main one being Michael J. Chase, Ph.D., who is a conservation ecologist who mainly spends his time researching African elephants and the long history of poaching. This study investigates the trends of elephant populations all across the continent of Africa by conducting surveys in each country. These countries must be within the standards of the survey, and once the data is collected, the researchers assessed the results in order to call for elephant conservation. This study is vital to the Advocacy Project because it presents data and statistics of elephant populations and how they are rapidly decreasing.
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Lemieux, A. M., and R. V. Clarke. “The International Ban on Ivory Sales and Its Effects on Elephant Poaching in Africa.” British Journal of Criminology, vol.
49, no. 4, 2009, pp. 451–471., doi:10.1093/bjc/azp030.
The main author of this article is Andrew M. Lemieux, Ph.D., who is a researcher who explores wildlife crime. He spends his time focusing on the topic of poaching and how to alleviate that issue with his post-doctoral degree in criminology. The main focus of this study was how, despite the ban on ivory, there were still significant amounts of elephants being poached for their tusks. Lemieux and his partner, Clarke, conducted this study to evaluate whether the ban on ivory trade or sales has been effective or not. This source contributes to the advocacy project because it presents the current problem with poaching and how the ban on ivory has yet to stop the issue. It calls for another solution to poaching and the urgency of the situation.
Sources of Advocacy Project on Elephant Poaching Solutions
“Elephant.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund, www.worldwildlife.org/species/elephant.
This source is an organization that has been working closely with government agencies in the United States to try and end trafficking of wildlife. They also use their organization as a platform to spread awareness about all sorts of animals, especially elephants and the ivory trade. A solution that they have implemented is training government officials and rangers on how to handle poaching issues and how to practice “antipoaching techniques”. They also mention how they have been working with local communities to educate them on matters and how to reduce conflict between humans and animals.
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Stampler, Laura. “Geotagging Safaris Can Lead To Poaching.” Time, Time, 7 May 2014, time.com/91323/stick-to-foodstagramming-poachers-may-be-
following-your-safari-pictures/.
This source is written by journalist Laura Stampler, who graduated from Stanford University. The source discusses how social media impacts the conservation of elephants and how it can lead poachers to the exact location of wild animals, putting them in great danger. She mentions that due to geotagging photos of wild animals, poachers get the exact coordinates of the location and therefore leading them to their source of ivory. This can be used in my advocacy project as one of the grassroots solutions that relate to social media because although the platforms are great for spreading awareness, they can also be a dangerous tool that puts animals’ lives at risk.
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“U.S. Efforts to Control Illegal Elephant Ivory Trade and Internal Markets.” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service International Affairs,
Sept. 2012, www.fws.gov/international/pdf/factsheet-us-efforts-to-control-illegal-elephant-ivory-trade.pdf.
This source is a pdf published by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which is a federal government agency that oversees animal & plant conservation and protection. This is a fact sheet that reviews all the actions and solutions put in place in order to conserve the African elephants from poaching. They mentioned that Congress passed an act called African Elephant Conservation Act (AfECA) that puts funds aside in order to save the species from extinction. This act was put in place during 1988 and a year later, they placed a “moratorium” on the importation of elephant ivory. This is still going on today, in efforts to reduce the poaching of elephants. This can be used in the solutions section of my AP essay to establish how although this federal policy was instilled, there are still growing numbers of elephants being poached and imported secretly. It indicates that this is a difficult issue to overcome but every act counts.