On 6/5/17 I answered my Main Inquiry Question. That is the next step to our final project. If you don’t know what it is “How do threats that Asian and African Elephant encounter compare and how can humans improve their lives?”
We had to answer this in an essay format. At first I thought this was going to be really hard but then I realized that my sub questions would help me. But making this organized was a challenge. When I started my essay, I didn’t know how to organize it so shared a copy of a student she had’s essay. When I saw it I saw she had her essay, it was eight pages. But that included her Sub Questions Answers, so my format was my essay and my sub questions answers at the end. When we were working my friends saw my essay and said that my sub questions can’t be included in the essay. When it was my turn to meet with Ms. Edwards she said that my essay needed work. She told me where it needs work so I could fix it. After I fixed what needed to be fixed, I met with my teacher aide Ms. McShane. She said it was great. This is the final essay:
“When you think of elephants do you make a distinction between their country of origin? For my Capstone project I did. I wanted to find out if the threats African and Asian Elephants were the same or different and if different, how. To be exact, my main inquiry question is, “How do the threats that African Elephant and Asian Elephant threats encounter compare and how can humans improve their lives?”
For the first part of this question, I found that the threats African and Asian Elephants both face have a common element: humans.
To begin, the top three threats that African Elephants face are all connected to humans; humans kill them for their ivory, to acquire the land occupied by the elephants, and retaliation for damaging farmers’ fields.
Humans have been killing elephants for a long time. For some of you who do not know what ivory is, it is a hard, white material can be found in elephant tusks. Ivory is also found in other animals that have horns such as narwhals, rhinos and walruses. But the ivory in those animals aren’t like elephants. Elephant ivory has a particular texture, softness, and its lack of a tough outer coating of enamel. Humans find ivory valuable because they use it to carve, for jewelry, for ancient traditions, piano keys, and billiards balls.
Another way humans have been killing African Elephants is by acquiring the land occupied by elephants. This is a big threat to elephants because humans are taking over these habitats for their own uses such as buildings, construction, and farms. People have realized this issue and they are trying to protect elephants by making sanctuaries. You can donate to these sanctuaries to buy more elephants from zoos for sanctuaries.
The last way humans killed African Elephants are that these gentle creatures are being killed for trespassing onto farms to get food. This is a really bad situation. What can farmers do to help? You can plant crops elephants don’t like and somewhere out of reach, you can grow other crops.
Similarly, the top three threats that Asian Elephants are also connected to humans. In Asia, elephants are also harmed for their ivory. Another threat occurs when elephants are captured and held in captivity to be used for religious reasons, entertainment, and labor. A third threat is a result of starving when humans take over their habitats for their own use.
Asian Elephants being held in captivity is a bad thing. Using these gentle animals for religious reasons, entertainment, and labor. You might be wondering how do Asian Elephants get killed by these things? Capturing elephants could lead to bad things such as depression. One reason why elephants can be depressed is that they miss their herd(family). Another reason that elephants are depressed is that when elephants daydream during labor and entertainment, humans smack the elephants with whips to stay on track.
The last threat that Asian Elephants is similar to a threat African Elephants, habitat loss. Habitat loss is a big threat to Asian Elephants as well as African. Humans take over their land so they starve. This is gruesome behavior. Taking land away for humans homes, villages, or even farms.
We can stop all of this madness. We can improve the lives of these gentle creatures in so many ways. There are nine main “Wildlife Conservation Groups” that help these elephants. They are:
- The International Anti-Poaching Foundation
- World Wildlife Fund
- Wildlife Conservation Society
- Chengeta Wildlife
- The WILD Foundation
- The Humane Society of the United States
- Ol Pejeta Conservancy
- Kerulos Center
- Save the Elephants
These foundations are good because they all have sanctuaries for elephants in Asia and in Africa and are building more. I met with the CEO of the Kerulos Center, Dr. Gay A. Bradshaw who told me about how I can make a difference and about elephants. She told me how in sanctuaries they have park rangers to guard these precious animals. You can also donate to these foundations and adopt an elephant. When you donate the money goes towards buying elephants from zoos.
Other ways that you can help save elephants are raising awareness of the problem. Some ways that you can help raise awareness towards elephants are creating petitions to the government, using social media to promote the importance of protecting elephants, becoming a volunteer online by donating money, and making flyers, and posting literature outside your public library. A company called “Ivory Ella” is a company that makes clothes, and 10% of their profit goes to elephant conservation groups. If you click the link it will tell you about how this started and what they do to help.
In conclusion these threats can be fixed if everyone can help. These things have been realized but people don’t care and gradually the elephant population is going down. In 1997 there were 1.3 Million African Elephants and Asian Elephants. There are now about 450,000 – 700,000 African Elephants and between 35,000 – 40,000 Asian Elephants. Today, people can learn these threats and help elephants.”
This what I will be talking about during my TEDTalk. I hope my talk is good.
Thank you for educating me about the threats Asian and African elephants face!