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Life

Elephants fear humans more than dynamite

11 August 2010

Âé¶¹´«Ã½. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

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(Image: Michael Nichols/National Geographic)

ELEPHANTS are not fazed by dynamite explosions, but change their behaviour significantly to avoid humans. That is the finding of a major study of how forest elephants deal with oil exploration in central Africa.

and colleagues at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, used to monitor the sounds and seismic activity of oil prospecting in the in Gabon. After collecting 27,000 hours of recordings, the team analysed how dynamite blasts and other human activity, such as driving…

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