African Elephants
The African elephant is the largest of the three elephant species.
They are very enormous animals with the weight of 16,500 lb., and
they stand 10-13 feet tall. The abundant size of the elephants and
thickness of their skin protects them from other animals. The
elephant’s relative, the mammoth, came to be about 54 million years
ago. So I guess you can say that’s when the elephants came too,
because they came from the mammoths. Elephants live in tropical and
subtropical regions of Africa and Asia. They are found most often in
savannas, grasslands, and forest, but they also live in deserts,
swamps, and mountains. Elephants live pretty extended lives between
60-80 years of age. They live longer if they are kept in zoos with the
medical treatment they need and away from poachers, and they live
shorter lives if they are kept in the wild and at danger of being killed
by poachers.
In Africa elephants are being murdered more than they were
years ago. There is a law that you can’t kill elephants, but people in
Africa don’t obey the law. Because of this the population of elephants
from 1980-1990 dropped from 1.2 million to 625,000 elephants. You
might ask why they kill these peaceful creatures; the answer is it’s
because of their ivory. Ivory is worth more than gold and people want
ivory for the money. Maybe one day this mammal will be extinct
because of the poaching. We need to save these elephants!
Questions
1). Give 3 examples of where African elephants
could live.
2). Explain why African elephants are being
killed.
3). Support how poaching relates to the book
“Thunder Cave”.