Pied Piper

The major goal this month is to try playback vocalization tests with dholes. (At least I know the equipment works…we broadcast dying fawn sounds all across campus yesterday). Playback is a method of broadcasting previously recorded natural or artificial sounds to animals and observing their response. My problem? I have some yipping dholes recorded from SanDiego zoo, but no baseline for what their reported “whistle” sounds like. Luckily, Todd is all excited about trying to find dhole sounds. He called me in for a meeting and popped in a video from his 8-year old daughter, “Animals of Asia.” Seems they show dholes whistling. Unfortunately, there is voice over, so I can’t directly record the whistle. But, as I was watching it the second time through, suddenly the whistles came from behind me. My advisor found a recorder flute that plays an exact note that sounds like a dhole whistle! Anyway, so now I can hike through the woods, toot my little whistle, and pray to see dholes.

My friend, Heather, had this to say about the concept:
“I’m imaging you walking through the woods with that recorder like the Pied Piper and the dhole heads just popping up one by one from beneath the vegetation. Once again, there’s those experiences in science they don’t tell you about that never really make it into the scientific journals…”