Environmental Effects On Animals

In addition to providing the animal with shelter, and necessary supplies the natural parks can bring back a whole species from near extinction. In the passage “The Impact of Animal Protection” it directly states that keeping animals protected has proven to be beneficial and increase the population of endangered animals. Bringing animals back from near extinction can be a difficult task, however it is very beneficial. Animal protection is also used to help control animal population from getting out of control. These programs have brought back plenty of species such as black footed ferrets, California condors, red wolves, and golden lion tamarins. (Do Animals Lose in Zoos?) The community would never get to see these amazing creatures if these

The Great Lakes, though fairly clean, are contaminated with some deadly chemicals that have slipped by human filtration into the lakes. These emerging chemicals have been determined to pose some health risk to humans and surrounding ecosystems and are used by society, but are unregulated or inadequately regulated retardants (Miller-Branovacki, Lindsay, "Water Resources and Urban Waste Water (Week #8)"). More specifically an emerging contaminant is one which is not historically widely distributed, nor a concern, however are now persistent and bioaccumulative making them a concern for the environment. The three major categories for emerging contaminants are; endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), Pharmaceutical and personal care

Since the beginning of mankind, we have become dependent on animal products as a food source. As population increased, so did the production of animal agriculture and its profitability. Unfortunately, it has grown into an industry that is unsustainable for this planet and is demolishing our environment at an astonishing rate. In the academic article, ‘Cowspiracy’ Strips the Meat Industry Down to the Bone, Ford reports the shocking statistic that “even if all utilities were turned off and every fossil-fuel-guzzling system of transportation ceased immediately, environmental damage that results from greenhouse gases would be irreversible…even with humanity’s greatest efforts, the dairy and meat industries will still eventually destroy life on Earth”. As the environment is at its most crucial and devastating point, the major contribution that animal agriculture has on rainforest deforestation, pollution of our water, and global warming becomes undeniable.

The universal distribution of synthetic and natural substances with endocrine disrupting properties in the environment and their potential adverse health effects in humans and wildlife has become a concern during the past few decades. As a result of various anthropogenic activities, endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are introduced into the ecosystem and dysregulate the endogenous hormone system. EDCs can alter biosynthesis, secretion, transport, binding action or metabolism of endogenous hormones, and interfere with synthesis and metabolism of hormone receptors. The disruption of the endocrine system may result in interference with reproduction, homeostasis, metabolism, developmental processes and behavior (Diamanti-Kandarakis et al., 2009).

When people dispose of pharmaceuticals down the sink or in the toilet, these drugs often get into our water supply. Even though these water treatment machines are equipped to clean out many other harmful substances, these drugs just are not one of them. Many of the lakes and streams have been found to contain estrogen from contraceptive pills. This caused a minnow population to become sexually mature too early. After becoming sexually mature minnows only have a certain amount of time to mate. These young minnows did not know it was time to mate, so this caused the minnow population to crash. Also, scientists have found that some concentrations of hermaphroditic frogs in a city’s subways, but not in undisturbed agricultural areas. This raises the suspicion that synthetic estrogen could affect amphibians. Though, no scientists are one hundred percent sure of this yet, many of them suspect it can affect

Endocrine Disruptors are chemicals that mimic the hormones or blocks cellular responses in the body. They are known to be present in plastic bottles, food additives, and pesticides (Young, 2010). Some examples of endocrine disruptors are BP-A (Smith, 2008). These chemicals at certain dose, can interfere with the endocrine (or hormone) system in mammals. These disruptions can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders. This paper will describe the different forms of endocrine disruptors in the environment

Endocrine disruptors include pharmaceuticals such as dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, DDT, and plasticizers such as bisphenol A. In addition to being present in pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors can also be located in manufacturing products such as plastic bottles, metal food cans, cosmetics, pesticides, dietary supplements, and children’s toys (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences). Recent studies involving animals have linked the impact of endocrine disruptors and their mechanism to the endocrine system. The endocrine disruptors have the ability to imitate natural occurring hormones produce in the body such as estrogen, androgens and thyroid hormones. Endocrine disruptors also have the capability to bind and inhibit endogenous receptors thus resulting in improper signally throughout the body. Furthermore, Endocrine disruptors can coordinate simultaneously to produce additive/synergistic effects that are unnoticeable with discrete

