Reflection

My blog doesn’t really reflect, my rationale, as I didn’t watch any shows about animals, or documentary about endangered animals that week. In that week I did watch shows and films that have animated animals, which might have influenced why my blog was about animals. The obstacles that I faced while writing my blog was looking up facts about endangered animals, as there is a lot of them. This was because I had to try to narrow down what animal to do, and getting the important information, which I thought would be important to my viewers.  One of the main issues was making sure that I didn’t copyright the information from the sites, as most of the information was facts on the animal. In the blog, what I could of improved on was putting my own opinion in some of the posts rather than just giving facts about the animals. The particular area, I think that I succeed on, would be pitching the blog to the right age group, as when I pitched to my class everybody seemed interested in the topic. In the blog, I could have improved on making the blog more interactive with the audience, by maybe putting in a voting poll or more gifs.

Throughout the unit, we had lecture and seminar about how to make a good blog and lectured that link to the films we were watching in the cinema, for example, Love Simon, we had a lecture on gay cinema and the history about it. During the lecture we would do a questionnaire, to see what type of shows or films people were watching and how they were interacting on social media, this was helpful as I got to know what type of shows and films people watch and what social media site they use often. This helped towards my blog as it told me how I could make my blog more interactive with my audience and what type of person would look at it. During the seminar we talked about how we could design and write our blogs, some seminars we would pitch an idea to our groups. We discussed ideas from our lectures in the seminars and talked about how we could use it in our blogs, and we talked about the film we watched. We also talked about the news and what people’s opinions are about certain things.

As well as seminars we had a Facebook group chat where we was able to ask other student questions about our blogs and this helped people give advice to other people, and get advice from them too, which was helpful. During the seminars we got into groups to discuss our ideas for our blog, we could help each other with ideas, and know what other people were doing, this helped to know how they might of set out their blog and if anything, I could do to improve mine. In the seminar we would stand up in front of the class and pitch our blog, to the class and show them what we have done, this was helpful as people asked questions about the blog and helped to make improvements to it, also it helps me know, that people were interested in it.

During this unit, I have learnt how to improve my writing skills, this is not only to write in a professional way, by to write in a more casual way that would engage the audience more, as they are reading a blog and you can write in a certain style which would interact with my target audience. This unit also helped me understand how you can contribute your opinions on online decisions in different type of media. As you can comment on blogs and social media sites with your own opinion about the matter they are decreasing.  However, it was still difficult to involve this into my own blog as most of my blog is information, which informs you about the endangered animal than my opinion on them. 

My group did talk and meet up about our blog and infographics. We got along well, and gave each other advice on how to improve certain parts, and how to improve certain things on our blog too. We all did our own infographic on different software, which helps when discussing what to use, which one was easier and more creative to use. When we give advice on the infographic, some were well detailed, and other where more pictures and straight to the point. What I could have improved on mine is to put more information on it, with maybe fewer pictures. To improve the group, we could talk more in the group chat and meet up more as well. Overall, I think that the group worked well with each other, giving important information of how to improve certain things. 

Zoo's, Safari and Wildlife Santurary: SeaWorld

What are the benefits and disadvantages of these places?

The benefits of these places that that firstly all these places have one thing in common, which is to protect endangered animals form going extinct. So these places are used to increase the population of the animals. Lots of important research can be done in a safe environment, to help the animal’s condition in these places. Places like, the Zoo and Safari are used to use for tourist to be able to see wild animals, in a safe environment where they might not be able to see. This makes it easier for educational research as children can see they favourite animal and learn about them. If the animal, gets ill its easier for them to get treatment, then if there were living in the wild, this means that they would be less animal dying form infection or when they get hurt. The animals will be less likely to die from starvation or being poach for their fur or bones. It’s also a safe place to breed animals and more likely for them to survive to an old age.

The advantages are mainly from Zoo’s as there are put in confined areas, where there isn’t enough place for them to roam about freely. It can cause the animal to have a psychological effect which will affect it mental health. New born will not now what it is like to be a wild animal as they will be living in captivity there whole life, because it would be possible for them to go back into their natural habitat, as they would know how to survive by themselves. Personally I think that it’s better for animals to be in a Safari or Sanctuary, as they have more places to roam about and be a wild animal, plus they can also protect from poachers. But I do think that Zoos are a safe place for animals to be but only if there give them the right environment to live in. there is still room for improvement to make all these places safer, and natural for the animals to live in.

