Wildlife Conservation Club Newsletter #4:
African Wild Dog: Endangered
By: James Tauber '21
Known by several other names including the painted wolf and the painted hunting dog, the African wild dog is a social predator related to jackals. While many ancient civilizations viewed African wild dogs as spiritually important, more recently they have been seen as pests. Their bad reputation means they are often shot, and this combined with habitat loss has reduced its population to only about 6,000. Ways you can save African wild dogs include donating to fund education programs about African wild dogs for African farmers and petitioning to open parks or reserves for them.
Indian Elephant: Endangered
By: Ricky Melasecca '20
The Indian Elephant, one of three subspecies of the Asian Elephant, is a cultural icon, and it maintains the integrity of forests and grasslands all throughout Asia. They spend most of their time feeding and the rest producing about 220 pounds of dung daily. Their diet consists mostly of grass along with bark, roots, leaves, stems, and cultivated crops, such as bananas and rice. Always near freshwater, they travel in matriarchal herds in which the females weigh around 6,000 pounds and the males up to 11,900 pounds. Threatened by poachers and other dangers, the Indian Elephant population is estimated to be between 20,000 and 25,000 as of 2015. You can help by donating to organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund that are working to protect the elephant habitats and mitigate the human-elephant conflict.
Ganges River Dolphin: Endangered
By: Myles Ross '21
Discovered in 1801, the Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica) is known as a freshwater (river) dolphin and is located mainly in the Ganges River and other rivers in the Indian subcontinent. Little is known about the Ganges River Dolphins’ behavior except that they usually travel alone or in pairs and that they are shy to others. Only being able to live in freshwater, the Ganges River Dolphin eats fish and other invertebrate water-dwelling animals. Believe it or not, the Ganges River Dolphins, pretty much blind, are able to see by sending out ultrasonic waves. The waves bounce off other sea creatures and help the Ganges River Dolphins to make an image in their heads of their surroundings. The calves of the Ganges River Dolphin are of a chocolate-brown skin tone at birth, and grow to a brownish-pinkish-gray color when they get older. Unfortunately, the Ganges River Dolphin is highly endangered because of human exploitation, and its numbers have decreased to around 1,200 individuals. Riverside communities near the Ganges are protecting the dolphins and their habitats by removing trash and pollution from local bodies of water.
Red Panda: Endangered
By: Cyrus Griffin '20
The red panda is unique in many ways. The only living member of the family Ailuridae, it is currently endangered and legally protected in many areas of Asia. While attempts have been made to conserve the species, the total population has dropped by more than 50 percent over the past two decades, with less than10,000 individuals left today. This is mostly due to the particular habitat that they require, which is not only difficult to replicate artificially but also heavily impacted by activities such as farming and logging. The best way to help red pandas is simply to spread awareness, which draws more support for protecting their habitats.
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