Meet Selengei
Hi Selengei! Please tell us about yourself.
My name is Selengei which means maiden, or young girl, in the Maa (Maasai) language. It is also the name of a river in southern Kenya, near the border with Tanzania. I was born and raised in Kenya where my parents study elephant communication and behaviour. My mother was also raised there as her father was country Director of the Peace Corps in Kenya in the 1960s and then later became Field Director of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) in Kenya.
My grandparents took their children camping all over East Africa, and it was these safaris that inspired my mother’s love for nature and wildlife, especially elephants. She was 11 years old when she listened to a talk by Jane Goodall and told her mother that she wanted to study animals. She started her elephant study when she was 19 and made her first major discovery when she was 22. She discovered and described the phenomenon of musth in male African elephants and later discovered that many of the calls they use to communicate contain infrasonic components — that is, sound below human hearing. My upbringing was, therefore, very influenced by my mother’s work — which took us to Amboseli National Park and other wildlife locations in Kenya and Tanzania.
Where did you grow up?
I had a very unusual childhood. My parents work in Amboseli National Park meant that I spent a lot of my childhood living in the Elephant Research Camp. There is no fence around the camp and elephants and other animals wandered in and out of the camp daily. I remember watching them while I did my school work and probably learned more from them than from my homework. My parents left for work early in the morning while I stayed in camp.
I wasn’t allowed to go with them because they were recording elephant calls and I made too much noise in the car. But, in the afternoons, I was permitted to go with them and we spent our time with elephants. I listened as my mum explained to me what the different sounds and movements meant, what the elephants were saying to one another. That whole experienced really influenced the person I am today. Elephants are so incredibly socially complex and special. I feel grateful for having been given that unique little window into their world. They have and will always be a big part of my life.
What was your most memorable experience growing up?
I think the most memorable experience growing up was just being free and happy. I was a little bush baby, always running around without clothes and playing in the dirt or mud. I literally never wore shoes. I look at kids today with their phones and iPads and I am so thankful that I grew up before all that - I lived an outdoor life and Nature was my playground.
“I lived an outdoor life and Nature was my playground. ”
Most of my childhood was spent in the company of animals (both wild and domestic), which is probably why I am so passionate about them. We had dogs and cats, cows, donkeys, goats (my favourite), chickens and at one point we were given a baby Thompson’s gazelle to raise. We named it Swara, Swahili for gazelle.
Were there challenges to being raised in Kenya?
As a child you don’t realise or understand the challenges that your parents face; you are just living your life. But there were challenges, enough that my parents moved from Kenya to Norway when I was 11. It was a really difficult decision for them, especially for my mother, but I think it got to the point where they felt they had no choice.
I was being driven an hour to and from school every day on a really dangerous road and, at the time, Kenya was going through a particularly difficult period regarding security. We had a lot of friends who had been through some scary experiences. Looking back on it now, it was probably the right decision for them, but it was really hard for me to leave Kenya. Luckily we still have our home there and my parents still go back for work. I went for school holidays and recently spent time working in Kenya.
Can you tell us a little bit about ElephantVoices and what kind of work they do?
ElephantVoices is a non-profit organisation that was founded and is directed by my parents. ElephantVoices studies the behavior and communication of elephants and uses knowledge acquired over decades to act as a voice for elephants. Through conservation, advocacy, research and education ElephantVoices promotes the protection and kinder treatment of elephants wherever they may be. ElephantVoices has run a number of elephant behavior studies and conservation projects - in Amboseli and Maasai Mara, Kenya, as well as in Gorongosa, Mozambique.
They also speak out, write statements and affidavits to improve captive elephant welfare, and my mother has even gone to court for elephants on a number of occasions. For the past several years they have been working on The Elephant Ethogram: A Library of African Elephant Behavior a publicly accessible database that describes over 300 elephant behaviors and includes over 2,000 video clips. Once it is finished later this year it will be available online for anyone to access. I am really excited about it because I think it will be a very valuable tool for people to better understand elephants.
In your opinion, what is so special about elephants?
My favourite thing about elephants is the way they make me feel. Just like Africa, elephants take hold of your spirit and make you look at the world from a different perspective. When I am in the company of elephants I feel calm; they leave me with a sense of wonder. When they walk past me I can’t help but question how something so big and powerful can be so gentle at the same time. I alos love elephants eyes. It’s not often that you get to look an elephant in the eye, because they are usually hidden behind their long eyelashes. But if you are lucky to get close enough, their beautiful amber coloured eyes are like nothing else in the world. My first name is actually Amber. My mother named me for the colour of the elephants eyes.
What are the biggest threats to elephants in Kenya and Africa?