Early studies highlighted the fact that fish were beginning to change sex due to the occurrence of certain chemicals found in our water. The focus then naturally shifted to the effects of such chemicals on human fertility after it’s shown such a decline in recent years. While water companies claim to operate under very strict guidelines and codes of practice to prevent cements, linings and plastic resins running in to our water supply, there have been a number of incidents in which contamination prevention has quite clearly failed. Pesticides have also come under scrutiny after it’s been revealed they work their way into the ground and river systems from agriculture and even households. It’s these pesticides that are then mimicking the actions of hormones in the body and have been suspected as a major cause of hormone-related cancers in industrially developed

We chose this topic because we were interested in the animals of Australia and how they affected the Australian environment. First of all, we chose our topic which was animals in Australia and how they impacted the environment. We typed out the proposal and after we got our proposal approved, we decided to start working on the actual game board. We took purple paper and traced Australia onto the paper from the help from Ms. Gale’s projector and cut it out. After we cut it out, we glued the paper onto the poster board and started to cut out the tiles out of colorful index cards and glue them onto the board. We also researched facts about our four animals for homework, which were the European Red Fox, European Rabbit, the kangaroo, and the koala.

Another big con is that the animals are kept in very artificial environments. When an animal lives in the wild, they have a territory. When moved into captivity, although the environment could be made to look and feel realistic, it isn’t to the animal. The smells aren’t the same, the surrounding area isn’t the same etc. Also, animals that are born into captivity and are kept there for their lives, will never get to see their natural habitat and do not have to opportunity to live their life how they should be able to. Their behaviour commonly shows how abnormal this environment is for them, they can see how this environment isn’t natural for them. A massive downside to this is that if the animal is ever released back to the wild for any reason,

For hundreds of thousands of years, humans have been polluting the planet. From leaving scraps of animal they killed, to us, now, throwing trash out the window. By the 1800s, people began to understand that unsanitary living conditions and water contamination contributed to disease epidemics (US Department of Commerce). Pollution is the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects. There are many different types of pollution: air, water, soil, radioactive, noise, and light. Many of these types of pollution are because of human interaction, although, natural destruction is also a contributor. It has became a growing and deadly issue. Pollution has harmed and continues to harm the land, animals and humans through many different outlets. Is there a way to slow it down, reverse the damage, make the land healthy again?

Animal agriculture harms the environment, has dangerous effects on our health, and is morally wrong.

In my opinion, EDCs potential effect on society, lays far beyond what science investigating recently because, these effects has a short-term consequences and long-term consequences. In the long run, these bioaccumulates will increase in concentration, due to the development decade, we are living now, and the noticeable increase in the drainage of all chemicals into the water, as well as all these pharmaceutical health care products that’s going into our water system, that we will reach to a point where waste water treatment cannot be strong enough to help remove or mitigate these pollutants, and their pernicious effects will increase. The increase in concentration will effect human’s immune system due to the alteration of the endocrine system. This will

One of the following challenges that various animals adapted to from a water dominant environment to a terrestrial environment is that they protected themselves from drying out. In order to carry this adaptation out and avoid desiccation (a process where organisms lose water to the air), plants developed the adaptation of cuticle; a waxy and protective surface layer that is secreted around the exposed surfaces of a plant. This surface is relatively impermeable which essentially helps avoid water loss from taking place in the plant. Additionally, it prevents them from acquiring different types of bacteria and viruses. Another structure that was adapted to prevent water loss was the stomata, which allows water to diffuse out of the plant when it closes. This adaptation is essential because plants need water to go through photosynthesis in order to produce energy.

Not only do zoos cause physical damage to animals, but also, they cause mental and emotional issues in wild animals. After all animals do display signs of consciousness, so they do have feelings about being locked up in displays and cages around the clock. Recently, a group of animal researchers signed a declaration proclaiming that animals are self-aware. Alex Halberstadt’s article called “Zoo Animals and Their Discontent” stated, “The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in Human and Nonhuman Animals --- was signed by a group of leading animal researchers in the presences of Stephen Hawking. It asserted that mammals, birds, and other creatures like octopuses possess consciousness, and in all likelihood, emotions and self-awareness.” Several animals remember and feel emotion, so leaving them in a box all day seems slightly torturous. Humans should have empathy for the contained animals. “It turns out common shore crabs feel and remember pain, zebra flinches experience REM sleep, fruit-fly brothers cooperate, dolphins and elephants recognize themselves in mirrors, chimpanzees assist one another without expecting favors in return, and dogs really do feel elation in their owner’s presence” (Halberstadt). These feelings sometimes have some dangerous effects, as animals can and do act out against their aggressors.