The Science of Elephant Stress | In Memory of Limpopo Research Centre

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:02]I'm Rud the founder of her root spray elephant rehabilitation and development.

[00:00:09]So my name is Andre Hansman. I am a professor in zology at the University of Ptoria and my field of expertise is wildlife endocrinology. So that means that I'm looking at hormone patterns related to reproductive function and responses to stresses in wildlife.

[00:00:29]Okay. Hello everyone. So my name is Na Reynolds and I'm currently a master student at the University of Ptoria and last year I had the great privilege of doing my honors research in collaboration with herd. So I initially starting off my honors I was like most honor students. I didn't know where my future was heading and I didn't know what was what was ahead for me. But I know I was excited about it and I approached my professor Andre Khan. um I came to know about his work in my third year of university and basically I know that his work was at the forefront of non-invasive research while I've interrology and I just knew something that that was something for me you know that was a skill set that I wanted to develop.

[00:01:23]So stress or what we call it the stress response is an ancient mechanism you find in almost every species and initially or originally it is a very good mechanism because it allows an individual to overcome a challenge. So in the past those challenges were quite severe but they were short-lived. So when you roaming the planes and there is a big predator attacking you, you run away and you either make it or not. To run away your body adapt to utilize as much energy as possible to overcome the situation.

[00:02:08]So it is initially a good mechanism. The mechanism stayed but the type of stressors animals humans every being exposed now is different. It's a persistent stressor. It is for humans let's say traffic or just presence of humans for wildlife. So the adaptation process in the species is the same. So it shuts down all the functions or reduce them which are not critical at the moment reproduction immune function all of that to generate as much energy to overcome the situation but the situation is not going away. So why is it now seen negative for us or critical for the animals is that because they still in that let's say survival mode they are more susceptible for disease for injuries for any sorts of effects reduced reproduction success because they are still coping with the stressor which is ongoing.

[00:03:24]It's extraordinary how much an elephant can tell us without making a sound. So, dunk carries um hormonal markers that reflect what is happening inside their bodies. So, especially around stress and reproduction and the overall well-being.

[00:03:43]So by examining these hormones we can understand whether an elephant is coping well struggling with social change, recovering from trauma um or just experiencing environmental stress. And the beauty of this method is that it completely is noninvasive.

[00:04:05]>> Okay. Yeah. So yes, I can totally get it that sudden dung sounds a little bit unusual and a little bit icky. Um, but to understand this question fully, we need to understand what is stress. So stress is not just what you experience, you know, when you're in the office or in a meeting that's stressful or what not. In a wildlife context, it's actually referred to how the body reacts. So if an animal experience a challenge or perceives a stressor, it activates their body's stress response.

[00:04:36]Now this is basically it pours down to a release of a group of hormones called glucocorticoids.

[00:04:44]And stress is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if animal releases those gluccocorticoids, it can actually help them survive or escape a dangerous situation. But when those gluccocorticoids are released for a long period of time, if it's prolonged, that is when the welfare of animal is affected. Now these gluccocorticoids get released into the bloodstream and eventually it gets metabolized by the body and ends up in the feces. And this is where we come in to analyze the dung samples. you can analyze the fecal gluccocorticoid metabolites and that can give you like a snapshot into the animals physiology um and the stress that they experience during certain time periods.

[00:05:30]>> Okay. So, tung gives us the truth the kind of um logical information that supports the emotional and the behavioral understanding of our carers already provide us.

[00:05:51]Okay. So, there's an ongoing, I phrase it nicely, debate between wildlife conservationists and animal welfare people.

[00:06:08]Usually they are not getting along that well.

[00:06:12]And um which is for me always surprising because I'm I'm a team player. Um if you have a certain number of individuals in a captive environment which is either a rehabilitation center, it could be a zoo, it could be whatever it is. That population at least if it comes to elephants currently will not contribute to the genetic diversity and it will be not contribute to the current broader goal of conservation because we have elephants roaming still in I wouldn't say acceptable but in numbers in some places in the world and because we in South Africa putting fences around those places we have at least it's argued partly maybe too many in certain small areas.

[00:07:11]However, if you a look at our ethical responsibility because especially in these rehabilitation centers, those elephants are there because of us as a species, not of you and me, but of other humans.

[00:07:30]So I don't think it's fair to take this responsibility away from us just because it was another person doing these cruel things to some of these individuals. So we have to do something from an ethical point. I think that's a no-brainer.

[00:07:45]From a scientific point, it creates an excellent opportunity to look at elephants on a very frequent and very close setting. We talked about temporal branch secretion. If I have to collect those, I can't go to a grown adult free roaming elephant in the wild and ask him, can you please hold still while I taking a swap or something like that. So having a scenario or a setting which allows me to without interfering too much or ideally not at all difficult um with those individuals allows us to study them in certain ways which we will not be able to do in the wild or only with an a bizarre amount of financially and logistically challenges.

[00:08:47]So I think there are two um um main reasons for that. The one is that if you want to monitor continuously you want to get the readouts so the hormone levels you want to determine as quick as possible. So sending those samples let's say to a lab within the country or even overseas will take longer. So the feedback mechanisms and the adjustments if it has to be quick will take longer. That's suboptimal and that's generalized. In our particular setting here is that we currently experience an everinccreasing amount of paperwork required to send biological material from A to B. So if they would have to send those samples on a frequent basis to a lab let's say here in Ptoria then the again that time delay and actually what they want to achieve might be much longer than if they could do it right on site.

[00:09:57]I think the turning point for for her was in September 2025 with the tragic incident involving Limpopo and the loss of our long employee Israel Shambira.

[00:10:14]Um, it was one of the most heartbreaking moments in her and and it it forced us to to confront the fact that that we must better understand the elephants more deeply, not only for the safety of our carers, but also for the emotional well-being of the elephants and the carers. So the Limpopo research center um is named in the in the memory of Limpopo and it promised that such tragedy tragedies um will drive positive outcome rather than despair.

[00:11:01]center will allow us to to listen to elephants more closely. Um, and also combine the behavioral expertise with scientific accuracy um to detect problems while in advance or earlier and to to improve welfare outcomes and then also to contribute to conservation science and integrity.

[00:11:28]So, what gives me hope um is knowing that every echo, every donor plate in our um soundware installation represents someone choosing to listen to elephants before they meet um fate into silence.

[00:11:47]So, hope grows when compassion and science work together. This is how we change the future of elephants.