My animal pot is of Calamian Deer located on a few islands in the Philippines. Their habitat is the open woodlands and secondary forests near the river. They live in groups of up to 27 individuals. They are listed as endangered and have been decreasing in population since 1975. In 1975, the population decreased by 450-900 individuals. Hunting and loss of their environment, have also affected their population.
They have also lost their habitat because of human settlements and agriculture. Today the land of the Calamian Deer is decreasing day by day because of human causes, leaving only about 500 remaining in the wild. I choose this animal for multiple reasons. One reason is that it is cute, and seemed easy to create. The enormous eyes and small horns caught my attention because most deer we see today have no horns or huge horns. I also wanted to learn about the difference between the deer we see in Highland Park and the Calamian Deer. To create the fur, I took my pin tool and scratched it into tiny minor cuts. To help my animal, you can stop hunting them. Before you go hunting, research if there are any endangered animals near your area. If the Calamian deer is in your area, you would simply go to a further area or choose not to hunt. If eating Calamian deer is part of your meals, substitute it with different meats such as chicken or beef, or get rid of meat altogether. Lastly, to help this animal, you may reduce, reuse, and recycle. Reducing your trash can help the earth maintain the ecosystem. Doing this project I faced many problems, but also many accomplishments. I loved working with clay and turning nothing into something. It reminded me of my childhood because it is like Play-Dough. I learned how to shape, cut, shave, etc. to create the image of the deer. The most challenging part of this project was making the body and the head shape. It was difficult to make it even and to scale. For example, the chest was extremely wide, and the rear was tiny. I had to restart my deer’s rear because it would be too heavy and it wouldn’t stand on its own. The head was hard because the deer didn’t have a perfect shape, like an oval. So I had to add curves to my head, which had to be even on both sides. It was also hard to put the ears and snout on the head. I had to make sure both ears were even and had the same shape, but for the snout, I had to make a cone shape, which was difficult because I continued to make it into a squared shape, and I had to restart every time. I overcame this by asking Ms. G how to make certain shapes, or how to make it look like my reference. She would modify my deer and draw shapes, so I can have a better view of how to make it. I traced over these shapes and created the look I wanted.