Called By Name: Listening Into the World of Elephants with Dr. Mickey Pardo

Elephants call each other by name. They grieve. They remember. They communicate across distances in frequencies we are only beginning to hear. What does it mean to truly listen to another species — one with memory, language, and a social world as intricate as our own? In this Listening Field conversation, we enter the world of elephant communication with two of its most devoted witnesses.  Dr. Mickey Pardo led the landmark discovery that elephants address one another with name-like calls — a finding that traveled around the world and cracked open new questions about animal cognition and communication.  Moderated by Katie Surma of Inside Climate News, whose reporting sits at the intersection of science, rights of Nature, and environmental justice, this conversation asks not only what elephants are saying, but what it means for us to finally listen. **Dr. Mickey Pardo** is a behavioral ecologist and bioacoustician interested in the intersection of animal communication, cognition, conservation, and welfare. He earned his PhD in behavioral ecology from Cornell University, where he studied vocal communication and social cognition in both Asian elephants and Acorn Woodpeckers. He completed a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Colorado State University on vocal communication in African elephants, working in collaboration with Save The Elephants in Kenya, where he led the discovery that elephants address each other with name-like calls. This work was featured by over 3,000 media outlets in more than 90 countries, including the New York Times, NPR: Morning Edition, and BBC World, and helped contribute to the recent surge of interest in using machine learning to understand animal communication. During a second postdoc in the Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Dr. Pardo expanded his skillset into applied wildlife conservation, using passive acoustic monitoring, AI, and computer simulations to assess the status of bird populations. He is currently a Senior Scientist at the non-profit research organization ElephantVoices, where he is once again studying vocal communication in African elephants.  Dr. Pardo has authored over a dozen scholarly publications, including in top scientific journals such as *Nature Ecology and Evolution* and *Current Biology*. In addition to his scientific work, he is an outspoken advocate for the rights of nonhuman animals and for food system reform to end our reliance on animal agriculture and commercial fishing. To learn more about Mickey’s work, visit ElephantVoices’ website here:  https://elephantvoices.org/ **Katie Surma** is a reporter at Inside Climate News covering the rights of nature movement and international environmental justice. Her work has a strong focus on the intersection of human rights and the environment. Before joining ICN, she practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation. Her journalism work has been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and others. Katie has a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, an LLM in international rule of law and security from ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, a J.D. from Duquesne University, and was a History of Art and Architecture major at the University of Pittsburgh.  Learn more about Katie's work at https://insideclimatenews.org/ Support the show