Asian Elephant Endangerment
What can be done to prevent the extinction of the endangered Asian Elephant - Elephas Maximus?
Introduction
Elephants are the largest land mammals, however, the Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus), is slightly smaller than its the African elephant and is can be distinguished by its smaller, rounded ears. The Asian Elephant is a beautiful and intelligent creature found in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia. The large mammal radiates heat from its ears to help keep it cool but often this isn’t enough so they cool off in springs using their multi-functional trunks to spray water over themselves. 1
Asian Elephants live in grassy areas near or in forests. Herds are made up of related females with the eldest leading the herd, called the matriarch. The herds help to protect newborns as they are preyed upon by tigers. Males leave the herds when they reach adolescence and form smaller herds with others their age until they leave to live as solitary bulls, they only approach females during the breeding season. Despite this, the adult Asian Elephant has no natural predators; it is still highly endangered with only about 35,000 to 40,000 estimated to be left in the wild. 1
The main issue for these creatures is human conflict. Firstly their habitats are being destroyed as mass deforestation takes place in order to make money and provide areas for settlements. This causes problems as the elephants often wonder into villages as they are so close due to their increasingly small habitat areas. This creates tension with the locals because the elephants usually trample crops and other things in their path so they are seen as a nuisance. It has caused such a problem in some areas that...
... middle of paper ...
...t they are too small to make a significant difference. The projects have been taken on with much enthusiasm and so far activities include: mushroom farming, sewing, fruit drying, rubbish recycling, herbal nurseries for traditional remedies and indigenous tree nurseries. This is a good solution as the villagers can stay where they are so expensive incentives aren’t needed to convince them to move. Figure 8 demonstrates the forests without the initiatives.6
Finally there is the most controversial view: do nothing. Whilst some believe we have a duty to protect all the beautiful creatures on our planet, others say we should simply let nature take its course and that, if the elephants can’t adapt, Mother Nature dictates that they will not survive. However this view has lots of opposition as elephants are such an important part of the ecosystem, being a keystone species.
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is a short story that not only shows cultural divides and how they affect our actions, but also how that cultural prejudice may also affect other parties, even if, in this story, that other party may only be an elephant. Orwell shows the play for power between the Burmese and the narrator, a white British police-officer. It shows the severe prejudice between the British who had claimed Burma, and the Burmese who held a deep resentment of the British occupation. Three messages, or three themes, from Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” are prejudice, cultural divide, and power.
Each author has the same purpose in writing about the elephant studies and there are many similarities and differences in which the elephants behaved.
"The Elephant Whisperer: The Story of Lawrence Anthony and the Elephants Who Never Forgot." The Featured Creature. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.
The animals that are affected by this monstrous act are elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, Tibetan antelopes, gorillas, and great apes(animalpoachers.weebly). The most they have done with dealing with the poachers is give them a cruel punishment for being caught. It does not work because it still happens today and the animals are still dying and becoming profit for their killer. Another possible, but unlikely, useful solution, would be to have the area of the environment fenced so the poachers have no entrance to kill these animals.
After the Industrial Revolution, the act of stronger countries taking control of weaker countries became a common practice of colonization or Imperialism. When one think of “Imperialism” they might think of the country and the people that have been taken over. Their resources are being taken, their people are being mistreated so of course people will feel bad for the conquered countries. What people don't know is that imperialism is a double edge sword. In the story “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, we are shown Orwell's view on British's Imperialism, though the British empire found use in Imperialism, Orwell found faults and that it hurts the conqueror as much as it hurts the conquered.
A police officer in the British Raj, the supposedly 'unbreakable'; ruling force, was afraid. With his gun aimed at a elephant's head, he was faced with the decision to pull the trigger. That officer was George Orwell, and he writes about his experience in his short story, 'Shooting an Elephant';. To save face, he shrugged it off as his desire to 'avoid looking the fool'; (George Orwell, 283). In truth, the atmosphere of fear and pressure overwhelmed him. His inner struggle over the guilt of being involved in the subjugation of a people added to this strain, and he made a decision he would later regret enough to write this story.
