Endangered Species Script

With you today, is Alisa Khaninya from Animal Protection News. Ill be going through some amazing facts about the Asian elephant also known as the India elephant. Hope you enjoy!!! First of all, Ive got some very remarkable and fascinating facts about the elephant. Did you know, the Asian elephants are strictly herbivores and spend 2/3 of their day eating grass? You may think that this is the only thing they do because they spend more than half their day on eating grass but no! Asian elephants also feed on tree barks, roots, leaves, small stems and different types of crops. Unlike humans, elephants only need to drink water once a day, though they are allowed to drink more than once. Speaking about water, the elephants usually stay close to water because of what I just said. That reminds me, Asian elephants are mainly found in scrub forests, favoring areas with grass and low woody plants and trees. All this information was found in the website wwf.panda.org. Next Im going to talk about the Asian elephants appearance. According to arkive.org, Asian elephants are relatives of the African savannah and are a teensy bit smaller by their ears and their back which is rounder than the African savannah. Did you know that only some male elephants have tusks? The rest actually have tushes instead. Asian elephants have very dry and wrinkly skin of the color greyish-brown. They also have pink patches on their forehead, ears, chest and the base of their trunk. OMG!!!! According to IUCNredlist.org, Asian elephants are endangered and the population trend is decreasing. Just for information, the word endangered means that an animal is likely to become extinct which means that that species of animal will no longer be with us! Thats sad. Now Ill tell you what the elephants

threats are. Well, some of the main threats for Asian elephants right now are habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation which all come by the expanding of human population. The reason elephants suffer these threats is because they need lots of space. Another major threat is poaching for ivory because only some male elephants have tusks as I mentioned before. This means that male elephants are dying and are causing females to die as well because when a female elephant needs to give birth, the male elephant is not there to support us. In other words, it means that the breeding rates are going down. Now Ill tell you what WWF thinks are the threats. The reason habitat loss is a threat is because dams, roads and mines are separating what was once elephant homes to small fragments. This also separates elephants and affects breeding rates. They also think poaching for ivory is a problem too. Lets find out what organizations are doing to help this poor species. Well, arkive.org and IUCNredlist.org says that the International trade listed the Asian elephants on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). WWF say that Asian elephants are a species that need lots of help and WWF are trying to save their habitats in various ways. But all of these organizations say that there are lots and lots of difficulties faced while saving these animals so they need our help! Do you want to see this species alive because now they only exist in certain places? Asian elephants used to live in West Asia and all along the coast of Iran and into the subcontinent of India. They also roamed around South-east Asia including Sumatra, Java and Borneo. Notice I used past tense? Well thats because they use to roam around in those areas but now they are extinct in West Asia, Java and Borneo. They are also extinct in most of China and in Pakistan. Now Asian elephants roam around parts of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri

Lanka, Cambodia, China (very few as I mentioned before), Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam. It seems like they are in most of the Asian countries now than before, but no because now they are only in certain parts of these countries. Anyways, lets continue talking about what we can do. According to WWF, we can stop buying ivory products as they are the greatest threats to elephants today. Adopt an elephant on WWF by going to wwf.panda.org. The main thing we should do and is the easiest thing to do is SPREAD THE WORD! Now, you can spread the word by email or talking to others about, your choice. Thank you for joining us on Animal Protection News.