| June 21, 2004 Live Without Animals |
| Do you remember the first time at an adventure park? You had been waiting for a long time ago to go. You heard from your friends that they had a lot of fun in the park, and that made you more enthusiastic to go. You just imagined your friends experience was like yours. Times later, the big day was getting closer and closer. You were extremely happy that this special trip began. You went with your families and friends, and with a passion heart to discover the world. Everything was already planed for you. For the first show, you went to a stadium. It had a huge swimming pool and a lot of seats around. When the show started, you saw something really big swimming. And a second later, a big fish came out. It was not a fish, it was a whale. It’s named was Shouka. You were amazed by all the tricks that Shouka was doing. It was jumping in the water, swimming with an incredible speed, and splashing water to everywhere. You were excited to see the whale in action. However, the bad notice came; the show’s end. You were a little disappointed. You wished that you could watch it again and again. Your parents told you that it was only the beginning of “the voyage.” You were not sure what they were talking about. Anyway you just followed the group, and hoping to see more beautiful creatures like Shouka. During the trip, your parents were explaining to you that “California is home to a total of 5653 identified species of plants and animals,”1 including 90 species listed as endangered. Then you were confused about what were endangered mean. Your parents were explaining to you that the law said, “the term ‘endangered species’ means any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range ...”2 In other words, endangered animals are in danger of going to disappear, and there is no way to see them again. Then you realized that ninety was a big number of species. It means that many animals are facing extinction. Then everybody went to an attraction named Forest Fantastic. It was a really forest. When you moved though the forest, you saw a lot of animals, specially endangered species, such as salamanders, beetles, lizards, mice, snails, snakes, and others. In the passed, you noticed that the animals live in a completely balance. Though pictures, you saw that plants get minerals and nutrients from the ground. Small animals, like rats and crickets, eat plants or use them like shelter and home. Biggest animals eat the smallest animals. Biggest animals like lizards, snakes and frogs. But this does not finish here, we have others animals, the depredators, that eat them for example, owls and eagles. These are a link between animals and nature. All these are what we call ecosystem, everything functioning as a unit. However many years ago, the ecosystem have been suffering an unbalance because of animals extinction. Some animals are gone forever and they are missing in the link between animals and nature. Endangered species is causing by the destruction of animals’ habitat, and the small population of animals. The home of thousand of animals has been destroying by deforestation, poaching and urbanization. Remain that some animals are not with us any more, they are gone forever. And others animals are suffering because of diseases and pollution. The world provides a unique habitat for many plants and animals, for example Old-growth forest in Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia provides the only suitable habitat for the Northern spotted owl. And also its habitat for the Marbled Murrelet, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, the Northern Goshawk, the tailed frog, the Olympic Salamander, and the Red tree Vole. Now you know that one of the biggest causes of extinction is the loss of habitat or the “native home”, and how important are these habitats. Deforestation destroy everything, the food, water and shelter in with the animals require surviving. California have been eliminating a big percentage of vegetation causing that a lot of animas loss their habitats. No vegetation, no habitats, no plants, no small animals and then would not exist big animals. “According to the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, is costing the earth some 30,000 species a year. Biologists estimate that there are at least 10 million species on earth right now. At this rate, the vast majority of the species on earth today will be gone by the next millennium.”3 The forest of Africa covers 520 million hectares according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Approximately, 90% of the forest in Africa is gone because of deforestation. Africa has at least 8,000 different species of plants, and its home of thousands of different species of animals. Africa has been working in the forest rehabilitation. They have been trying to increase their forest tree plantations. However for every 28 trees that they cut down, only one tree is replanted. Asia has one of the biggest tropical forests in the world. It covers approximately 655 million hectares. It is one-fourth of the world’s tropical forest, and approximately half of its biological species. As Asia has a large forest, Asia has a large historical background of deforestation, back to the period of the dynasties and kingdoms. However during the past century, the forest has been intensified massively. Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) said that the deforestation increased 6 million hectares per year in 1990-2000. In general, the destruction of the rainforest over the world during the past years is much more critical than everybody thought, for each second that past 2.4 acres (1 hectare), equivalent to two U.S. football fields, of forest is been destroy, for each minutes 149 acres (60 hectares) of forest is been destroy, for each day 214,000 acres (86,000 hectares), an area larger than New York City, of forest is been destroy, and for each year 78 million acres (31 million hectares), an area larger than Poland, of forest is been destroy. Poaching is another reason that explains why some species of animals are in endangered. Some people hunt, take or catch illegally animals from the wildlife out of its natural habitat for personal gain. TRAFFIC and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said that each year the illegal animal’s commercial increase. Animals are usually sold to people from United States of America, Europe and Asia. The reason of poaching has been always then highly demanding for their tusks, meats, coats and heats. People would use it for jewelry, piano keys, chess sets, and dagger handles - any artistic purpose, for medicine or personal purposes. