At a surprisingly rapid pace, our world is constantly changing and expanding. At this very moment, it contains a growing population of over 7 billion people. This allows our world to be extremely diverse not only in aspects of culture, race, and nationality, but also in our wildlife.
There are about 8.7 million species in the world, yet with industrialization we are pushing animals out of their natural habitat in order to make room for ours. In fact, 85% of endangered species are threatened because of our rapid expansion in many different areas around the world. Pollution, deforestation, overconsumption, urban development, tourism, and agriculture are just some of the examples from this issue.
Many of the things that cause habitat destruction have to do with the methods our society uses for living. This is why not enough is being done to address the issue, and any action taken against it is incomparable. No one really takes the time to think ways to alter their lifestyle to make them more environmentally friendly. Why? Because just turning a blind eye to these things is the easy way out.
Arsenault 2
So I have put together a solution that solves all aspects of the issue: exterminate all of the animals.
If we simply get rid of all the animals we won’t have to worry about destroying their habitats! To achieve this, we will establish hunting leagues all around the world under the name of “Project Hunt “. By doing this, there will be an estimated 2 billion new jobs added to the economy. After approximately 2 years 4 days and 26 seconds of “Project Hunt” in effect, not only will the economy be completely out of debt, but also we can now utilize all of the resources once inhabited by the animals. Since all of the animals will be eradicated, “Project Hunt” calls for all of the animal farms to be converted into agricultural farms. I’m pretty sure it’s a win-win situation.
The human race can just take over the world completely, since we are almost there anyway. All of the animal activists can redirect their time into helping hungry, poor orphan children instead of deceased animals. We can utilize all of the funding from zoos and surrender it to the government so they can recirculate it into “Project Hunt”. With a little help from everyone, there’s no way this plan can fail.
The current situation today, is that horses and donkeys have exceeded the amount needed to maintain an ecological balance; from 26,600 wildlife to 38,300 wildlife. The horse program, enacted by the bill passed in 1971, costs the government approximately $49 million a year. It takes the majority of the budget to manage the already captured horses; taking into account the life of the horses, it has been concluded that the total cost would be closer to $1 billion (Dean Bolstad, Roundup of Wild Horses.). A federal law, allows the Bureau of Land Management to kill “excess horses to maintain what it calls ‘a thriving natural ecological balance’” (Ginger Kathrens).
...leaving a little portion of land to the animals is not that bad. The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone has been very beneficial to the ecosystem. We tried to eliminate this species but in the end, we need to ask ourselves the question, do we really need to eliminate another species based on our own biases and fears? We need to look past personal gain, and leave nature to take its course.
“PETA Calls On Everyone With A Heart To Help End Animal-Overpopulation Crisis.”PR Newswire 3 Feb. 2014. Student Resources in Context. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
... better quality food. Why should animals suffer for part of the world to over-eat inexpensively? Perhaps quantity needs to drop in order for quality to rise. There are many farms that treat their animals extremely well, but when they are sent to slaughter there are no guarantees the same respect carries over. Perhaps the butchering of animals should not be a manufacturing process. A return to nature would do the world a world of good. Although the days of hunting for survival are over, there is no benefit to people’s apathy towards the animals they ingest.
Long-term survival of a species depends on its ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions (Murphy, 1994). Genetic diversity within a species, which has taken 3.5 billion years to evolve, makes adaptations to these changing environments possible. Unfortunately, the rate of extinction of genetically diverse organisms is rapidly increasing, thus reducing this needed biodiversity, largely due to the human impacts of development and expansion. What was an average of one extinction per year before is now one extinction per hour and extinct species numbers are expected to reach approximately one million by the year 2000 (WWW site, Bio 65). As a result governmental and societal action must be taken immediately!
