On 5/22/17 at 2:30 pm I had a interview with an elephant behaviorist, and her name is Gay A. Bradshaw. For the interview we tried Skyping but it didn’t work for some reason so I couldn’t see her. But that didn’t stop me. We got to question number two and something happened on Skype so it hung up. We tried again and she said it was best for us to finish the rest of the questions on call, so that was what we did. I also audio recorded it so that it was much more easier than taking notes. I asked Dr. Bradshaw 10 questions relating to my topic about elephants, so these are my 10 questions,

1. Why are you so passionate about elephants?
2. How do threats to elephants make you feel?
3. How do the threats that African and Asian elephants face differ?
4. How does The Kerulos Center help stop elephant abuse?
5. Do you collaborate with any other wildlife conservation group to help elephants? If so what are their names?
6. How have the number of elephants changed since people have been interested in helping to save them?
7. Does the government also spend money on helping elephants?
8. How does elephant poaching affect the economy?
9. Do current laws adequately deter poachers?  How can laws be improved?
10. What can kids do to help elephants?

When Dr. Bradshaw gave me the answer to these questions, she gave me detailed responses, and I used some of her responses for my information. She was also very nice about giving her time to a fifth-grader answering my questions. Some things that she told me about elephants were in her own opinion. For example she doesn’t call wildlife conservation groups in their names, she calls them “Wildlife Self Determination”. The reason why she calls them this is because “Conservation has its own notion of humans doing something in preserving their animals and other wildlife are sentimental beings.” It was fascinating on how she thought of a different perspective on wildlife conservation groups. She also told me that her center is opening up a center for bulls (male elephants) in Georgia.

I also learned about more stuff that I couldn’t find on the internet. One thing that I learned from her is the difference of Asian Elephant threats and African Elephant threats, and it was also really fun meeting her even though I couldn’t see her. I hope I can meet and talk to her again about elephants. Either way this experience was fun because I actually interviewed someone for the first time and I can’t believe she could answer all of my questions. If you want to hear my interview here is the link:

This is the person I interviewed