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Elephant Voices

Tuskless female elephants are proliferating in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. The country’s civil war led to widespread poaching, which killed most elephants and led some survivors to evolve a lack of tusks.

Joyce with brother, Bobby, and famous elephant, Odinga, Amboseli, 1967.

Joyce Poole recording elephant vocalisations in Amboseli in 2005.

Elephants with a rare 'tuskless' genetic trait had a better chance of surviving Mozambique’s long civil war, financed in part by poached ivory. About a third of surviving elephants’ daughters have no tusks.