Ethiopian Wolf
One of the most endangered of all wild dogs is the Ethiopian wolf. As the name suggests, this canine only lives in the highlands of Ethiopia in Africa. While big for a member of the dog family, these wolves don’t usually hunt big prey in packs. This one prefers to hunt alone in a style more like a fox and mostly goes for rats, with their number 1 main food source being the giant root-rat. Other prey items are hyraxes and hares. Very rarely do they work as a team to bring down the calves of reedbuck and mountain nyala. Despite this strange solo hunting behavior for a big dog, it still has a pack family like other wolves do. The packs number from 3-15 family members that include an alpha male and female, brothers and sisters, and their babies, the pups. This amazing animal has a really small population of less than 500 left in the whole world including 0 in captivity. The main threats to these wonderful dogs are diseases from feral domestic dogs and habitat fragmentation from livestock and crop growing. The Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme is placing all of the most possible effort in action to save this reclusive wolf from extinction. The main move is to sterilize and vaccinate the free-ranching pet dog population in the region so that their dangers to these wild animals are limited. I hope they will manage to do the trick of preventing them from going away forever.
Northern Elephant Seal
Imagine what it could be like if a seal and an elephant were mixed into 1 to make an animal. That should come from the Star Wars trilogy as a background animal. However, a genus of seals has 2 species that would be the equivalent of that experiment. These creatures are called “elephant seals”. One of them, the one I painted, called the northern elephant seal, lives where I live, California, and has a range that extends from Alaska all the way to the tip of Baja California of Mexico and has a large swath of the northern pacific ocean. Elephant seals are the biggest land predators in the world and also the second largest land animals on earth after only real elephants. The southern elephant seal is the bigger of the duo but the northern elephant seal is very similar in shape and size. It’s the largest land animal in North America. The max size for the males which are way bigger than females is 7.5 feet tall when rearing up, 18 feet long, and 8,500 pounds or 4.25 tons. That’s a few thousand pounds more than the max size of a walrus, 4 times the max size of the polar bear and kodiak bear, nearly 3 times bigger than the max size of the American bison, and the size of most Asian elephants. One major reason why they weigh so much is their large layer of fat called blubber. Its use is to keep the animal warm in the cold waters, provide it the streamlined movement needed to swim, and store loads of energy so they can go for 3 months without food in the mating season. Another reason they have the word elephant in the name is because males have a big, inflatable, floppy nose that looks like an elephant's trunk called a proboscis. Designed with cavities that function like resonators as the male seals roar, it makes them one of the loudest animals in the world, and THE loudest seals on earth. Elephant seal males roar to attract females to mate with and to scare other males away from their territories. One male can have up to 50 different mates in one mating season. Northern elephant seals are the louder of the duo of the species, with the calls reaching 131 decibels. That nose also serves as a storage of freshwater when they go without food during mating season which is where they get most of their water. Females never grow those big noses and males aren’t born with noses like those. The nose begins to develop the shape and size when a male is 4 years old and has it fully formed and functioning when it reaches its 8th birthday. Elephant seals are some of the deepest diving mammals in the world, with northern elephant seals being able to dive up to 5,700 feet deep and hold their breath for 2 hours. To dive so deep, they’re the only known animals that store red blood cells with oxygen in their spleen that then gets released into the bloodstream, have high concentrations of oxygen-binding proteins, and can slow down their heartbeat and metabolism to conserve energy. In the 1800s, northern elephant seals were hunted to the brink of extinction for the blubber. By the 1880s, the last of the world’s northern elephant seals were left in Guadalupe Island of Baja California, Mexico, with just 100 alive at the time. After decades of being protected by law and conservation actions, the population grew to 200,000 alive today with the range back to what it originally was.