Just recently, eighteen Swaziland elephants were transported to their new homes in America. This included the Henry Doorly zoo in Nebraska, the Dallas Zoo, and the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas. These elephants were destroying the habitats of other species, and this relocation was specifically made to preserve Swaziland’s endangered rhino population. In gratitude the zoos will “contribute $450,000 to a wildlife conservation trust for rhinos in Swaziland” (Hinckley, par. 2). The result of the transfer produced many opposing views among conservationists. This raised the question of whether or not the elephants (or any animal) should be kept in zoos. This is a widely popular, yet difficult debate of ethical and statistical views. For this case,
The excerpt from Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk is about the exact procedures and results of the same experiment that Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk was about. It contains the precise physical dimensions of every part of the test, and detailed explanations of each step that was followed to preform the test. Little to no opinions, quotes, or even conclusions that could be drawn were included, due to the strict, formal, and informational nature of the passage. The author's purpose was purely to explain all parts of the elephant study, and not at all to entertain or persuade.
Cohn, Jeffrey P. "Do Elephants Belong In Zoos?" Bioscience 56.9 (2006): 714-717. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
The common name is the African Elephant, the scientific name is Loxodonta Africana, the phylum is Vertebrata, the class is Mammalia, the order is Proboscidea, and the family is Elephantidae. The Closest Relatives to the African Elephant are: the Asian Elephant, mammoths, primitive proboscidean (mastodons), sea cows, and hyraxes. Scientists believe that the African Elephant evolved from one of its closest relatives, the Sea Cow. The geographical location and range of the African elephant covers all of central and southern Africa. In Ethiopia there are isolated populations that exist around Lake Chad in Mali and Mauritania. Also in Kenya, Rhodesia, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Zaire, and in National parks located in South Africa, as well as several other countries. African Elephants, originally, were found in all of the Sub-Saharan African habitats except desert steppes. Elephants still occupy diverse habitats such as: temperate grassland, tropical savanna and grass lands, temperate forest and rainforest, tropical rainforest, tropical scrub forest, and tropical deciduous forest despite their drastic decline in numbers. However, their migratory patterns and habitat use have changed, due to the fact that they are restricted to protected areas. The elephant can exist in many types of environments but it prefers places that have many trees and bushes, which the elephant needs both for food and shade. They also like warm areas that have plenty of rainfall.
From the beginning of the narrative “Shooting An Elephant,” George Orwell creates a character with a diminished sense of self. The character narrates, “I was hated by large numbers of people -- the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me” (Orwell, 58). All he wants is attention and it is evident that even negative attention is better than being ignored. He hates working for the British as a sub-divisional police officer in the town of Moulmein. He even makes it known to the audience that, “Theoretically -- and secretly, of course -- I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British” (58). The character knows he does not want to be in this position, as a Anglo-Indian
The times did a first of its kind analysis of 390 elephant fatalities at accredited U.S. zoos for the past 50 years (Berens 3). It found that most of the elephants died from injury or disease linked to conditions of their captivity from chronic foot problems caused by standing on hard surfaces to musculoskeletal disorders from inactivity caused by being penned or chained for days and weeks at a time. Of the 321 elephant deaths for which The Times had complete records, half were by age 23, more than a quarter before their expected life spans of 50 to 60 years. For every elephant born in a zoo, on average another two die. At that rate, the 288 elephants inside the 78 U.S. zoos could be “demographically extinct” within the next 50 years because there’ll be too few fertile females left to breed, according to zoo industry research (Berens 4).
The "Emaciated Asian Elephant Started Life at Busch Gardens. " N.p., n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 12 May 2015.
In conclusion zoos in America are making attempts to accommodate elephants better, the local Sedgwick county zoo is planning to increase to size of the elephants enclosure. All zoos with elephants should either move them to large sanctuaries or release them back into the wild or even increase the enclosure, but no enclosure will be big enough. The cost to increase the size of orca pools would be too costly. Orcas need to be released back into the wild; the risks of keeping them captive outweigh everything else. Instead of using valuable resources on keeping elephants and orcas captive they should be focused on using the resources on protecting the wild ones and their environments.
Recently over the years elephant populations have drastically declined. This is due to human encroachment on their habit and poaching. Demand for ivory has increased the number of poaching kills in Africa. In 1988 congress passed the elephant African Elephant Conservation Act which placed a ban against illegal ivory imports and authorizes government funding for elephant field conservation projects. Although some African countries have initiated African elephant conservation programs, many do not have the sufficient resources to properly manage, conserve and protect their elephant’s populations. Unfortunately, we are possibly undergoing “the greatest percentage loss of elephants in history” (Ruggiero). Without the proper conservation of elephant survival we will see a drastic shift in the environment.