Asia's Endangered Animals
Asian elephant- Elephas maximus
audio credit: elephant death 01 via sound clould
Asian Elephants are Endangered
The Asian elephant or "Elephas maxiumus" are mammals. They have wrinkled dry skin and are grey color. These elephants live in Asia's forests and eat grass, bark, and fruit. Asian elephants can live about 60 years. They spend most of their time looking for food. One reason for their endangerment is because of ivory poaching. (Nat Geo)
Habitat photo
elephants like to live in tropical forests with lots of trees and plants
predators
humans are the elephants main predators.
Diet
elephants eat grasses, fruit, and bark.
habitat photo credit: Arnold Arboretum photography via flickr CC
predator photo credit: Stefan Georgi photograghy via flickr CC
diet photo credit: Robert Donovan photography via flickr CC
Description
Color
- gray brown color
Body
- stout legs
- trunk and tusks
- smaller than the African elephant
- wrinkled dry skin
Characteristics
- female weight 2.7 tonnes
- male weight 5.4 tonnes
- head-body length is 5.5- 6.4m
- shoulder height 2.5- 3m
Mating
- at 20 males go into the "musth" period where they become aggresive and look for females
- males reach sexual maturity at 6 or 7 years of age
- females reach sexual maturity at 10 years of age (Ark)
Reproduction
- pregnancy period and take 22 months
- females give birth about every 2-4 years
- baby elephants weigh about 200 pounds (Nat Geo)
Adaptations
- Elephants use their trunk for breathing, drinking, smelling, grabing, and trumpeting
- the trunk has 10,000 different muscels
- tusks are used for fighting, digging ,and stripping
- Females live in heards
- males usually roam about themselves (Nat Geo)
Threats
Ivory poaching
- effects breeding rates because usually only males have tusk so there are more females then males
Habitat loss
- when human populations increases the elephants territory decreases
- not enough food in forest
The human- elephant conflict
- elephants eat humans crop since there isn't enough food in the wild due to habitat loss
- humans kill or seriously injure the elephants to protect crops (Ark)
How you can help
Why should we help the Asian elephant
- elephants can be used to clear timber
- elephants feces makes a good fertilizer
- when elephants defecate it helps spread seeds (Ark)
What has been done
- in 1997 the U.S. congress passed the Asian elephant conservation act(AECA)
- AECA was made to.....
a. protect the asian elephant
b.keep their habitat wild
c. to research the elephant populations (FWS)
- the gobal ivory ban has been placed since 1989(SNZP)
- the World wildlife fund is working with the local farmers to help the human elephant conflict
What you can do
- donate to Asian elephant conservations such as the World Wildlife fund or the Asian Elephant conservation fund (many people have donated to these origanizations over the past years)
- tell your friends and family about these origanizations and get them to donate and spread the word (Ark)
Other endanger animals
Rishitha's Web: https://www.smore.com/ww25
Samantha Web: https://www.smore.com/eab2
Kiran's Web: https://www.smore.com/3aqf
Cover Page: https://www.smore.com/jj5c
Works Cited: https://smore.com/2paq