Javan Rhino

I am the most threatened of the five rhino species, 
in western Indonesia only 35 of us, remain now alive, 
In 2010 in Vietnam, the last of my kind was poached, 
my numbers now continue to disastrously dive.

 I'm dusky grey in colour, with a single horn of about 10 inches, 
my skin is loosely folded like plated armor, 
I'm similar in view to my relative the greater one horned rhino,
 but my head is much smaller and skin folds much calmer.

I've been killed by trophy hunters since colonial times,
as an agricultural pest and for use in traditional medicine, my horn is with high price met.
Now extremely vulnerable facing extinction, by natural disasters, diseases and potential inbreeding,
but its the human impact of poaching that continues to remain, my ever present dying threat.

You have brought white, black and Indian rhinos back, from the brink of extinction,
the knowledge about how to save my species, is not thus beyond your comprehension.
Please help to lessen my plight and pull together with others, in this important fight, 
work as a strong single voiced community, towards achieving sustained global conservation.

Hawksbill Turtle

I am named after my narrow, pointed beak,
My plight is within the Oceans, becoming increasingly bleak.
I have a distinctive pattern of overlapping scales on my shell,
My colored patterned shells are highly-valuable, as "tortoiseshell" in markets thy sell.

Found mainly throughout the world's tropical oceans, predominantly in reefs of coral,

I feed mainly on sponges, sea anemones and jellyfish, of my extinction unable to quarrel.
We've existed on earth, as reptiles travelling the seas, for all of the last 100 million years,
That we may disappear from among you, should now be one of your greatest fears.

 As a fundamental link in marine based ecosystems, 

To my threats alone, I cannot provide adequate resistance.

 The health of coral reefs and sea grass beds, I help to maintain,

I provide better access for other reef fish to feed, they rarely show me any disdain

I am susceptible to entanglement in gillnets, also accidental capture on fishing hooks,

We need to reach the surface to breathe, once caught we drown, its a closure of our books.

As the activity of fishing expands around our watery home, 

 We are threatened as bycatch, to not for long in the Oceans swim and roam.

Please help me and my kind to stay out of harm, and thus always for you around,

After a hundred million years on the planet, its criminal that I might soon not be found.

Speak out to establish marine protected areas, strengthen legislation and fund my protection,

Don't delay or look away please do something today, you'll surely miss me upon later reflection.

African Elephant

I am proud to be the largest land mammal, walking on planet earth,
Weighing up to eight tons, I've got me some serious girth.
I can be distinguished by my massive body and large, fan shaped like ears,
Ants climbing up into my long trunk, is one of my most terrible hated fears.

From my Asian relatives I do differ, in quite a number of physical ways, 
They are smaller in body and ears alike, for more trees do they have to protect from the suns rays.
 Both males and females have tusks in my region, while in Asia its just the males alone, 
I'm either left or right-tusked, my favoured one being much smaller as regular from use it is worn.
. 
The Asian has four toes on its hind foot instead of my three, while we both have five on our fore, 
Led by a matriarch, we have complex social structures with both females and calves galore. 
The male of my species tends to live in isolation, preferring to all alone roam, 
We maintain forest and savanna ecosystems, and are integral to the rich biodiversity of our home.

The greatest threats we face are poaching for ivory, human conflicts, habitat loss and degradation,
Please help and an effort, protect the extensive land that I need to survive from starvation.
You compete and conflict with us over resources, but we have no other place to forage and eat,
For our herds do require an extensive amount of food, water and space to stretch our feet.

Another resulting victim of man's folly, greed and whole neglect, 
So now please support conservation as your charity select.  

Help in the fighting to protect me, and those of my kind,
For soon there wont be any of us, left at all around to find.

Make Conservation Your Example

Make Yourself Heard

Cross River Gorilla

You'll only find me living in the Congo Basin,

Please help in my conservation, and not my doom to hasten.

I'm not as numerous as the western lowland Gorilla,

My numbers of two hundred, is to me a total horror.

Poaching, disease and habitat destruction,

Critically causing my species, near future extinction.

Vegetarian, I feed on stems, bamboo shoots and just fruit,

For the manner in which my kind have had to die, as a human please feel hurt.

The largest living primate, with a well developed social structure,

Exhibiting behaviour and emotions like humans, laughing and feeling sad at our butcher.

Charismatic and intelligent, less than two percent does even our DNA differ,

I am your closet cousin, after smaller chimps and bonobos, like you I shiver.

We live as individuals a couple, or up to forty as a group round a head male of family.

As adult male I can weigh upto four forty pounds, six foot tall and rather gangly.

As an adult male of fourteen I develop a silverback of white hair,

A baby in 6 years is slow a growth, our population can't survive I do despair

It's across central Africa, illegal trade of me and other great apes, does prevail

So please provide me sanctuary, demand wildlife laws, ones that don't so simply me fail.

Black Rhino

Killed like vermin, by European hunters were we,

Five or six killed in a day, for food or simple glee.

