The Sumatran Elephant : A Pachyderm 's Plight

Not surprisingly, elephants are known for being more emotional and empathetic animals than the rest. According the three articles, “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk in a Cooperative Task”, and “Elephants Console Each Other” elephants understand when they need each other’s assistance. All two authors describe the studies of elephant behavior differently, but with a similar purpose.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a Sumatran Tiger? Sumatran Tigers are very interesting and fascinating animals who are faced with very rough conditions every day.

Explanation and Analysis: There really are a lot of characteristics overlooked when talking about Elephants as a whole species.

The scientific name for the asian elephant is Elephas Maximus. The length of an Asian elephant is up to 5.5-6.5m, of an adult this includes trunk, head and the body. Asian elephants can live up to 60 years in the wild bit up to 48 years in captivity. Elephants are herbivores this means they only eat plants and vegetables. They spend sixteen hours a day eating and consume about 300-600 pounds of food everyday and drink 40 - 50 gallons of water. Elephants only sleep for two hours a day.Unlike African elephants, where both males and females have tusks, generally only Asian elephant males have ivory tusks some females have small tisks called tushes.

“The Prodigal Son”, “The Boy who Cried Wolf”, or “The Mouse and the Lion” are all stories that are commonly well-known, however few people recognize them as parables. The parable is a figure of speech characterized by a short narrative, in prose or verse, full of symbols, allegory, and analogy to convey a moral or religious message. The word ‘parable’ comes from the Greek language and means ‘comparison, illustration, analogy’. The two thousand years old Buddhist story “The Elephant in the Village of the Blind’ portraying simple story, demonstrating universal moral, and using symbols and analogy is the evident representative of the parable.

For about twenty eight years now the Asian elephant has been struggling for existence. They have been classified as endangered species by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Twenty eight years is quite a large amount of time for an animal to be classified as endangered so The Zoological Society of London decided to look into this issue. Asian elephants have been transferred to captivity for quite some time in the North American region. The Elephas maximus have been captured from these countries in southern Asia and brought over to North America and have experienced many complications that can hinder the genetic diversity of the evolution of the species. Captive populations of the Elephas maximus species may be essential for genetic preservation and aid in decreasing the deterioration of the authentic population (Brenneman et al. 2011).

The African Bush elephants are found in eastern and southern Africa. Some of the areas with the highest densities of the Bush elephant is: Tanzania, South African, Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The African Bush elephant is terrestrial. The Bush elephant usually live in the grasslands, semi-deserts and the bush lands. They also clear out forest and turn them into more of grassland, by knocking down the trees. The climate that the Bush elephant normally lives in is dry and hot. Their thin hairs and ears help them stay cool. Another way that they stay cool is that their hides become more permeable in the heat. Scientists has performed research on 13 elephants (African and Asian), they measure the release of heat and moisture. What they have found was that their skin opens up at air temperatures as low at 10°C to 12°C, this is what allows them to perspire. Elephants are different than most mammals, that sweats through glands connected to pores, elephants only have pores between their toes. Elephants do not sweat (Phillips, 1992). By all of the skin being permeable they lose more

Poaching has been increasing for many years. The number of poaching cases throughout the decades have been increasing. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the ivory demand grew drastically making poaching for ivory increase throughout these years (Stiles, 309). CITES recommended to use a system called Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) in which helped monitor the illegal killing of elephants (Stiles, 312). Also, to try and qualify the number of those elephants killed by poachers (Scriber). The system has been working well that now monitors between 30 and 40 percent of the elephant population

The adult bush African elephant is generally no natural predators because of its large size, but the calves (especially infants) are vulnerable to lions and crocodiles attacks, and (rarely)

In either species, if it is possible for the male to make body contact with the female he tries to lay his head or trunk in the elephant, on her back. After lots of

Male African elephants usually live alone but sometimes they will form a group of other males.

First , The author avers that elephant are aware of approching death one of the popular beliefs is that when elephants become old and weak, they know that and go to the specifec location usually near the water to die alone.this poin is challanged by the lecturer . She points out that is not assume , becuse when elephant be older their teeth become weak , so ther looking for soft food in which elephant

Such as the African elephant have larger ears shaped like the continent of Africa itself. The ears of the African elephant help radiate the heat from the sun. But the lucky Asian elephant doesn’t have to worry about heat because they live in shady jungle areas. Another interesting characteristic about the elephant is that their feet are spongy pads to take the strain off the leg, so they aren’t constantly breaking bones in their legs. Also, the feet of the elephant make it almost impossible for you to hear them when they run, but when their is a herd you can definitely feel the earth shake and the rumble of the elephants! A male Asian elephant is about 12000 pounds and is about 8.9 feet tall. But, the female Asian elephant is about 6000 pounds

Just imagine life without any elephants, wiped out just like the dinosaurs. In the early 1980’s, there were more than a million reported elephants in Africa. Tragically, during that decade, 600,000 elephants were destroyed for ivory products. Today, conceivably no more than 400,000 elephants remain across the continent. Elephants are facing a very real threat of extinction; In fact, the African elephants are listed on the

The study and research of reproduction in elephants is increasingly critical in consideration of the quickly dwindling population numbers and estimates. The current Asian elephant population is estimated to lie between 50,000-70,000 across the world, with 15,000 of these individuals in captivity. African elephant population numbers are low as well after serious culling through hunting and poaching. These numbers make the low reproduction rates a great concern as elephants do not currently sufficiently reproduce at an adequate rate to sustain population size.12