Every one of us crowded around Evelyn. Evelyn smiled at me, but I saw the pain in her eyes. Our gatherers came back and gave Evelyn her food, which was mostly fruit. My mom stayed close to Evelyn, trying to ease the pain. We knew Evelyn was strong, as she was one of our leaders, but we were still worried. My best hope was that it would be over soon, but for now, we would have to get her everything she needed.

Okay, let's backtrack a little. My name is Eliana. I am a bonobo; I live with my troop, which has 12 members, almost 13, I hope (Evelyn, me, and my mother included). I live in the Central Congolian Tropical Forests. It was really beautiful there, and there are still parts that are beautiful, but those won’t last. Humans are cutting down the forest’s trees. They are also killing Bonobos. They are capturing some, killing others for bushmeat, and removing our forests, which means less food. This is a risk we face every day, but nothing terrible has happened to my troop yet. For now, we are okay and are doing everything we can to survive and help each other thrive.

Now back from where we left off. I had been waiting by Evelyn's side the whole day, so I wandered away from the group when I heard a commotion. I ran back to Evelyn's side, and there in front of me was Evelyn, and in her arms was a baby girl! My mom was next to Evelyn, looking relieved and cheerful. Since my mom joined the troop, Evelyn and my mom had been close, Evelyn always looked after my mom, and as Evelyn was in labor, my mom looked after her. Everyone was happy, and we started to build the nest for tonight, when just as we finished, we heard the noise. “Bam, Bam, Bam,” gunfire, humans were shooting at us.

Big black bullets fell around us one nearly got mom's tail, another Evelyn’s newborn baby! Evelyn put the baby on her back, and the troop ran away as fast as we could. Finally, we lost them, and we arrived in a small clearing. No one was killed, but some were injured though not too badly. In other troops, it had been worse their members had been killed and captured. We tended to the wounded as we always did and started to relax. Parents played with their little ones while older kids rolled around and played tag, not unlike humans, I might add. I wish humans would see that we were really similar to them and that we had feelings and cared about the family and friends they were taking away from us. Come to think of it; I had not seen another troop in a while. Troops were dying out quickly, from habitat loss to starvation to poachers, and soon, there would be no bonobos left. Would humans care when we go extinct?

I got up and walked over to Evelyn. She was murmuring softly to her baby bonobo. “Colletta, that's your name; it means people of victory; you will be a victor; you will be safe.”

Slowly we went back to the nest we had made earlier; it would be safe now. Humans scarcely camped near our forests. We were relieved to find our nest okay, say for the stray bullets littering the floor. For dinner, though, we were tired and afraid, we scavenged as much as possible, but the trees to the north were gone, and it was getting dark, so no one wanted to risk setting off a trap. We climbed into the nest and fell asleep to our parents breathing.

I woke up to the sound of the adults talking, and loud footsteps down below the adults woke the rest of the troop up, and we climbed out of the tree. The sun was just beginning to rise, and I could hear the crickets chirping. We climbed down the tree fast, helping each other, and we darted into the forest, then hid and watched as the two-legged beasts known as humans sawed down our tree and the three more trees around it. We turned and walked away deeper into the forest, knowing we would need a miracle to save our kind, but it could be done. Let that miracle be you.

Here are some fun facts about Bonobos!

1. Bonobos and chimpanzees both share 98.7% of their DNA with humans.
2. Though bonobos and chimpanzees look similar, bonobos are typically smaller and darker than chimpanzees.
3. Bonobos are very peaceful and led by females. Bonobos rarely fight when they are mad, instead they comfort each other.
4. Wild Bonobos live only south of the Congo river(the Democratic Republic of Congo) in African Rainforests.
5. The population numbers of bonobos are unknown though it is thought to have been declining for the last 30 years. Scientists think the population of the bonobos will keep going down for the next 45 to 55 years because of the bonobo’s low reproduction rates and other threats like poaching and habitat loss.
6. Bonobos look for food on the ground (for worms) and in the trees (for fruit).
7. Bonobos sleep in large groups making nests in trees.
8. They use tools to forage for food.
9. Bonobos give birth every 5 years.
10. Bonobos play some of the same games as humans.
11. Females usually have their first babies when they are 14 years old.
12. Females help when a member of the troop is giving birth, like midwives.
13. Bonobos care for their babies until they are four years old. Males stay with their moms their whole lives while females leave to join another troop.
14. Females take care of the kids while males give food and protection.
15. Bonobos are estimated to number (in the wild) about 10,000 to 20,000.
16. Deforestation and agriculture destroyed a large amount of bonobo’s forests, and even though it is illegal bonobos are poached and captured.
17. In 2021, two wild female bonobos adopted infants from other groups which is a rare behavior among wild animals!

