Elephants
Research
Appearance
- The elephant has two main species the African and the Asian.
- The elephant is the largest animal that walks on earth and can weight over 6,000 kg
- The elephant can be anywhere from 5-8 meters long up get up to 4-7 tons as an adult
- They vary in colour from grey, to brown and reddish mud
- One of their most distinctive features is there trunk they use it for smelling drinking, eating, moving things and to wash themselves
- They have ivory tusks to help them carry thing and eat
- They have a very large body with a little tail and stumpy column like legs
- They have big wavy ears which they use as fans to help cool their bodies
- The elephant’s skin is mostly tough and they use regularly bath themselves in mud to protect it from the sun
Habitat
- Elephants can live in very different conditions which could be hot or cold from savannahs to woodlands, grasslands and even tropical forests
- There are five main species of elephant the African forest elephant that in lives in central Africa, the African savannah elephant that lives in central and southern Africa, the Indian elephant that lives in southern and South East Asia, Sumatran elephant that lives just lives on the island of Sumatra. And the Sri Lankan elephant that lives in the southwest of Sri Lanka
- The elephants in their herds go on emigrational paths and follow them year to year. By migrating it allows them to take advantage of various varieties of food.
- Elephants shelter in grasses and under trees which provide shade.
- Elephants are herbivores so it is easy for them to find their food on emigrational paths.
Behavior
- Elephants eat about 155kg of vegetation a day and spend 80% of their day eating.
- Their favourite thing to it is bark and they use their tusks the scrap it and break it down, they also eat fruit, branches, small plants, grasses, twigs and roots
- It drink on average 80L of water but can drink up to 150L
- A male elephant can drink up to 212L in less than five minutes
- Elephants live in family bonds and groups called a herd. Mostly the herd is led by the oldest elephant in the group which could consist anywhere from 2-25.
- The males leave the herd 12-15 years into their lives and don’t really return to female groups except for mating
- At a young age the calves always stays with its mother and is help in its upbringing by the other females in the group
- When a predator approaches the elephants face the predators and keep their calves behind them to protect them, sometimes the slipt up to try and escape the predator but the quickly get back together
- Elephants have a bad eye sight, they have a great sense of taste and smell and they rely on each other for guidance
Cause For Loss Of Numbers
- The main blame for the large loss of numbers is habitat loss, poaching, conflict with humans and degradation.
- The reason for the elephants being poached is mainly because of their ivory tusks
- The poaches go for the older elephants because they have larger tusks so that means more ivory for the poaches, so they shoot the older elephant leaving it to rote and leave the young defend less with out there family.
- Ivory is not the only thing that poaches take hide is used for clothing and hair for jewellery but not to the same extent
- Because elephant consume so much food the urbanization of more and more land causes the elephant to have less grazing land effecting the diet
- Urbanization is also causing elephants to come into contact with human resulting in shootings of the elephants
- Other things that are done to the elephant s are capturing for circus, sports and for work like carrying heavy loads a moving things.
Action Being Taken To Save The Elephant
- The was an international trade law put in place in 1989 which banned the traded of ivory to other countries, but there are still illegal markets selling elephants ivory tusks especially to Asia
- There are many things being done to protect the elephant species. There are anti-poaching patrols that are roaming their habitats watching for poaches.
- There are things being done to reduce the conflict between humans and elephants to try and limit the number of elephant killed from self-protection
- There are programs in place to help preserve the natural habitat of the elephants by making massive national parks for the elephants to ram free without the worries of deforestation and habitat loss
Report
The African Elephant is the largest mammal in the world and can weigh over 6,000kg and can grow up to 8 meters in length. They have distinctive features like the large ears that they flap to cool themselves down and there long trunks that they use for drinking, smelling, moving things and to help them eat. They have ivory tusks that they use to carry things. The African elephant live in
central and south Africa in woodlands, grasslands and savannahs. The African
elephants follow emigrational paths year to year in their herds. The African
elephant uses the shade of the long grasses and trees to protect themselves
from the sun, when they cannot hide from the sun they roll in the mud and use
it as sunscreen. The African elephant can eat and drink massive amount of food and water in a day and spends around 80% of its day eating. The elephant can eat up to 155kg of food and drink on average 80L of water a day. It favourite food is bark, fruit, branches, small plants, grasses, twigs and roots. The elephants live in family herds lead by the oldest member in the group, the males normally leave the herd when they are 12 and over and only return for mating. The young elephants are raised by the females in the herd particularly its mother. There are a couple reasons for
the significant drop in elephant numbers over the last couple of decades. The first
and biggest problem is poaching, the poaches only kill the elephants for their
ivory tusks leaving the rest of their body to rot, this sometimes leaves the
young without a mother to care for them making them venerable to predators. The
other big threat is habitat loss, with the population growing and growing their
habitat slowly decrease and this also cause them to come into contact with
humans. There are many thing being done to save the African elephant,
like an international trade law that was put in place in 1989 to ban any
trading of ivory yet there is still a large black market for elephant ivory. There
are anti-poaching patrols patrolling the national parks looking for poaches. There
are also conservational park that house the elephants and other animals just
like they were in the wild.
Bibliography
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Elephants diet, eating and habits n.d., Seaworld, accessed 27 August 2014, <http://seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-infobooks/elephants/diet-and-eating-habits/>.
BASIC FACTS ABOUT ELEPHANTS n.d., Defenders of wildlife, accessed 27 August 2014, <http://www.defenders.org/elephant/basic-facts>.
Elephant n.d., Animals town, accessed 27 August 2014, <http://www.animalstown.com/animals/e/elephant/elephant.php>.