Preview

Causes of animal extinction

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1003 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Causes of animal extinction
Animal extinction is happening nowadays due to the multiple factors of environmental degradation. The primary cause of environmental degradation is human disturbance. Extinctions caused by human are generally considered to be are recent phenomena. When humans convert wild areas for agriculture, forestry, urban development, or water projects including dams, hydropower, and irrigation, they reduce or eliminate its usefulness as a habitat for the other species that live there. The temperature of the environmental impact varies with the cause, the habitat, the plants and animals that inhabit it. Fragmentation of habitat carries long term environmental impacts, some of which can destroy entire ecosystem. Habitat loss poses the greatest threat to species. Some wildlife species require large land in order to meet all of their needs for food, habitat, and other resources. These animals are called area sensitive. When the environment is fragmented, the large patches of habitat no longer exist. It becomes more difficult for the wildlife to get the resources to survive. A more critical result of habitat fragmentation is land disturbance. On the other hand, natural disaster is also one of the courses of animal extinction. Mother Nature causes environmental problems too. Things like landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and wildfires can completely decimate local plant and animal communities to the point where they can no longer function. This can either come about through physical destruction via natural disasters or by the long-term degradation of resources by the introduction of an invasive alien species to a new habitat. The latter often occurs after hurricanes, when lizards and insects are washed across small stretches of water to foreign environments. Sometimes, the environment cannot keep up with the new species, and degradation can occur. Acid rain is also normally occurs when sulphur dioxide from coal plant emission combines with moisture

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ecosystems at Risk

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Ecosystems are constantly changing and developing in response to stress induced changes. In nature, change usually takes a long time to occur. The biome eventually adapts as animals and plants that have characteristics that aren’t suited to the occurring change eventually die out and those more suited to the change, remain alive and breed and pass their characteristics along to future generations. This is known as natural selection. Unexpected natural disasters have also caused whole species to die out almost instantly due to not having enough time to adapt. The damming of a river, the draining of a wetland or the cleaning of vast tracts of natural vegetation for agriculture are sudden and drastic changes that may result in loss of habitat and devastation of a species.…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Humans are making the lives of animals harder and easier. Our expansion can interfere with species native to an area, forcing that species to to die out, leave, or change. Overhunting can hit a species hard because it gives little time to react. Although some can. For example, some elephants, valued for their ivory tusks, have started to produce offspring without tusks. These as a result are ignored by hunters. Overfishing is a big problem, as fisherman do not simply want a certain part of the fish. The biodiversity in freshwater habitats has declined by fifty percent in the last thirty…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Though there are several, the causes of extinction have been dominated by the activities of humans. These include population and overexploitation, with habitat destruction being the greatest contributor to the extinction of many species; moreover, impacts to biota from habitat fragmentation, is a critical mechanism of driving species to extinction. This destruction is ongoing in both terrestrial and aquatic biomes, with approximately 80% of all extinctions being attributed to human caused habitat destruction. The effects of habitat destruction are especially prevalent in areas of the world with a formerly rich biodiversity that are being converted into land to be utilized commercially or agriculturally. For…

    • 361 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    1. Extinctions can disrupt vital ecological The cause is known, invasive species processes such as pollination and seed are the leading culprit. dispersal, leading to cascading losses.…

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mass extinctions are very important events to the living organism. When mass extinction happens, it will create huge impact toward the world, negative or positive. For the conservation biologist, they usually think this is a great loss. On the other hand, from the evolutionary perspective, mass extinction could be something good and bad at the same time. Mass extinction would end a lineages and the unique genetic vitiation will be eliminate (Jablonski, 2001). The result of this factor is the loss of the species and it might have some value toward the humankind, such as the medical or economic value. Also, if the extinct species still exist, it might make a different in the world, such as human no longer the most intelligent species in the world.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Let us consider simple example, supponse in our envirnoment we do lot of deforestation for home, industry, schools, hospitals, etc..This will spoil whole natural life cycle. Lot of species will be destoryed in doing so. Suppose the loss has resulted in decreasing and increasing death ratio. Beacause of which the carnivours animal will start dying due to lack of food or we can say dependency. Then the human will have to suffer with this. NO food and the environment changes like abnormal rain or temperature raise. Whole cycle will be diturbed.…

