The Elephants

							The Elephants

 By-Bada Jung
   CONTENTS
Introduction --- 3
The Trunk --- 5
The Ears --- 8
Herd Life --- 10
Taking Bath --- 13
Communicating ---14
Abused Elephants --- 17
Conclusion --- 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.

                                       3
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.

                                          4
                      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
    This elephant can move its
                                   muscles that make
trunk freely because trunk has a   the trunk is used in
lot of muscles.                    many ways. For
                                   example,              5
                                       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
   An elephant is holding something
                                      through its trunk like
to eat with its trunk.
                                      many

                                                           6
                                      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
   An elephant squirting water        mothers by
after holding water with its trunk.   hanging onto the
                                      mothers’ tails.   7
                      The Ears
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
                                                                   8
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.



                                                                 9
              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    An African bachelor elephant.
they get older than
that, they live alone.
                                                      10
 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               A elephant herd drinking
find food together, and      water together.
take bath together.
                                                           11
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.




                                                   12
          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            An elephant taking bath

sensitive skin.
                                                   13
         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
An elephant trumpeting   sounds when they are
                         content.
                                                  14
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.
                                          15
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




                                             16
    Abused Elephants
                          Many elephants are
                          being abused by
                          people and there are
                          many ways elephants
                          are abused. In
                          Thailand, people
                          force elephants to
   The shirts elephants
                          draw on t-shirts with
were forced to draw.      their trunk so that
                          they can earn money
                          from tourists.

                                                  17
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.               18
Sometimes elephants that have disease
 are used to work for tourists by people.

                                     an
                                  elephant
                                  working
                                  despite
                                  having skin
                                  disease.




                                                19
And people abuse elephants by forcing
work, by not feeding, and by using them
to log the fields to earn money.
                             An elephant who
                             was starved.




      Elephants used to
  log fields

                                               20
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
                                          21
        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
                                          22
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.
                                             23
     About the Author
Bada Jung was born in 1997, May 15 in Seoul,
South 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.