Yellow-Eyed Penguin
When people think of where penguins live, they think of, you guessed it, Antarctica, the coldest place on earth. Despite their famous image of being birds of the south pole, not all of the 18 different species of penguins are from the bottom of the earth. While all live in the southern hemisphere that covers the south half of the earth, some live lots of miles away from the winter wonderland bottom and on coastlines South America, Africa, and Australia. One of the best examples of this is the yellow-eyed penguin. This is one of the few penguins that lives in New Zealand, and out of all of those, this is the biggest. It comes in a size from 24 to 30 inches and 6.5 to 19 pounds. Its name comes from the fact that this penguin has a distinctive band of pale yellow feathers that surround the eyes and encircle the back of the head with a forehead, sides, and a crown that are all slate grey with flecks of golden yellow. What is even more important to note about penguins that most people also don’t understand is that they are in danger of extinction. The yellow-eyed penguin in particular must be the most endangered one of all. The population declined by 70% or 80% in the last 15 years to a population of only 2,700 alive today. The threats are disease transmission, entanglement in gillnets, habitat loss from deforestation of coastal forests and livestock ranching, climate change, and introduced non-native predator species. One of WCNs partners called the global penguin society is trying to protect penguins all across their range. They’re dedication to save penguins is what inspired me to do this painting. They currently have projects being done in New Zealand and I hope they can save all of the endangered penguins, including this one, from extinction.
Giant Eland
The giant eland is the largest antelope on earth. At best, it can reach 10 feet long, 6 feet tall at the shoulder, and 2,700 pounds. It’s an antelope the size of a polar bear or a buffalo. Both male and female have very spiraled, V-shaped horns that can reach 4 feet long. Despite such a massive size, a giant eland can reach speeds of 45 miles per hour and jump 5 feet into the air. Because they are so big, their only natural predators are lions, large leopards, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas, and nile crocodiles. Even these predators will find it very tough and dangerous to kill them because this antelope with a huge mass, large horns, great wariness, and incredible agility can easily escape from and even fight off even a pride of lions. When a bull senses danger, he’ll warn his herd with deep-throated barks that will repeat until the whole herd is aware of the predator. Like many antelopes, they are social and live in herds of 15, 20, or 25 animals. The giant eland is listed as a threatened species with a population of 15,000. The 2 main threats to the giant eland are habitat loss for livestock ranching and overhunting for its rich meat for the bushmeat trade. WCN works on stopping the flow of bushmeat trade to prevent decimation of animals that are poached in Africa like the eland.
Red Crowned Crane
The red-crowned crane is one of the most iconic, elegant, and most eye catching birds on the planet. Some of the countries it lives in see the red-crowned crane as a symbol of luck, fidelity, and longevity. It’s one of the biggest cranes in the world with a maximum height of 5.5 feet, a length of 5 feet, a wingspan of 8.5 feet, and a weight of 35 pounds. This crane gets its name for a small patch of featherless bare skin on its forehead or crown that becomes brighter when its mating season. Like many cranes, groups of 80 cranes migrate for 1,500 miles from southern Russia and northern China to Korea and east-central China for wintering months and then return to breed and raise babies in the summer. In Japan, they have a very small migration for 90 miles from the west in the summer to the east in the winter. Despite having the bill and neck design of a fishing bird, it’s actually an omnivore. In the mating season, like many birds, males do a dance courtship to impress the females. That display dance is what I’m depicting in my painting. They will bow their heads up and down over and over again, flap their wings, and leap into the air. If successful, they will mate for life and continue this dance ritual to strengthen their relationship. This bird is considered a threatened species with only 3,000 left in the wild. Threats to the crowned crane include pollution, agriculture expansion, fires made into monsters by climate change, invasive species, and the potential of a disease outbreak at a feeding ground. The International Crane Foundation, the main lead of conservation for cranes all around the world, is working to engage local communities and policy makers in conservation protected areas and the surrounding landscapes.
Cheetah
The cheetah is the fastest land animal and can reach in short bursts 75 miles per hour. But what's truly impressive is its acceleration, 0 to 60 in barely less than 3 seconds. While running, a cheetah can make quick turns and maneuver obstacles to. This extreme agility is due to the long flexible spring-like spine, shoulder blades that don't attach to the collar bones, a long, light weight, lean, and lanky body, a flat aerodynamic head, hips that can pivot in place, non retractable claws, a long tail, and extra large and powerful lungs and a huge heart with incredible beat strength. It's endangered because of habitat loss, poaching, competition with other more powerful predators, farmers killing them because of attacks on livestock, and an illegal pet trade for their cubs.