Letter From Joyce Poole

Dear Sivaporn, We arrived back safely and have been busy catching up on work that accumulated while we were away and preparing for our month-long field trip to Kenya. We have hardly had a moment to reflect properly on everything we experienced and learned during our fabulous trip to Thailand. Many thanks to you and everyone who made our visit such a great experience. Petter is starting to write up a description of the trip for our website and I will be writing a trip report for our colleagues who, we are sure, will be excited to learn about everything that you are doing. In principle, we are very interested in following up on the idea of studying elephant-elephant communication in Sublanka as well as developing the concept of human-elephant communication to be used in semi-wild, or previously trained, populations of Asian elephants. We both believe that what you are attempting to achieve in Sublanka is very important - not only for the lives of individuals to whom you make an enormous difference, but as a conservation tool for an endangered species. Petter and I plan to make time for thinking this through while we are in Kenya, in our tent, away from the hubbub of internet and interruptions! In the meantime would you pass our greetings and gratitude to the Chairman and all those enthusiastic members of your team. We feel that we have expanded our circle of friends even further around the globe - and that feels very good! With very best wishes, Joyce and Petter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Joyce Poole Research Director, Amboseli Elephant Research Project Director ElephantVoices Buskhellinga 3, 3236 Sandefjord, Norway Tel.: (47) 33 47 88 17 Mobile: (47) 951 20 851 jpoole@elephantvoices.org - www.ElephantVoices.org