There are two primary threats to the survival of elephants: poaching for the illegal trade in ivory and loss of habitat. Ivory is a beautiful substance and humans have sought after it for millennia. But in recent times, with modern weapons and driven by commercial gain, the demand for ivory has been so great that entire populations of elephants have been driven to extinction.
Despite the fact that trade in ivory is basically illegal — the demand is high and elephants are still being killed for black markets. The illegal wildlife trade is a massive business and is really driving numbers down of many species. I am really hoping that the world learns something from Covid-19 and at least really sticks to the ban of illegal wildlife trade for wet markets and sets down proper rules that can’t be broken. People need to start changing their ways, no more of this “It’s okay because it’s traditional” nonsense anymore.
“Perhaps an even greater threat to elephants’ long term survival is the decrease in space and habitat.”
People need to realise that it is not okay to exploit animals in the way we do. Perhaps an even greater threat to elephants’ long term survival is the decrease in space and habitat. I know people don’t like to talk about the real issue: But there are too many of us! Worldwide there is a huge pressure on natural habitats for resources. In Africa, just like the rest of the world, the press from humanity means that there is less and less space available for other species. Elephants need a lot of space to roam, a lot of habitat for forage, otherwise they begin to come into conflict with humans - and that tends not to end well for either side.
Talk us through some of the key behaviours of elephants.
Where do I even start, there are so many. Like all highly social mammals elephants have a well-developed system of communication that makes use of all of their senses - hearing, smell, vision and touch - including an exceptional ability to detect vibrations through their feet. Elephants use acoustic (vocal and non-vocal), visual, chemical, and tactile signals to communicate with each other. For example, the sound of a slap, flap, slide of an ear mean different things as do scuffing footsteps or a trunk dragged noisily on the ground.
“Like all highly social mammals elephants have a well-developed system of communication that makes use of all of their senses - hearing, smell, vision and touch - including an exceptional ability to detect vibrations through their feet. ”
The many low frequency rumbles or higher frequency trumpets, roars, cries tell others what an elephant plans to do, desires or feels. Ear, trunk and body postures signal a huge range of emotions and are a window into the mind of an elephant. Secretions from the temporal glands tell other elephants about an individual’s sexual or physical state or even their state of mind. Various forms of touching, rubbing, brushing, nudging, swatting, slapping, pushing, pulling with the trunk, ears, feet, tail and entire body are also involved in communication. You will have to wait for The Elephant Ethogram to learn more!
But a couple of examples: If an adult female wants her family to go in a certain direction, she will use her body to point in the direction she wants to go, and give some “intention movements,” like swinging her foot back and forth, moving a few steps forward, stopping and then looking back and she will give a series of“Let’s Go Rumbles”a particular low frequency call associated with this kind of behaviour. The Let’s Go Rumble basically means “I want to go this way, let’s go together.”
When a calf wants to suckle she will give a Begging Rumble, while walking alongside her mother gently rubbing up against her with her trunk up. She will keep calling until her mother eventually stops and lets her suckle. If not she escalate to crying and screaming - throwing a tantrum, in essence.
Your photographs featured in Nyayo volume 2. What is your favourite thing about Nyayo magazine?
My favourite thing about Nyayo is it’s unique focus on the lives and stories of African guides. These amazing people live such extraordinary lives and have so much to share. I have spent a great deal of time with Kenyan guides, learning about the bush and hearing the most amazing tales. No one knows the bush as well as these guys, because most have grown up there, exploring every inch of that habitat.
They know which leaves can cure a cough if prepared in a certain way, which roots can heal and which are poisonous. They know how old a track or scat is and don’t even get me started on their knowledge of wildlife. They are the unsung heroes of the wildlife photography world because most photographers would not get their perfect shot if it weren’t for these guides and their impeccable skills at spotting and approaching wildlife. I wish I could be a safari guide, I honestly think it is the coolest job.
What are your future plans, will you continue to work with the conservation and protection of elephants?
With the help of social media, it’s becoming easier to inspire people to care about the environment and the conservation of wildlife. That is what I try to do on my platform. In a perfect world, many of us would be out in the field or on the ground, doing the important work, but not everyone is trained or has the opportunity to do that. Instead, I try to use my voice and knowledge to spread the message in the way I know how. I think being a conservationist can also be about simply spreading the word and letting people know what's happening and what they can do to help, in other words, raising awareness.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is that conservation is so much about passion for animals, their welfare, their livelihoods and the protection of their homes and habitats. We have to try to influence the people around us to feel the same way - making a difference is so much about working together - creating a tidal wave. If everyone brings their experiences to the table, then I think we can change the world. So my future plans as of right now are to continue doing what I am doing and hopefully somewhere down the line that will open some more doors for me to make an even bigger impact.