There has been cases for example SeaWorld, where is you hear incident about Killer Whale and how here would be better to survive in the wild then captivity as there has been many terrible story about how they have been mistreated, and attacks on employees. In 2015 Barbie drops out from making SeaWorld babies, in April 2015 because of the mistreatment of Orcas and being under investigation by the PETA. (The People for the Ethical treatment of animal) is a foundation based in the UK for protecting the rights of all animals. Overall the attendance of SeaWorld has been dropping.

SeaWorld, as you can see here say that it is important for the mother and calf to stay with each other as it creates a strong and important bond. But as you see there were separated  before the calf was four years old, know lets thank about how important it is for us to stay with our parent when we are young, without them who can we learn from and trust.  

These are two articles which talks about Orcas which is a type of whale and how you can help to support them. This tells us about the fate of them being in captivity and how it affects them down the road. It also tell you about the mistreatment not only to the whale but the employee too, and how it effects there mental health. Animals did not have a choose whether they wouldn’t do be put in captivity or not, I think if animals could talk the majority of them would say that they don’t what to live like that. If human wouldn’t like to live in captivity why would people think that animal would like to?   

https://www.thedodo.com/seaworld-orcas-peel-skin-off-each-other-1498617162.html

http://uk.whales.org/wdc-in-action/fate-of-captive-orcas 

If you want to know more about SeaWorld and mistreatment of their animals an interesting documentary is called Blackfish.

White Rhinoes And Wild Dogs

They are the second largest mammal. They live in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya. Where there is grassy savannah and woodlands. There are two types of rhinos that live in these places Southern Rhinos and Northern Rhinos. Northern adult rhinos grow to 185metres and 3.6 tonnes. Females are partially smaller but can still grow to 1.7 tonnes. White rhinos have a large skull, no hair and two horns. The front horn can grow up to 70cm, but it can reach up to 150cm.  Rhinos have tough skins. They can live up to 40 years.

They live in grassy savannah, and woodlands. Rhinos avoid the heat during the day, rest in the shade and are active in the afternoon and evening.  They like to bath in shallow mud pools.  They normally go around in herds that have around fourteen rhinos, in each. The breeding females cannot leave the group. The males are very competitive over them and get seriously hurt when fighting over them.

There are around 20 000 southern rhinos living in the wild, but only three northern rhinos, that are in captivity. Two are female and one is male. Sadly last year the last male northern rhino died.  The last northern rhino died on 20/03/17 age 45 years. This was due to illness from an infection from his back legs and other things also have him.

There have been talks about using IVF to impregnate the female rhino’s, but it will be challenging,  

 What there used for?

Many countries believe that rhino’s horns are an important ingredient for many of their medicine. Poaches trade the horns, these are used to cure illnesses, hangovers and fever. There is also a symbol of wealth, in connection to rhino’s horns. This mainly started because of a myth that horns can cure cancer; this then increased the number of people who were poaching for the animal, as the prices of the rhino's horn went up.

In 2012 668 rhinos were poached in South Africa. In January 2013 that increased by 946. This is nearly 2 per day.

Some action that took place to protect the rhinos are through the WWF, by providing new protection areas and improving management of each areas, having security monitoring certain areas  and tourism experiences, therefore they can have more experiences of the animal, and make money to help them to keep protecting them.

Wild dogs

Also Kown as Cape Hunting Dogs 

Live in open plains, woodlands of Saharan Africa.

They have long legs, four toes, unlike other dogs which have five. Mottled coat with red, black, white and yellow patches, which are round.  They also have big rounded ears.

The wild dogs live in large groups of 6 to 20 and are pack animals.  They are also social animals, who interact with each other, by touching, chattering to each other and showing different actions. They share food with the whole pack and assist with the ill and weak members.  There have high stamina, and they are known as the killing dogs, because when they kill their prey they start to eat the prey before it is dead.

Endangered due to the shrinking of habitat. They easily catch diseases from domestic animals. Hunted and killed by locals and farmers, as there may try and eat the farmer's food.

Only four types remaining in the population. They can roam 250 square kilometres and can travel 50 km in a single day.