• Research: Continue to populate the Elephant Calls Database (ECD).
  ECD is an ElephantVoices internal database built in Claris FileMaker Pro. At the end of 2024 the ECD hosted over 10,400 records of recorded elephant calls from known individuals in known contexts. Each record is populated with close to 100 fields, including field-notes, metadata, and measurements. We have a further 1,500 or so records to add from additional recordings from Amboseli and Gorongosa.
  
  Several manuscripts have been published from these long term records and we continue to work with other scientists to analyze these data.
  
  
• Research: Utilize The Elephant Ethogram as a basis for the further study of elephant culture, behavior and communication.
  This unique and fully searchable online database documents some 322 African elephant Behaviors and 103 Behavioral Constellations with written descriptions, educational video clips from the wild (2400+ with detailed captions), audio with spectrograms (around 250 field recordings) and hundreds of photographs. The contents of The Elephant Ethogram have been used as a basis for several studies and more are ongoing.  
  
  The continued broad interest in The Elephant Ethogram highlights the fascination the public has with elephant behavior and communication and the important role The Elephant Ethogram plays in research, education and promoting conservation awareness. You will find some of the global media coverage after the launch at the bottom of the Introduction page.

• Research: Develop our collaboration with Project CETI.
  Based on our joint interest in understanding and translating the voices of other highly complex social species, in June 2024 we formalised a collaboration with  Gašper Beguš, Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics at UC Berkeley and Linguistics lead at Project CETI. Project CETI is a nonprofit organisation applying advanced machine learning and state-of-the-art robotics to listen to and translate the communication of sperm whales. CETI is currently engaged in a five-year project funded by a US$ 35 million TedX Audacious grant, which has made ground-breaking discoveries. In November Joyce met with Gašper and his team at the Linguistics Department at the University of Berkeley, to exchange ideas and plan how to move forward.
  
  Our relationship with CETI's linguistics team is a high priority on our 2025 agenda.
  
  
• Research: Collaboration with Sara Keen at the Earth Species Project Earth Species Project and Daniela Hedwig at Elephant Listening Project.
  Keen is examining vocalizations held in our database to see whether a) the structure of African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) calls clusters by behavioral context; b) compare our African savanna calls with African forest elephant (L. cyclotis) calls held by the Elephant Listening Project; c) compare the number of clusters in each species to see whether this might be linked to social complexity of the species (African savanna elephants have a more complex social structure than do African forest elephants).
  
  
• Research: Collaborative research and writing with Dr. Lucy Bates.
  Our chapter entitled, Pointing with your nose: Do elephants point, and how do we know?, will appear in an edited book, Pointing: Culture, Development and Evolution about pointing in humans and animals. The book will sonn be published by Cambridge University Press. Our chapter summarises the state-of-knowledge on elephant pointing, in relying in part on data held in The Elephant Ethogram, our video collection and our long-term observations. The chapter forms the basis for further collaborative research on the subject.  
  
  
• Research: Draft a chapter on humor in elephants for a book on humor in animals.
  Collaborate with British writer, Melanie Challenger, on a chapter on humor in elephants for a book to be published by Bloombury Publishing entitled, Jokesters with Feathers, Tails, and Scales: Animals' Senses of Humor, Humor and Moral Life. The book, a collection of essays about the cognitive foundation, varieties, and functions of animal humor and its relevance to moral life, is expected to be published in 2026.
  
  
• Education: Contribute our knowledge and data to educational institutions and the media to reach a global audience.
  We will continue to offer advice, sounds and images from our archives, to selected high-impact documentary films and educational and media institutions, to broaden interest in elephants and educate the public about their natural behavior and protection of their habitats.
  
  

• Education: Disseminate science-based education and science-telling via ElephantVoices’ social media channels, ElephantVoices.org and external media, partly based on annotated video clips from The Elephant Ethogram.
  Since the launch of The Elephant Ethogram in May 2021 quite a few of our posts on Facebook/Instagram have gone viral, some reaching millions of people. We engaged a Communications Manager in September 2023 and will continue to work hard to increase our following on social media (well over 420,000 at the end of 2024) also during 2025. 
  
  ElephantVoices regularly advises documentary films on elephant behaviour. During 2025 we will be working closely on the post-production phase of a film for PBS Nature that focuses on the lives of male elephants. We have been involved in this endeavour since its inception and were on site in Amboseli for part of the filming in early 2024.
  
  
• Conservation: Continue to advocate for elephants against the ivory trade, trophy hunting, and the capture of elephants for captivity, in collaboration with our colleagues.
  As an elephant expert Joyce Poole is a member of the African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG) of the Species Survival Commission of the IUCN and contributes time to the development of policies to conserve and protect elephants.
  
  All of our work has the conservation of elephants and conservation awareness at its core.
  
  
• Conservation: End the killing of large adult male elephants from the cross-border Amboseli population by trophy hunters in Tanzania.
  In late 2023, two of Amboseli's large adult males were shot by trophy hunters after they crossed the international border into Tanzania, breaking a 30-year moratorium that protected this population. Another three were shot and killed in early 2024. We worked closely with our Kenyan colleagues to put a stop to this killing, and will continue to follow up on this as long as it takes. To get some more insight into this sad situation read our multi-author letter published in Science in July 2024.
  
  

• Advocacy: Provide science-based advice, statements and affidavits on selected elephant conservation issues and welfare cases.
  ElephantVoices has contributed numerous affidavits and statements for elephants in legal cases, with the goal of improving the conditions for the elephants in question whether in the wild or in captivity, a release back to the wild or to sanctuary, or for the purpose of stopping capture and export of elephants from the wild to a life in captivity. Over many years, ElephantVoices' Dr. Joyce Poole has been an expert witness for the Non-Human Rights Project endeavour to apply for a writ of habaes corpus for elephants. More recently, in an effort to imagine how representation for elephants might be achieved, Dr. Poole is a member of the Multispecies Constitution Project, a group of scientists, and legal and constitutional scholars convened by the Berggruen Institute who are exploring the possible language and structure for a multi-species constitution. Our advocacy efforts will continue, and will be prioritised on a case-by-case basis.
  
  Read about the case for non-human rights for elephants in this article in The Atlantic from 16 November 2021.
  
  
• Advocacy: Continue to support Global Sanctuary for Elephants (GSfE, US non-profit) and Elephant Sanctuary Brazil (ESB, Brazilian non-profit) as Co-Founders and Partners.
  In 2010, together with a Brazilian partner, ElephantVoices began working toward establishing an elephant sanctuary in Brazil. In 2013 we invited Scott and Kat Blais to take the lead. Poole and Granli have been active board members of, respectively, GSfE and ESB since their inception. Granli visited the Sanctuary once more in March 2024.