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Anyone living in a large family needs to be able to communicate, and that's true for elephants as well. Their language consists of around 70 different sounds. The best-known are trumpeting, which they use to express fear, and snorting, which keeps rivals at bay. Elephants also possess a repertoire of very low sounds that are barely audible to humans. This so-called infrasound has an enormous range. It propagates particularly well after sunset. This is due to layers of air at different temperatures that form in the evening above the cooling savanna. At the boundary between warm and cold air, at an altitude of about 300 meters, the low sounds are reflected and carried for up to ten kilometers.
Pinnawela is home to an elephant orphanage and the largest captive elephant herd in the world. A truly earthly spectacle unfolds daily at this elephant orphanage when the pachyderms are led to the nearby river for a joyful bath - a scene that is, of course, enthusiastically photographed by the many visitors. Those who tip the elephant keepers can even take home a souvenir photo of themselves and their favorite elephant. But be warned, the pachyderms roam freely throughout the enclosure and can become aggressive without any warning. For example, during our visit, one baby elephant was not at all pleased to be pushed away from its foster mother for a photo. |
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