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Data from: Animal-borne acoustic recordings of African elephant vocalizations from Samburu National Reserve, Kenya

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Jul 23, 2026 version files 3.85 GB

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Abstract

African elephants are a species of conservation concern with complex vocal behavior. Annotated acoustic recordings of elephants can be used both for studying vocal behavior, including call rates and types, and developing acoustic detection and classification models. We present an annotated dataset of African elephant vocalizations from an affordable acoustic recorder (AudioMoth) integrated into a GPS collar deployed onto a wild female African elephant in Kenya. A total of 62 hours of animal-borne acoustic data were recorded and 1,123 vocalizations were identified including 706 high-quality rumbles that were further used in acoustic feature analysis. The average group call rate was 18.1 calls/hr (range: 0 - 104), with a change point analysis identifying three periods of declining call rate after the collaring event. Our findings offer insight into the vocal behavior of African elephants, and the data provided can be used in the development of acoustic detection models.