Our decline in population, at the hand of European settlers,

With guns they would choose to kill, and to so better us.

A further cost of the 20th century, colonization of Africa,

 Establishing farms and plantations, continuing a senseless slaughter.

. We are regarded as pests, and exterminated at all cost,

“DOOMED!” was the headline in 1961, due to the numbers of our loss.

 A result of man's folly, greed and wholesale neglect,

So please support our conservation effort, as your charity select.  

Help in the fight, to protect me and my kind,

For soon, there wont be any of us left around to find.

Stop To Look

 (Poem Narration)

 

 

 
I’m rooted, deep into the ground,

My canopy grows, wide and proud.

 

Majestic, tall, strong and powerful,

Life giving, food and seeds bountiful.

 

The varieties of me, you’ll find are myriad,

I was even around, in the time of the Iliad.

 

My rings show my age, so from that you can date me,

My grain can be beautiful, invoking a sense of warmth in thee.

 

You find me in forests, woods and lining a street,

My leaves when they fall, always get under your feet.

 

I can be deciduous, and evergreen in my type,

But don’t eat my annual fruits, until they are ripe.

 

As rain forests, I provide lungs to the earth,

Man will soon regret, that I was cut down with mirth.

 

Vast areas have been cleared, to burning and logging,

It’s resulted in the ground, breaking and flooding.

 

You use me to build, shore up and to sit,

Climbing my limbs can even keep you fit.

 

You fashion from me, a many wondrous thing,

Polish me up enough, I can even bling!

 

So next time you take a look, around the place that you be,

Stop to look and notice, that which was made from me.

 

Paradise Parrot

You won't see my colours flash upon your eyes no more

Not seen since 1927, I will soon be just folklore

The grassy woodlands of eastern Australia were my home

I lived in pairs or small family groups, alone did i not roam

Making my nest in a hollowed out termite mound, often near the ground

Feeding on grass seeds which were plentiful to be found

I was coloured more extraordinarily than another of my parrot kin

Turquoise, aqua, scarlet, black and brown, unlike mundane human skin

Beautifully formed my tail was almost the size of my body

That I am now extinct should not have been my plight, it is alas a tragedy

Despite being rapid and undulating in my flight through the air

I preferred to spend all my time on the ground close to my lair

Why I did so suddenly decline remains the subject of much speculation

Drought, overgrazing, land clearing, fire regimes, egg hunters and others predation

It saddens me that you will not again be so fortunate so as to me to see

I like my name am safe now in a heavenly paradise happy and full of glee

Amur Leopard

As a rare subspecies I have adapted, 

to my life in the Russian Far East.

Found living in temperate forests,

where on deer, often I feast.

Like other Leopards I can run,

at up to 37 miles per hour in speed.

I'm rather an incredible cat,

leaping to least across twenty and up ten feet.

 I'm nocturnal and solitary,

nimble footed and strong.

I carry and hide my food from other predators,

so that they might not do me wrong.

Some males stay with females after mating,

helping to rear and nurture their young.

Others choose to follow and fight,

so with one female they mate might.

We live for years ten to fifteen,

although up to 20 in captivity.

Some call us Far East others Manchurian

and even Korean leopard a few.

Ecological, economical and cultural,

are where you'll find our importance.

Conservation of my habitat will benefit,

my prey like the deer and even another big cat.

So please make a personal conservation effort 

and help from the brink of extinction bring me back.

Poaching me largely for my beautiful spotted fur,

 is not humane and is absolutely horrendously unfair.

My male and female skins are sold, 

for only $500 and $1000, how very they dare!

You humans have also disastrously reduced,

 the expanse of my former suitable survival range.

That my species of only now 30, 

may reach extinction is thus no longer strange.

So there is really no time to delay,

Support long term conservation today.

Please do not allow me and my kin

to forever from your company go away.

Red Panda

Some look at me and ask if I'm even real,

I am regarded vulnerable, so make me a mighty big deal.

I am a living fossil, tens of millions of years in age am I

There was a time in China and Great Britain that I did die.

I'm not a bear, related to the Giant Panda or even the Raccoon,

I am of a family all my own, so stop contributing towards my doom.

I'm slightly larger than your domestic cat,

with a bear-like body and thick russet fur, I ain't very fat. 

My belly and limbs are black, and i'm marked white

 around my head and cute small eyes, i'm anything but a fright. 

A very skillful and acrobatic animal am I,

I can climb jump and run, up in the tree canopy high.

You'll find me in the Eastern Himalayas, where its always a bit of a freeze,

that's why I'm predominantly up off the ground, much happier up in the trees. 

My long bushy tail is for balance, and for warming winter cover too,

I am primarily an herbivore, eating bamboo and a other plants a few.

My forest home is reducing, as the trees are chopped away,

Poachers value our fur, bamboo becomes more scarce day upon day.

Locals consider our tails attractive good luck charms,

What is also rather disastrous is the impact of agriculture and farms.

We are solitary and often nocturnal and only live ten years at most,
Lend a hand to protect what I need as my land, so we can always forever together toast .