Bonobos live south of the Congo river(the Democratic Republic of Congo) in African Rainforests. Below is a world map! The area where they live is circled.

Since not much is known about the population of bonobos, it can not be predicted accurately.

I hope you have enjoyed learning about Bonobos.

I wake up; I am inside a little weird ball thing. I start to chew on it and finally escape. I am hungry, so I eat the weird thing. “Take that whatever you are,” I squeak. I look down at myself. I am a caterpillar. I am full. I don’t know what I am doing, but slowly I spin a pad of silk, attach it to my hind legs, and then, you won’t believe this, I walk out of my own skin. I eat the skin, of course. I don’t want anyone to see it. Then I slowly started munching on the milkweed that I had been on top of. Milkweed is good. Life is amazing. “I need a name. Something to call me.” I squeak. I keep eating and thinking, and finally, I decide, “Anika! I want to be named Anika. It's a pretty unique name, and I like it very much. It’s my name now!” I smile to myself. I slowly crawl to the next leaf and nibble on it. That's when I see it. To the north of me are milkweed plants behind a fence; they are far enough that I am safe, but I can see that a weird creature is spraying something on the plants, and that's when I realize the truth.

The stuff that they are spraying? If a caterpillar eats that milkweed, it will die. You can tell by the way the plants look … wrong and how there are caterpillars there, unmoving … just there. “It is going to be okay, Anika. Just watch which milkweed you eat, and you will be okay”. I squeak to myself.

So my life goes on, and I stick to my milkweed plant. Every day I do the same thing, I would be bored, but I keep myself entertained by telling myself jokes and talking to myself. I do the weird thing where I step out of my skin 5 times, and each time I am bigger! I like doing fun things! Finally, on the 18th day, I sing to myself, “I eat, then I sleep, then it goes on repeat,” I take a bite of the leaf and keep singing, “But today that's all going to change, hooray,” I climb of my host plant sad to let it go but then remember it will be safer. “I am going to do something fun,” I sing. I find another milkweed plant, check if it is safe by looking around for the giant, then try the leaf. It tastes as good as ever! I climbed up to a nice sturdy leaf, and then I slowly attached my back legs to the leaf and then curled into a kind of J shape with my body.

1 Week Later:

I shake in my cocoon, and out I go; I am on the clear thing I was just inside. I unfurl my wings. “Am I still Anika? Or someone else? Well … I like Anika, so I think I will stick with her.” I chirp. I smile; I know one thing for sure. I have wings! Beautiful orange wings with black veins and white spots. “I butterfly!” I chirp “Get it? Because I better fly, I butterfly?”. Yes, I am definitely Anika; I even still talk to myself; I just look different. I let my wings get ready then I take off flying through the morning air, the wind rustling the trees. I am not the only one. There are more of us. I hear one of them talking about migrating. I think I might go with them. I want to migrate to Mexico! Days pass, and I drink the sweet nectar from all kinds of plants, being careful not to eat or drink anything around the human hideout; others are not so lucky, and it is not their fault, it is the humans. There are few of us left by the time we migrate. I learn the name of what they are spraying; pesticides and chemicals; these are the things killing my kind. I worry a lot about our safety, but I keep talking to myself and telling jokes. I visit my host plant once or twice for the fun of it, but other than that, I don’t really think much about my past. I have lots of fun in the day, flitting from flower to flower, but rarely communicating with other butterflies. On the final day of the trip, we set off for Mexico; we flew early, and it took an overall 2 months, but it was a wonderful experience until I heard two butterflies behind me talking, saying it was a shame. They said there used to be around 10 million monarch butterflies only 41 years ago, but now there are scarcely 2,000 in the world. It may sound like a big number, but it is not.

Think about it, when was the last time you saw a monarch butterfly? When was the last time you saw a monarch butterfly in the wild? All of us will be gone soon. My name is Anika, and I am telling you, all of you kids out there; you have to do something, anything before it is too late.

Here are some fun facts about Monarch Butterflies!