Humans are destructive. Not a lot of us think about how what we do affects the world around us. We almost act like we are the only ones on this planet. We go around polluting and destroying our world with no regard for our actions. The things that live out in the wild are paying the price for it. Every day that passes there is another animal or plant that is placed on an endangered list. This is happening at an alarming rate. Because of man’s desire to expand and conquer their surroundings, there are animals and plants that are on the brink of extinction that will not be around for our kids and future generations to enjoy if something is not done about it now. This problem has been going on for hundreds of years. There are animals and plants that can only been seen in paintings or early photography. It is because of our early ancestors that we have this problem today and we have to do more to prevent more animals and plants from disappearing forever.
Please help to save the animals, or they won’t be here any longer. Poachers are everywhere; “heck” one of them might be your next door neighbor. Poaching is only one of the leading causes of animals being on the endangered species list, so with all these poachers we need to protect the animals more closely. Animals that are close to extinction need to be placed in a zoo or sanctuary so they can flourish. People need to do this for the animals, they may not like it, but it helps get their numbers up.
In this new age of technology and advances in every possible field of study, many people forget about the environment. Some will just throw their trash all over the place with no concern for the possible consequences. Of course, there are many consequences, but only one comes to my mind. That is the demolition of species’ homes or habitat destruction. Habitat destruction or habitat loss is the altering or elimination of the conditions that plants and animals need to survive. “The primary threat to the world’s biodiversity is habitat destruction” (Okey p.1). Prairies have been greatly affected. The “loss of prairie habitat ranges from 20 to >99 percent depending on the region” (Benedict, Freeman, & Genoways, p.161). Habitat destruction can be caused by many things. These include:
== = = Human beings are dependent on the Earth's diversity of species for our survival. Wild species play a vital role in the maintenance of the planets ecological functions, yet everyday on the planet 40-100 species become extinct.
According to World WildLife Fund, many ecosystems around the world are being destroyed, eliminating many plant and animal species that inhabit them (“Pollution”).
...nnot keep up with the mass destruction of forests. In addition, the tremendous amount of grain used to feed the animals could be transported to undeveloped countries for food supply.
Biodiversity loss can lead to extinction, and hurt human life. It is our responsibility to take care of the environment. We bring in machines that harm the environment and destroy animal life. We need to limit ourselves on how much land and resources we consume. There are major issues that are causing species to become extinct and hurt our way of life and other animals do to the change in food chain.
Everyone’s all seen those wildlife shows on tv. The shows on National Geographic and such, showing animals in beautiful environments, everything lush and growing and nothing at all wrong that could threaten these creatures and places. But, have anyone seen the other side? The side where all these beautiful creatures and plants starve, are decimated by predators that have never been there before, and sometime even become poisoned by their very own homes and habitats? Of course no one has. That doesn’t mean that its not happening. It is happening, and its happening everywhere. And guess who is to blame? People. Society. Humans as a race pollute the environment, hunt animals simply for their parts, fish way more than humans will ever need just for the sake of money, introduce new species to new places for our own gain, and even purposefully destroy entire regions just for human expansion. And its starting to take its toll. While it is true that nature is constantly in flux and certain species come and go, humans are causing more species to disappear in the past few hundred years then nature has ever caused since the age of the dinosaurs, and therefore it is up to humans to repair the damage caused, be it cleaning the environment and habitats of these creatures, or taking more direct action to protect and preserve the species that are on the brink of extinction.
The Earth is far and away the most biodiverse planet in our solar system, with about 8.7 million more unique species than the other 8 planets (UNEP). However, the Earth’s commanding lead is shrinking; not because the other planets are increasing biodiversity, but because Earth’s is decreasing. According to the World Wildlife Fund, we as a planet are losing 1,000 to 10,000 more species than the natural rate. Since the total number of species is hard to pin down, this can mean anywhere from 200 to 10,000 species going extinct per year (World Wildlife Fund). This obscenely high extinction rate is dangerous not just to ecosystems directly affected by the loss, but also creates a domino effect that circles around the globe and up and down the food
Some main causes of Endangerment are habitat loss, pollution, hunting, competition from non-native plants and animals, plant collecting, logging, clearing forests, and trading animal parts. The growing population also causes some effect because man cause most problems. Diseases or viruses are al...