4.4

Track 4. Read and listen to the text about elephants.

Elephants in nature and elephants in zoos.

Elephants in nature live with their families.

They spend a lot of time together.

They eat, play and take baths together.

They talk to each other in their language and they look after each other.

They are just like us.

These elephants eat between 149 and 169 kilos of vegetation a day

and spend 16 to 18 hours feeding.

They search for food everywhere.

They eat small trees, bamboos and other plants.

Mother and baby elephants are always together.

What father elephants live alone.

Baby elephants always learn new skills such as using their trunks from their mothers.

Trunks are like very big noses.

Elephants can smell everything and drink a lot of water with their trunks.

They also say hello and touch each other with their trunks.

Trunks are also like human hands.

With their trunks elephants can hold food and put it in their mouths.

What elephants in zoos have got a different life.

They live in stables and elephant keepers take care of them.

At seven in the morning they go out of the stables because visitors come to the zoo.

At nine o 'clock they go back to the stables and have their breakfast and take their vitamins.

They drink water after breakfast.

Then the elephant keepers wash them first with warm and then with cold water.

They check their feet and cut their toenails.

Young elephants need to learn a lot of things.

They learn the basic commands like come, go and sit down from the keepers.

When they are outside their stables elephants can bathe in mud and play in the pool and visitors love watching this.

At half past four they return to their stables and have a meal.

They always eat hay and straw.

Sometimes they get fruit and vegetables and they are very happy.

After six o 'clock their keepers and the visitors leave the zoo and they are on their own in their stables.

Now they can sleep and take a rest.