Ryan+Tomlinson+-+Asian+elephants

=Asian Elephant=

=Locatin and Natural habitat=

The Asian Elphants main location are in large block tropical rain forests. They can live in both moist or dry rainforests, and can even survive in cool mountain tops as far as 10,000 feet high. An Asian elephants diet also enables it to live anywhere were there is plenty of room to move around; with many kinds of different foods, and no interactions with humas.

=Niche= Despite the Asian elephants large size, this is no match for human weaponry and the greed for ivroys and land decreased the amount of elephants greatly. Th Asian elephant is now lsted as an endagered species and is on the world conservation unions red list of thretened animals. At the turn of the century there were approximately 200,000 thosand elephants and now theres only approximetly 35 to 40 thousand asian elephants left in the wild. Some interesting facts about Asian elephants are that the approximate size of a male Asian elephant is around 21 feet long and 10 feet high and 11,000 pounds. The approximate size for a female elephant is around 8 1/2 feet tall. In some places elephants are worshipped as gods and are symbols of royalty. The elpephants feet are shapped in a certain way to support the great weight of the elephant. an average lifespan of an Asian elephant is 45 years old. Asian elephants will spend 18 - 20 hours daily feeding and mostly eat leaves,fruits and grass. Compared to the African elephant the Asian elephant is pretty small. The African male elephant can weigh at the most 16,000 pounds and can grow yo be 13 feet high. Though the African elephant is an endangered species there were more of them to start with. An African elephant has a more sway back and the Asian elephant has a more humpish back. One of the most interesting differences between the two elephant are that the African elephants large ears are the shape of the African continent and the smaller Asian elephant ears are the shape of India.

=Why is the animal endangered?=

Asian elephants are endangered because of human conflicts and habitat destruction. They were added to the list of endangered species in 1989. One of the main reasons is because asian elephants are hunted for there tusk. The endangered species act of 1973 is an act that provides conservation of species that are endangered or threatened throughout all or a significant portion of their range. The difference between a threatened and endangered species is that and edangered species is a population of organisms whos numbers are low and may become extinct, a threatened species is when a population of organisms may become endangered. There are only approximately 35,000 asian elephants left.



=Conservation Efforts= Zoo's are tryng to house the asian elephants as a cause to try and help the endangered species. However the zoo's cant meet the elephants complex needs. So in that case the asian elephants aren't breeding good and are suffering myriad health problems. Many organizations are trying to help these elephants such as the SSN ( species survival network) who care deeply about the care of asian elephants.