A pioneering elephant researcher teamed up with a pioneering university to share his story, A Life with Elephants.

As the 2010 recipient of the Indianapolis Prize —the world’s leading award for animal conservation from the Indianapolis Zoo, Iain Douglas-Hamilton talked about his life’s work during a September 28, 2010, simulcast, which was webcast to other universities, zoos, aquariums, and other educational institutions around the country and aired on selected PBS stations.

“There is an enduring interest in (elephants’) intelligence and sentience,” Douglas-Hamilton, founder and CEO of Save the Elephants, said during an interview on WIBC-FM 93.1, Indianapolis. “They’re animals that think, and you can see that when you’re with them.

“They’re always full of surprises and new things, and they cover a vast range of problems in the natural world. If you’re looking after elephants, you have to consider many species and habitats.”

In the 1960s, Douglas-Hamilton did the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behavior that has set the standard for every study to follow. Despite obstacles ranging from diseases to poachers, from plane crashes to floods, he has led antipoaching efforts and testified before Congress. His pioneering GPS elephant tracking, widely emulated in Africa and Asia, has become a model survey technique. He recently partnered with Google Earth to show elephant movement in real time via satellite images. 

The program, which included video and photos from Douglas-Hamilton’s career, took place in front of a live audience at the University Teleplex Virtual Studio, one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated studios with high definition capabilities and digitally generated, realistic environments. In reality, Douglas-Hamilton was interviewed and answered questions from the audience in a green room, but to the Web and TV audience, the hour-long interview appeared to take place in front of a bank of windows, with elephants passing by.

“With Dr. Douglas-Hamilton’s groundbreaking work that blends the use of GPS technologies and traditional research approaches with open collaborative Web tools, it is only fitting that Ball State’s state-of-the-art resources and expertise in emerging media help bring his inspiring story to a worldwide audience,” says Phil Repp, vice president for information technology.