Helping elephants is something that anyone who has a genuine interest in nature and the environment should try to do if they would like to help protect these beautiful animals and keep them from becoming extinct. Because of their habitats and the circumstances that they can encounter, Asian elephants often end up injured, abused, and orphaned. When this happens, they need human help to get them back to health and let them go back into the wild to try to survive on their own. Understanding how Asian elephants become injured, abused, and orphaned can help you to understand why helping elephants is so important.
Elephant Injuries
Elephants can sustain fairly serious injuries for a number of reasons. Males who are fighting for females during mating season can get hurt seriously due to the aggression displayed during breeding. If Asian elephants migrate into an area where there are land mines or other weapons, they may be injured with an explosion that burns their bodies or causes them to lose body parts. Other injuries may be sustained if an elephant is sick and can't get around as well as it normally does.
Elephant Abuse
Elephants can be abused by the people who keep them in captivity. Asian elephants that are kept in captivity are often subjected to horrific abuse from the people keeping them. They can be whipped and beaten and have punishments inflicted on them to make them behave or do what their owners want them to do. This abuse results in serious injuries and may make an elephant behave differently as a psychological response.
Orphaned Elephants
Orphaned elephants are young elephants that lose their mothers. This can happen if a mother elephant is critically injured or dies after her calf has been born. When orphaned elephants are too young to survive on their own, they need intervention from humans so that they can survive until they are old enough to go back into the wild and do it on their own.
Helping Asian Elephants
Helping elephants takes a lot of hard work by volunteers all over the world. While some volunteers work directly with the elephants at shelters and orphanages, there are also people all over the world who are raising money to keep these shelters going and working to make sure as many elephants can be helped as possible. Elephant orphanages have opened in Sri Lanka and other areas so that Asian elephants can be helped as much as possible. These orphanages are staffed by volunteers who work directly with the elephants. The elephants are kept in pens, so these pens must be cleaned each day. This means removing the elephant dung on a daily basis. These volunteers also bathe orphaned elephant calves, feed the elephants, and care for their injuries. As the elephants get stronger, they may be able to go back into the wild and try to survive on their own.
Helping elephants is an important cause that everyone should know more about. Do some research and you'll see how important it is to help Asian elephants.
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