1. Monarch butterfly's bright colors warn predators saying they are “poisonous”
2. Butterflies get their poison from milkweed (the only plant caterpillars eat).
3. Animals that eat monarchs don’t die, but they do get sick, which makes them want to avoid monarchs in the future.
4. Milkweed is the only plant on which monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on, but millions of acres of milkweed have been destroyed.
5. Monarch caterpillars can eat a whole milkweed leaf in five minutes or less, and they eat 200 times their weight of milkweed!
6. Monarch butterflies complete a migration each year. These butterflies leave North America and travel to Mexico or California (a distance of nearly 2,500 miles)
7. Monarchs return to the same forests every year, and some can even find the same tree their ancestors landed on.
8. Around the end of winter, the butterflies in Mexico and California mate, and the females go north, leaving eggs on milkweed while the males die.
9. Monarchs live in all of America, Australia, some many Pacific Islands, India, and Western Europe.
10. The Monarch butterfly is the state insect of Texas, Minnesota, Idaho, Illinois, and Alabama and the state butterfly of Vermont and West Virginia.
11. Monarch butterfly's scientific name is the Danaus plexippus which translates to sleepy transformation in greek. This name was given to it due to the fact that is can change into a butterfly while asleep.
12. Males have black dots along the “veins” of their wings, and they are slightly bigger than females.
13. Males attract females with scent glands in their hind wings.
14. Adult monarchs live for only four to five weeks.
15. The word chrysalis is from the Greek word “chrysos” meaning gold. There are gold spots on the monarch's chrysalises; they are from the “carotenoid pigment” in the milkweed they eat.
16. A female monarch butterfly can lay from 300 to 500 eggs in a two to five-week span!
17. Monarch caterpillars eat their eggshells.
18. Monarchs make a pad of silk, attach it to their hind legs, and then walks out of their skin (It does this to grow). Then it eats the skin so as not to show any trace of it being there. It does this five times in its lifetime.
19. These caterpillars can grow 2,700 times their original weight in the span of their 10 to 14-day caterpillar stage.
20. The name of a group of butterflies is called a flutter.
21. Pesticides and other chemicals people use while farming crops have killed milkweed as well as butterflies.
22. Monarchs are very sensitive to temperature and weather changes, so climate change is also affecting them a lot.

23. You can help by planting milkweed in your yard.

Monarchs live in all of America, Australia, some many Pacific Islands, India, and Western Europe. Below is a world map! The area where they live is colored purple.

The monarch butterfly population has started rising, but it is still endangered.

I hope you have enjoyed learning about Monarch Butterflies.

The sun on my back was warm, the grass swishing around me, watching the sun. “Willa, Willa, Willa!” My little sister Ellie called, “Come in the water.” Ellie is 2 years old, and I am 4 years old. We live in a herd with 6 elephants, me, Ellie, mamma, aunt, cousin Milla (3 years older than me), and Grandma. We live on a beautiful grassland. I fill my trunk up with water and spray it over me, then after the herd is done, we go to the field and graze. I eat mostly grass and some leaves. Suddenly, we hear a sound, then big machines appear, destroying the land and plowing the grass. Mamma and Aunt look frightened, Milla looks shocked, but grandma? Though she is furious, she takes action, telling us all to run Ellie grabs a bunch of grass and puts it in her mouth then we all run fast. Finally, we stopped near a pond of fresh water with grass.

“Everything is okay,” mamma says, averting her eyes, “Look, it is time for bed; let us sleep.” Milla picks up some grass and puts it in her mouth. Ellie does the same. So do I, thinking about the horrid things that ruined the land. The thing that scared my mother, nothing ever scared my mother. I had never seen anything like those things, so I tried to piece together what they were. Finally, I closed my eyes, but all I dreamed of were those machines tearing apart the land, getting rid of the beautiful plants.

I wake up before the sun. My herd and I graze; no one mentions yesterday, but I can tell it is on everyone’s mind. We eat a lot then, get water then keep eating. My sister is not cheerful, and Milla is not playfully teasing her or talking or even making anyone smile. We don’t talk much, but we do everything like usual, but it feels weird. Finally, when I can’t stand it anymore, I am about to ask, but then Ellie looks so upset already I don’t know if I should. I know one thing, though. If something is trying to kill us they are making a mistake; we help the grasslands grow by eating seeds and then “dropping them off” somewhere else; without us, there would be no herbivores, which means no predators because the predators don’t have food which means nothing that eats the predators would survive. In the end, everything will go extinct.

