The Elephants

Bada Jung

CONTENTSIntroduction --- 3The Trunk --- 5The Ears --- 8Herd Life --- 10Taking Bath --- 13Communicating ---14Abused Elephants --- 17Conclusion --- 22

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever seen the elephants and people enjoy riding on them on TV or at a circus? The elephants give us so much fun by letting us ride on them and showing us marvelous shows at circus. But did you know that a lot of elephants in the world get hurt by people? Sometimes people kill or hunt the elephants just to earn money by selling the ivory from the elephants’ tusks despite the fact that poaching elephants is against the law.

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Sometimes people abuse elephants to work in an illegal logging or feed them amphetamines. If we keep the elephants to be abused, the elephants in the world will be exterminated. Then, our descendants will be able to see the elephants only at the museums like we can see dinosaurs only in the museums. People need to know about the elephants, and protect the elephants better.

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The Trunk Elephants are the

biggest animal in the world. And their body is unique, especially their trunk, tusks, and ears which are important parts of the elephants’ body. The trunk is made of more than 40,000 muscles that make the trunk is used in many ways. For example,

This elephant can move its trunk freely because trunk has a lot of muscles.

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an elephant uses its trunk to pick up, throw, hold, and push things. Also, the trunk is used for breathing and smelling because actually the trunk is a combination of a nose and an upper lip. But an elephant does not drink water through its trunk like many

An elephant is holding something

to eat with its trunk.

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people think. The trunk is also used to hold water and squirt when the elephants take bath. The trunk holds about 2 gallons of water. Sometimes the trunk is used for baby elephants to keep in touch with their mothers by hanging onto the mothers’ tails.

An elephant squirting water

after holding water with its trunk. 7

The elephants’ ears also are useful as the trunk. Because the ears keep an elephant’s body to be cool. African elephants’ ears are much bigger than Asian elephants’ ears.

African elephant with big ears

Asian elephant with small ears

The Ears

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The beneath of skin of the ears, the tiny blood vessels cross the ears. When the blood flows throughout the ears, it releases heat of the skin of the ears. The blood in ears is cooled by flapping the ears. When the blood that was cooled goes throughout the body, the body cools down. That is why African elephants have much larger ears than the Asian elephants. Because Asian elephants live in shady place, and African elephants live in hot place. This is the beneath of skin of the ears

that the tiny blood vessels cross.

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The Herd Elephants live within

their herd. Female elephants spend their whole life in herd. But male elephants can’t stay in one herd during their life. Male elephants have to change their herd that is called “bachelor group” when they are 15 or 16 years old. As they get older than that, they live alone.

An African bachelor elephant.

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The leader of a herd that is called “matriarch” is female and the leader decides everything about its herd. Usually there are about 20 elephants in a herd. And the members of herd really take care of each other. If one is sick, others nurse the one to be okay. The herd members also find food together, and take bath together.

A elephant herd drinking water together.

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For elephants, being with their herd is much safer than being alone. Because when elephants are together within a herd, enemies such as tiger don’t even approach to them. But an elephant which is alone without its herd is in danger.

a lion that is enemy of elephant and a dead elephant.

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Taking Bath Elephants take

bath in mood. The elephants’ skin looks so tough, but actually it is not. It is very sensitive. So taking bath in mood is the way how elephants protect their sensitive skin.

An elephant taking bath

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Communicating Elephants do

communicate like us, and there are many ways to communicate. The elephants make noises to talk to other elephants. Elephants trumpet when they are angry, excited, and when they get lost from their herd. Elephants produce low and purring sounds when they are content.

An elephant trumpeting

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Elephants also make very low sounds that are too deep to hear for human and that keep for very long time. So elephants use that deep sound when they communicate with others that are far from them. Elephants also greet. They greet by sniffing each other. The elephants use their body to express their mood or feeling. The position of an elephant’s ears, tail, and herd can show how it’s feeling. An elephant that is curious lifts its tail and cock its ears. If an elephant smells something exciting, its ears flap back and forth.

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And if an elephant thinks something dangerous is coming, it knocks the ground with its trunk to notice other elephants.

elephants greeting by sniffing each other

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Abused Elephants Many elephants are

being abused by people and there are many ways elephants are abused. In Thailand, people force elephants to draw on t-shirts with their trunk so that they can earn money from tourists.

The shirts elephants were forced to draw.

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People also hunt or kill elephants to get ivory from elephants’ tusks and to earn money despite that is against the law.Elephants’ tusks

that is being sold by people

an elephant’s carcass that has been killed by people who wanted its tusks. 1

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Sometimes elephants that have disease are used to work for tourists by people.

an elephant working despite having skin disease.

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And people abuse elephants by forcing work, by not feeding, and by using them to log the fields to earn money.

Elephants used to log fields

An elephant who was starved.

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Many people oppose and protest about the people who earn by abusing elephants and sometimes people campaign for the abused elephants. But it is not easy to stop people from abusing elephants. Because there are more people who abuse elephants than the people who participate such as campaign for abused elephants.

people protesting for abused animals including elephants

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Conclusion Elephants give us good things by

showing circus, and letting us ride on them. And they are really unique animal because elephants don’t seem like other most animals. They have trunk that other animals don’t have, huge ears that are very useful to keep their body cool, and are really friendship within their own herd not like other animals such as lions and tigers that have no friendship each other. But a lot of elephants are abused people in many ways. During doing this project, I liked the most to find and realize new things and surprising things

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such as that elephants can hold about 2 gallons of water with their trunk, and that elephants talk each other by making noises. There was also challenging part for me. The thing was to read all the information about elephant in English. And if I have to do the same project as this, I will choose flower named “the rose of Sharon” as a topic. Because I want to try something new that is not animal, because I like that flower so I want to know about that flower more, and I want to write about unknown thing by people not like the elephants that are known very well.

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About the Author Bada Jung was born in 1997, May 15 in Seoul, S

outh Korea. She had gone Sung Mi kindergarten, and Sung Su elementary school in Korea. Now, she is a student of Russell Sage JHS. She also likes Korean food and she is interested in Japanese culture. Her most favorite weather is winter because she doesn’t like hot place, she prefers being cold than being hot, and she likes skiing, and snow. She likes to draw the most for her free time. In the future, she would like to be dentist, and sometimes to work that is related to art.

If You Want To Know Better About…

• Elephants’ Trunk• Elephants’ Ears

• Elephants’ Herd Life• How Elephants Take Bath

• How Elephants communicate•Abused Elephants

Good For You To Read This Book!!