{"id":768,"date":"2009-05-04T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_ms_news\/?p=768"},"modified":"2011-02-21T23:46:05","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T04:46:05","slug":"animal-research-at-disney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_ms_news\/news\/featured-article\/animal-research-at-disney\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal Research at Disney"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Teresa Pitman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s say you’re a biologist who wanted to research elephant behaviors. Tracking elephants in the wild is pretty challenging and it’s tough to get close enough to monitor what they’re doing. They’re not accustomed to people, so your presence is likely to change their behavior. On the other hand, observing elephants in the zoo means you’re seeing the animals in a very unnatural environment.<\/p>\n

There is, however, a place \u2014 some might call it a Magical place \u2014 where a number of elephants are in a relatively natural environment where they have freedom to move around, and are part of a large enough group that they can form the kind of natural herd relationships they would in the wild. That place just happens to be my favorite vacation spot: Walt Disney World.<\/p>\n

And, yes, research happens there. Disney’s Animal Program team connects with graduate students from the University of Florida and other schools to develop research studies that will advance our knowledge about the animals we share the planet with.<\/p>\n

Some of this is behind the scenes. The optimal feeding practices for each species, for example, have been carefully researched \u2014 more about that in a future article. But you can see some of the researchers at work by visiting Conservation Station.<\/p>\n

One current \u2014 and fascinating \u2014 study is looking at how elephants communicate with each other. Anne Savage, Conservation Biologist at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, explains: “Elephants make low-pitched vocalizations that are hard for humans to hear and some of the sounds we can’t hear at all.” The research team used special collars for the elephants with microphones inside that allow the elephant vocalizations to be downloaded to the computer. The elephants’ movements are also recorded by video camera, and then the sounds are carefully matched to the elephant’s behaviors.<\/p>\n

\"Collar\"
\nAn example of the collar used to study elephant vocalization. <\/em><\/p>\n

And here are some of the things they’ve learned:<\/p>\n