Elephant Research

The Comparative Cognition for Conservation Laboratory

Did you know that there is a research group right here at Hunter College dedicated to understanding ‘how elephants think’ and working to help protect them in the wild? The Comparative Cognition for Conservation (CCC) Lab in the Department of Psychology is the only lab in the world dedicated to both understanding the intelligence and behavior of elephants and applying new knowledge about ‘how elephants think’ to novel conservation efforts in Asia.

Why elephant conservation research needs your support:

The CCC Lab's critical work on elephant conservation (advancing research on elephant behavior and partnering with local communities to mitigate human-elephant conflict) has been severely impacted by recent cuts to federal funding. Without this support, the lab's ability to help Thai villagers and elephants coexist has been significantly reduced.

Your donation will directly support efforts to study and protect Asian elephants, while also providing CUNY students with hands-on opportunities to contribute to this work in Thailand.

The lab is run by Prof. Joshua Plotnik, who has been working in Thailand for nearly 20 years. The CCC lab helps support CUNY students in their studies of elephants at several long-term field sites in Thailand. They work collaboratively with international charities and organizations to apply their innovative research on elephant behavior and cognition to the development of new mitigation efforts aimed at reducing the conflict that occurs when humans and elephants compete for access to food and land.

Learn more about our work by viewing this segment from CBS's 60 Minutes.

Asian elephants are in danger of going extinct – there are less than 50,000 left! – and with less and less natural habitat left for them to roam, new solutions are needed to ensure humans and elephants can continue to coexist.