I keep eating grass and eating some bark. Then I hear something fly past my ear. My mom is horrified. We all run as fast as we can through the pond and into a clump of trees; whatever is shooting at us is not trying to kill they are trying to sedate us! We run fast as they pursue us, and we finally get a safe distance away. We find some water and drink, and then whoever is chasing us finds us and again starts shooting at us. We finally get a safe distance away and find somewhere safe. We stand on alert for a bit, then relax, knowing that they are gone for sure. We look around and see that we are in a nice clearing with a pond and grass, it feels like a mirage after what we have just been through, but I am grateful nonetheless.

“What were those things,” Ellie asks quietly. Milla cuddles close to Ellie, and then grandma lies down. We all come really close to her, not expecting to hear an answer, and she begins to tell us everything. About humans, about how male tusks are wanted, and how our skin is wanted. About how they put elephants in a box and make them do tricks, about how humans are taking all the land and farming on it. She tells us about how they capture those who try to take food from the land that was once ours. She tells us how there is only half of us left; then she says to us, “the humans, they can take our lives, they can take our families, they can take our homes, but not without a fight,” so I want to tell you, the earth is sending you a message that what you are doing is wrong, where the fields were full of us there are now empty grounds, where there used to be grasslands and ponds, there are now farms with sharp wire around them, and where there used to be thriving life, there is now emptiness. The earth has warned you again and again, so fight, fight to save the earth, fight to save our home, fight to save your home, fight to save us. If all of us fight together, we can fix this mistake, but we have to fight now.

Here are some interesting facts about Asian Elephants!

1. Elephants are the largest land mammal on earth! (Asian elephants are slightly smaller than African elephants.
2. Asian elephants are the largest mammals in Asia!
3. Elephants can’t jump.
4. Elephants need to drink at least once a day, so they are always close to a source of freshwater.
5. Baby elephants lose their first set of teeth, just like humans!
6. Asian elephant's scientific name is “Elephas Maximus”.
7. Asian elephants are mammals.
8. Around ⅓ of Asian elephants live in captivity.
9. The average lifespan of an Asian elephant is up to 60 years.
10. An elephant uses its trunk along its nose with extra features such as smelling and breathing (like us), but also things like trumpeting, drinking, and grabbing things!
11. Asian elephants like to fill their trunks with water and spray it all over themselves to cool down.
12. These elephants use rumbles, bellows, growls, and moans to communicate with each other. Some of these calls can be heard from a mile away.
13. A group of elephants is called a herd.
14. These elephants are really social and form groups of six to seven females that are related (they are led by the oldest female, while adult males go off on their own).
15. Asian elephants, like African elephants, occasionally join other herds to form bigger herds, but those don’t last long.
16. Asian elephant herds are smaller than African elephants.
17. You can tell the difference between Asian and African elephants by the Asian elephant's slightly rounder and smaller ears.
18. Asian elephants inhabit wet and dry forests and grasslands in 13 countries from South to Southeast Asia.
19. These amazing elephants live in forest areas in India and all over Southeast Asia.
20. Though these mammals prefer forage plants, they have adapted to surviving on resources that are available to them.
21. Two-thirds or more of an Asian elephant's day is spent feeding on grasses, but they also eat tree bark, roots, small stems, and leaves.
22. These elephants love bananas, rice, and sugarcane.
23. These elephants are herbivores meaning they only eat plants.
24. An adult elephant can eat 300 pounds of food a day!
25. Asian elephants can grow about nine feet tall! They weigh nearly 6 tons (two cars)! A lot of an Asian elephant's time is spent looking for food; these elephants sometimes travel 50 miles a day.
26. The Asian elephant population has grown smaller by 50% in the past 75 years!
27. There are estimated to be 20,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants left in the wild!
28. Some threats to wild Asian elephants are habitat loss (deforestation is the main problem) and human-elephant conflict because elephants look for space and take crops from the farms close to their homes.
29. Most illegal ivory comes from African elephants, though Asian elephants still face that threat. The trade of elephant skin has grown though, and many of these animals are poached.
30. Young wild elephants are trafficked from Myanmar to Thailand for tourism.
31. Asian elephants are usually trained with bullhooks (a long wooden stick with a metal hook at the end), but the way is different with every handler though most use fear-based methods.

32. You can help! Don't ride an elephant, their spine can not support the weight of humans.

33. If you see an Asian Elephant or any animal being mistreated raise your voice in safety. Teach people to treat animals humanely.

Asian elephants live in forest areas in India and all over Southeast Asia. Below is a world map! The area where they live is colored brown.

Some experts believe it could be as early as 2025 within 12 years!

I hope you have enjoyed learning about Asian Elephants.