E is for Elephant
On the National Geographic site, ‘A Voice For Elephants’, Daphne Sheldrick, who has worked with elephants for many years, says:
“Elephants share the same emotions as ourselves, with a strong sense of family and the same sense of death. Like us they mourn the loss of loved ones. Each has an individual personality just like us. They can be mischievous, playful, hold a grudge or feel slighted.”
Experts are warning that Africa is losing 36,000 elephants a year to ivory poaching – for chopsticks and trinkets, mainly to satisfy markets in the Far East.
This trade doesn’t just affect elephants – elephants are an important part of the food chain in Africa and many plants, whose seeds are dispersed by elephants, and the animals unique to Africa that survive on them are also at risk of extinction.
Asian elephants are also increasingly being targeted.
This sad slaughter will not stop until there is a complete moratorium on the sale and use of ivory.
Mother Nature Network gives these guidelines if you would like to help elephants:
1) Don’t buy, sell or wear ivory – look at walking sticks, chopsticks, billiard balls, cues, dominoes, piano keys and carvings.
2) Buy elephant-friendly coffee and wood – sometimes these are grown in plantations that have destroyed elephant habitat.
3) Support conservation efforts –
iworry, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust,
International Elephant Foundation,
WWF,
Amboseli Elephant Research Project.
4) Boycott circuses that use captive elephants.
5) Adopt an elephant.
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I love elephants.
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Poem © Liz Brownlee
Facts courtesy of the websites linked above.
If you would like to blog-hop to the next A-Z Challenge blog, please click here.
If you’d like to read about or buy my book, Animal Magic, full of animal poems and fascinating facts, click here.
- Posted in: A-Z Challenge 2014
- Tagged: Africa, animals, beauty, elephant, endangered animals, poem, science, shape poem
lizbrownlee - poet 
Enjoying your alphabet.
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Thanks, Celia!
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Beautiful, telling poem – the visual aspect gives it another dimension
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I too love elephants. They are amazing and intelligent animals. Thanks for the post and the poem.
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Thanks, Shelley!
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Passing from the A to Z, that is a lot of work well done.
I have decided to head down the route of nonsense poetry this year (it is not very good, but I am having fun).
Rob Z Tobor
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Hello Rob, off to find you! Thank you.
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Darn! Can’t comment, as your blogger account won’t let me – but great! Love your pictures…
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I’m a big fan of shape poetry and you have something really great here! I struggle with getting the words where I want them within a shape, then when I try to post it on my blog… well, let’s just say I’m an admirer of those who can make it look as wonderful as you have done!
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Seekingme… it’s just knowing how to do it. I never try and force a shape – if it strikes me that it is possible then I sometimes alter words to be longer/shorter to enable it, and lines are sometimes joined or parted, it doesn’t seem to matter in a shape. Once I have got it right on the page (I have a mac but do it in Word) then I make a PDF of the document – then I export it as a jpeg. Then you don’t have to worry about the lines ever moving. There are probably many ways to make a document into a jpeg, but this is simple and quick, and keeps the quality.
Then just insert the jpeg as an image into the blog.
That’s this sort of shape anyhow – others I do in Photoshop – I did the word ‘tusks’ in Photoshop, and that was very simple too. Many of the poems in my book, Animal Magic, are shape poems.
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What a joy. To be visually entertained before a poem begins is a whole different…animal.
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Thank you Sandra – I am quite visual and love doing shape poems!
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This was beautiful! I’ve an affinity for elephants:)
WriterlySam
Echoes of Olympus
A to Z #TeamDamyanti
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They are the most wonderful creatures. Something about them.
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Lovely, lovely Liz,.
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Thank you…
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