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna on Flora (CITES), “between January 1, 2000, and May 21, 2002, more than 5.9 tons of ivory, 2,543 tusks, and 14,648 pieces of ivory have been seizes would wide – representing more than 2,000 dead elephants. During the same period, at least 965 African elephants and 39 Asian elephants have been poached and their ivory tusks removed.” 4 Poachers would kill an estimated of 200 African adult elephants a day for their tusks to get approximately 150,000 tusks, between 600 and 900 tons of ivory. Recently in “Alaska men admin poaching bear organs,”5 three men poached more than 50 bears to sell their organs to some buyers from South Korean, where they would use it for medicinal intention. The poachers killed at least nine black bears in 2002 around the Prince William Sound. Federal and State officials arrested more than 100 people because of illegal trade of bears in the United States. Because of this illegal animal’s commercial, 700 species are extinct and 2,300 species are in endangered. Time does not stop just as our population will not stop growing. Our planet is always moving and continually changing, causing destruction of habitat because of urbanization. In 2000, there were more than 100 cities in the world where the population exceeded 500,000 people. In October 2003, the human population of the United States was over 292 million people, and growing by about 3.1 million people per year. The exponentially growing human population over the world all these years has been demanding more space to construct houses. During the twentieth century, more than 100 species in Britain have gone extinct because of urbanization. Also because of this reason, turtle’s population had decreased 50% over the last years. The urbanization has been destroying their habitat. For every 20 minutes, the population grows by 3,500 human lives, and at the same times we are losing one or more entire species of animal, al least 27,000 species per year9. We are going to face more problems not only animal extinction also plants extinction as a result of rapid urbanization. A study made by The Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance (PASA) in Johannesburg, the chimpanzee could be gone in two decades. “Only 8,000 chimpanzees remain of the most vulnerable chimpanzee subspecies, which is found predominantly in Nigeria...”6 this is happening because of hunting, habitat loss and disease. The population is decreasing rapidly. In addition the wild Bactrian camel’s population in Mongolian has declined by 56 % since 2000. If these continue, it is estimated that we will lost at least an 84% in the population size by the year 2003. Pandas have a very short breeding season. Pandas give birth to one or two babies that mean that they have a really low reproductive rate. The babies are very dependent on their mothers during the first few years of life. In the wild, female pandas will care only one baby. In China, the facility would help to raise the babies. They left one of the babies with the mother, and the keepers take caring the other one. During this time, they switch the babies every few days, so each one gets care and milk directly from the mother. Therefore, the panda’s population increases slowly. The animal population is not increasing, in fact is decreasing rapidly. In another year, we will lose a lot of animals that won’t be alive again. More than 5,200 animal species around the globe are threatened with extinction. Many millions more become extinct each year before biologists can identify them. The phenomenon of animal’s extinction is one of many lessons for human beings. Animal extinct means the end of existence of the species. A recent United Nations report estimated that nearly half of bird and mammal will be extinct within 300 years. Animals play an important role in the world. They provided food, medicine, industrial products, tourism and recreation. The most touching symbol of animal’s extinction is undoubtedly the dodo. It was the progeny of the pigeon.7 Dodos were birds of 14 kg that could not fly, and could not defend. Somewhere in the past, these animals could not found enough food and started to fight between them. Also, they began eating the dodo’s themselves. By the 17th century, dodos were extinct. It was less than 100 years after the dodo was fist known by the human. Other example, we have the passenger pigeons. At the beginning, they were the most abundant bird of North America. According to some calculations, they used to constitute 35% of all the set of birds in the USA. They were so numerous that when they flew the sky could darken. They were hunted during several decades. At the end of XIX century, only 1,000 left. Then people stopped hunting them, but it was so late. The populations could never be recovered. In 1914 the last ones died in a zoo in Cincinnati. It was a female named Martha, in honor to the wife of George Washington. Martha died at the age of 29 years, on September 1st, 1914, at 13:00 p.m. It is more likely the only case of extinction of a species where we can indicate the exact date and hour. Sadly, we have a lot of extinct animal, for example the Pyrenean Ibex. They were very common in Spain. However, by the end of the 19th century, they were close to be extinct because of hunting. In 1993, only 10 Pyrenean Ibexes were living. The last one of these species died on January 6th, 2000 under a fallen three in Ordesa National Park in Spain. The Ibex was a female named Celia. She was 13 years old when she died. Spanish biologists captured her in spring 1999 with the hope of saving her species from extinction. Another reason which explains why animals are in extinction, it is because of diseases. For example, the bovine tuberculoses is a contagious disease which affects approximately all the mammals. The bovine tuberculoses make lions weak and thin causing them to look like ‘a skeleton covered in skin.’ When a lion has this disease, they would loose a fight easily. However, when a buffalo is infected, the disease doesn't really affect them, they're just the carriers it. Recalling that 90% of the diet of young males’ lions is buffalo, and these lions are the males that are going to be the new dominant males. This is just one of many reasons which explain their decreasing population over the last years. Another example, the rabies and canine distemper viruses that are currently devastating carnivore populations in East Africa. This is causing a 30% decrease in the African Wild Dog’s population. Some domestic animals, as dogs and cats, are usually the reservoir of these and other diseases where they affect directly the wild populations. Pollution is another important cause of extinction. The water pollution is mostly from toxic chemicals, especially chlorinated hydrocarbons, such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Theses chemical pollution causes mass of deaths animals. In 1988 bottle-nosed dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico died because of water pollution and the same case for striped dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea in 1991. Another amazing animal affected by the pollution is the endangered manatee. Today, less than 2,000 manatees live in the USA. They could live more than 50 years old. Unfortunately, mass of manatee dies because of chemical pollution. Since 1996 in the southwestern Florida was found more than 250 manatees dead. With their population already decreasing, this fact does not help the manatees. Also oil spills kill large numbers of birds, fish, mammals, and other animals. Taking into account, this kind of pollution remain in the ocean floor for many years after the occurrence. The air pollution causes that condors suffer a high mortality rate. One third of the population disappeared because of the lethal exposure to lead during the 70s and 80s. In 1997, four condors died, one in California, and three in Arizona, because of lead, and 26 condors had received emergency to reduce toxic lead levels, level 8 in California, level 18 in Arizona). Recall that current California’s industrials expose totaling 9,301 pounds of lead in 2001. There are many ways to save endangering species trough protecting and preserving wild places, environmental law, with science, and education. One of the most important ways to help endangered animals is to protect and preserve the world’s natural habitats. Saving their habitat is the key to save animals. Specie can not live without home. Our priority in protecting animals is to ensure its habitat is safe to life. For example, preserving and protecting national parks, nature reserves and wilderness areas. Remember to obey the wildlife code, and the federal Endangered Species Act, which is a law meant to help to protect animals and also plants that are endangered. There is already a diverse of organizations fighting to enforce the law. Organizations have been promoting the importance of saving endangered animals. We must stop poaching and the international trade in products made with endangered species. We should support programs which help to protect the wildlife resource. For example, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Wyoming Wildlife Protectors Association pay cash rewards to people who report poachers. It is a toll-free phone number. It is not required to reveal names or testify in court, it is completely anonymous. The cash goes from $100 up to $5000. Also though science we can save a lot of endangered species. The solution is to captive those animals with breeding problems, and then releases them in the wild. Some species could not reproduce a lot of babies at the time. And this solution is giving positive result. In 2000 the number of California condors increase to 200 in 13 years. Same positive result is happening to the American peregrine falcon population. We can not save something that we do not know. Therefore, we need let others know specially though education. Teaching people about endangered species in special to younger children, they would be the future leader. Explaining them how important and wonderful are the species for the world. Making they know that stop buying animal products would be one the solutions. Teaching them in a creative and innovative way to solve environmental problem and demonstrate significant impact in the natural. We have some parks supporting these, for example, Sea World, Six Flags, Busch Gardens, and others. It is important to preserve animals in general. They have been really useful to us in the past, present and it will be in the future. They keep beautiful pictures of the mother natural. We depend on them to maintaining the planet’s ecosystems. This means preserving other species is saving the planet’s biodiversity, all the variety of lives. Every living thing has the right to live, and there is not existent specie could decided with species should be gone forever. Let’s change the world today, do not let the solution to later, and let’s do it. Could you picture that the man’s best friend dogs, cats, the beautiful signing of the birds gone, each different sound making by different animals gone forever? Just imagine for a moment that your favorite animal extinct, that mean disappear forever. End Notes1 “California.” Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/bdes/cp/ca.html Works CitedBailey, Regina. “Endangered Species.” http://biology.about.com/library/weekly/aa011504a.htm |
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