One of the greatest gifts on this earth is the many species of animals that roam our planet and the wildlife that inhabit our world. A vast and diverse spectrum of wildlife keeps our planet functioning properly and it gives humans something to wonder at. Sadly, our planet’s species of animals are disappearing due to human activity. Our human activity is causing the next mass extinction and we are turning a blind eye to it. The sixth extinction in our known history is happening and most of don’t care or have very little knowledge of what’s going on. We are ignoring that animals are disappearing and its changing our ecosystem. “Unlike past mass extinctions, caused by events like asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions, and natural climate …show more content…
The World Wildlife Organization is making it their mission to try stop animals from disappearing from the face of the earth and saving as many species and protect our way of life. “Our mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth.” ("WWF", 2018) The most fundamental reason for us to preserve our wildlife or nature itself is that nature is our life support system – We as the dominant species on the planet, depend on so many other species for so many reason: food, accommodation, oxygen, water, material for medicines and that’s just a few reasons why need to preserve out life system which is nature. Most of us only think that certain animals like whales, fish, and wolves are the only species that are endangered but, there are literally thousands if not millions of species that are on the endangered or threatened list; countless shrimp species, various frogs species, hundreds of butterfly species , different types of grasses and plants, and thousands of fish species too many to count are on the list because we are destroying their …show more content…
Wild plants and agricultural vegetations rest on on cross-fertilization for reproduction. Produce such as fruits and vegetables, both vital parts of the human diet, are all depend on bees and various insects to transmit from one flower to another. But when the environment is distributed by human activity and bees start to disappear, the cycle of life is basically broken, and this reduces the varieties of these pollinators, fruits and vegetables start to suffer and we as human start to feel the effects of bees disappearing from the environment. Many plants also rely on animals, predominantly animal species that consume fruit as part of their diet and disperse seeds during their extraction process. Destroying the territory of these animals can severely affect the plant in surrounding area that depend for reproduction through seed dispersion. “Overall ecosystem instability due to reduced biodiversity ranks among the consequences of species extinctions. As the number of species in a food chain decreases, there are fewer sustainable alternatives for members of the food chain that had depended on the extinct species. Biodiversity also lends genetic variability to a population, helping it adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions.” (Dowd, 2018) The food chain and environment are both affected by wildlife
Courtney states that “one fourth of Earth’s species could be facing extinction by 2050.” This is a very big concern for everyone around the globe because if one animal
The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years . Creatures across the land, rivers, and the seas are destroyed as humans killed them for food in unsuitable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats.
Many plants rely heavily on bees as their main pollinator to reproduce. The main fear is that even though many flowers also rely on mammals and other insects to assist in the pollination process, bees are the biggest and most vital source of this life cycle. As the bees disappear the reproduction process of many plants does not happen as efficiently thus less plants are produced, this
The scale and pace of change is dramatic; for example, the extinction of species is occurring at around 100-fold pre-human rates4. The population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, declined by half over the last 45 years5. More than 2.3 million km2 of primary forest has been felled since 20006. About
Biodiversity creates an interconnected system where each part builds off of one another to create a functional ecosystem. For example, a small insect such as a bee is critical for survival of many other species because it pollinates so many plants. Currently, the population of bees is dramatically decreasing due to anthropogenic actions such as using harmful pesticides. If the population of bees go extinct, so many species would follow because they would not get pollinated. This is problematic because humans do not have the time or the funds to replicate the vital work of the bee.
A report from Recovering America’s Wildlife Crisis states, “More than 150 species have already gone extinct and about 40% of freshwater fish species are imperiled.” Animals are being killed off by the minute. Now the wildlife species are going to abolished from Earth.
Summarize: The result of one species extinction could potentially be fatal to the environment. In the animal kingdom, there is a food chain. Keystone animals, are the key ingredient to the food chain. When that keystone animals goes extinct, it sets off a chain reaction on the other animal’s food source. This causes one species to flourish and another to dwindle. The environment needs a healthy checks and balance system to keep each animal population under control (Stuart, 1990 ). Humans can cause the keystone animal to become extinct and therefore, responsible for rise and decline of other species, ultimately, throwing the food chain off balance.
In a summary, Kolbert explains the extinctions of a variety of different major animal species that became extinct. She also explains that if trends in the environment continue that the biggest extinction in history will occur soon. If global warming, deforestation, and glaciers continue to melt she says that more and more species will continue to become extinct. She explains how humans need to be more conservative and careful with what they’re doing to prevent extinction.
Elizabeth Kolbert, a journalist, took her curiosity of science and traveled all around the world to see just how the lives of different varieties of species deal with predators, habitat changes, climate changes, etc. Just some of the places Kolbert visited were the United States, Panama, France, the island of Ischia, One Tree Island, and many, many more. Extinction, the disappearance of a particular species, is a crucial topic in this particular book. Many species over the whole entire world, are quickly declining in numbers. Humans have a vital responsibility for some of these species going extinct, and we need to advertise what we are doing to animals world wide so we aren’t a source of the majority of extinctions.
This mass extinction, with a rate possibly higher than it’s ever been in the last 65 million years, has been caused humankind ourselves! By cutting down forests and burning fossil fuels, humans are changing the world and not in a good way. The author also mentions how our moving species around contributes to the mass extinction because the new species may become invasive and, in the long run, cause the native species of a particular area to become extinct, such occurrences have already been documented happening in Hawaii. However, not all is bad, as the article also mentions how people are doing what they can, for example the government passing bills or citizens donating to the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations, to help the
E. O. Wilson, a famous American biologist, describes the main causes of extinction with a simple acronym: HIPPO or habitat, invasive species, pollution, population, and over-harvesting. Each of these causes traces back to humans. Habitat loss is when organisms lose their “homes” mostly due to human urbanization. Human cities have grown exponentially and it does seem to be slowing down. Due to this organisms have lost their natural habitats and are forced to leave and find new ones. Invasive species are organism that are placed in locations where they do not naturally occur. Humans have helped the growth of this problem due to the desire of extotic pets. Invasive species become an enormous problem because the location they are introduced to do not have the proper needs to help control the
Preserving a species and its habitat is one way to ensure an increase in biodiversity.
Bill Freedmen, author of “Endangered Species—Human Causes Of Extinction and Endangerment” notes, “scientists approximate that present extinction rates are 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the average natural extinction rate.” These distressing numbers should be acted upon to save the endangered species and avoid the catastrophic change to this planet if these species were to become extinct. In order to produce change, people need to recognize that habitat loss, climate change, and poaching are all factors in why our animal species are going extinct.
It’s clear that a great extinction is coming from the evidence of the destruction of other species around us. The choices made by the human race have too often negatively affected the surrounding species. Tracy Wilson, the site director for HowStuffWorks.com, in an article for Animal Planet, states that
Habitat destruction, deforestation, ozone depletion, global warming, and poaching. These actions and ecological happenings are creating a world where animals are going extinct at rapid rates. Our world is on the brink of what scientists believe is the sixth mass extinction. Unlike the five previous mass extinction, the latest one killing a majority of the dinosaurs, the main causes for this current extinction are anthropogenic reasons, not natural events.