edHelper.com
 The World's Most Endangered Animals

The World's Most Endangered Animals
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.58

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    extinction, mating, shaggy, species, wombat, iguana, study, world, captive, pounds, several, life, preserve, during, destroy, deserts
     content words:    Grand Cayman, Caribbean Sea, African Buffel, Iriomote Island

Print The World's Most Endangered Animals
     Print The World's Most Endangered Animals  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format
     Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
     Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format
     Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity
     Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on The World's Most Endangered Animals
     Leave your feedback on The World's Most Endangered Animals  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

The World's Most Endangered Animals
By Cindy Grigg 		  
1     Scientists around the world study endangered animals. They try to guess at how many animals are left in the wild. Sometimes the number of animals increases as people do things to try to help them. Sometimes the number of animals decreases.
 
2     Today there are more people on Earth than there ever have been before. People need places to live. They need food. They turn forests into farmland. They are polluting air and water. New roads and cities take land away from animals. People hunt some animals for their fur, tusks, horns, or meat. Many animals today are at risk of becoming extinct. When an animal is extinct, there will never be any more of them on Earth. Some animals may be saved if we act fast to help them. For some, it may already be too late. These are some of the most endangered animals in the world.
 
3     The Grand Cayman blue iguana lives on just one island in the Caribbean Sea. It was thought only 5-15 of them were left in the wild. This iguana weighs as much as thirty pounds. They may grow to five feet long! It turns blue during mating season. These iguanas have been hunted by people for food. Many are run over by cars. Wild dogs destroy their nests. Two nature preserves are using captive breeding to help the iguanas. As of April 2007, 299 iguanas had been released back into the wild.

Paragraphs 4 to 8:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Copyright © 2009 edHelper