Elephants

By: Karla Gonzalez and Graciela Coen

Elephants

I was born on August 7th, 2011. We were a big community of
elephants in South Africa.

● We come from the family
Elephantidae, we grow up to
8-14 feet tall, we weigh 4-7
tons.

● We live in hot places but,
always have to flap our ears to
cool our blood.

● We are at the second trophic
level with deer and mice.

We live in a grassland ecosystem.

● Where we live is in the middle of large land
masses, most common are the prairies in
North America and the steppe in Europe
and Asia. Vegetation is dominated by
grasses.

● We enjoy the dry and wet seasons and
temperate grasslands have cold winters
and hot summers. (Winter: -40F, Summer:
100F). Grasslands suffer from habitat loss.

● To live, we need good climate, soil, water,
air.

● We interact with other living things such as
plants, trees, zebras, lions, rabbits, and
even snakes.

Our food web consists in elephants, zebras, hyenas,
cheetahs, vultures, termites, and detritivores.

Our food web has producers such as
grass, trees, shrubs, primary
consumers which include us
elephants and zebras. There are
secondary consumers which feed on
us like hyenas and cheetahs. There
are scavengers: vultures and termites,
and detritivores.

When I was 2 years old, my uncle was taken away by some
kind of weird species and they never brought him back.

At this point, many elephants from my community were
being captured and thrown to the ground with some type of

dangerous toys that those weird species had.

When I was 4 years old, my dad was taken away. He never came
back, and me and my mom had to find a way to survive.

Later on, I learned that those weird species were called humans.
I realized that there are bad humans that want to hurt us, and good humans that

want to help us. For some reason, the good humans started to decorate our
tusks with a pink color. But, it actually helped us not to be taken away.

*Environmental Stewardship.

Year 2020 (9 years old). For some years, the color helped but now, my tusk is
growing and the color is vanishing. I am in danger again of being taken away.

Year 2030 (19 years old). My mom and more than half of my
community has been taken away. Everyone is disappearing,

I am one of the lucky ones that is being left.

Humans captured me.

Those uncaring humans destroyed my life. The reason they
were capturing us was to get our valuable tusks. They left

me here to die...

Bibliography

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-elephant-populations-stable/
https://www.thedodo.com/pink-tusked-elephant-1699897629.html
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rhinos-elephants-getting-pink-horns-prevent-poaching/
https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/elephants/asian_elephants/areas/issues/elephant_human_conflict/
https://medcraveonline.com/IJAWB/the-future-survival-of-african-elephants-implications-for-conservation.html