    • 295 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Henry Doorly Zoo

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Societal response to rapidly decreasing species has been insufficient. Species decline is directly correlated to human causes, whether in agriculture causing loss of habitat, or by the greenhouse effect causing global warming. When a habitat becomes deconstructed, the organisms, plants, and animals that once occupied the area have to reduce their carrying capacity, making extinction more probable. Human activities have drastically changed natural greenhouses over the past centuries. This includes burning fossil fuels such as coal or oil which increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increased the concentration of greenhouse gasses. These conditions make the atmosphere warmer and in return make environments that are inhospitable…

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The mass extinction of dinosaurs is still a mystery today but their are many theories supporting how and why approximately 70% of all living species on earth suddenly became extinct including dinosaurs, 66 million years ago. The most common and realistic theory is the astroid impact theory when a astroid 6-15 km in diameter hit earth with the force of five billion atomic bombs.…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anthropogenic habitat fragmentation has affected, and will continue to affect the dynamics of populations for most organism types that are subjected to it. From the physical structures we construct for the conveniences of humankind to the deterioration of continuity in our forests and other vast ecosystems that we have exploited to support urbanization and development of land, we are changing the ways in which organisms can use the landscapes to which they have evolved. By creating barriers and inhospitable divisions in the landscape we effectively divide single populations into subpopulations and often reduce or eliminate the mixing of individuals between these subpopulations. While fragmentation happens through many natural processes that the earth is subjected to, these natural divisions seem to happen very slowly relative to the rate of anthropogenic fragmentation. At a slow enough rate of fragmentation organisms should be able to adjust and adapt. This may not be so when land can be…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mass Extinction

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Our environment is parted into millions of ecological niches, each that represents a probable home for life. Taking advantage of new opportunities are what animals and plants will always try to do, so they will always try to make a home in an empty niche. To specify, only one animal or plant can have a certain niche. When two different organisms try to take the same niche they will compete for the same resources, and one will always try to out-compete the other. When the species is extinct and there is an empty niche, there will be a race to fill it. Mass extinctions open up a swarm of niches, and there is evolutionary explosion as animals and plants adapt to fill the vacant homes.…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the years, society has began to destroys habitats in order to either create new houses, plant crops, or simply use trees to construct essential materials. Yet, we are leaving animals without homes resulting in the loss of many species. When a tree is cut down many animals die in the process. Humans are depriving animals of their homes and food supply. When individuals invade their land many may need to relocate unexpectedly and learn to hunt for another food supply.…

    • 1301 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The destruction of natural habitat is one of the main threats faced by most of the animals’ species in the world. This is done as large projects, such as dams and waterways that are man-built. Another reason is the clearing of forests and forest fires. Humans excessively deforest areas where animals live because they need timber for financial gain. Forest fires cause animals to move to strange areas, where they are exposed to many dangers. Subsequently, the clearing of areas to build new houses, roads, buildings, businesses or plantations causes the animal population to decrease. For example, in India, large areas of natural habitats are destroyed for tea plantations. The…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Threatened Habitats

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Deforestation is contributing to threatened habitats. Humans are cutting down trees for reasons such as agricultural land. Trees are not only animal’s homes but they recycle our air and we are constantly chopping them down. Humans have cut down about 80% of the world’s natural forests which were once the home to many animals. The Amazon rainforest in South America is an example of deforestation as it has been partly deforested.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dinosaur and Extinction

    • 1255 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Species go extinct primarily because they are unable to adapt to a changing environment. Animals with specialized food or habitat requirements, such as the giant panda (which feeds almost…

    • 1255 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On the other hand, not only human is affected but the animals are also related firmly to the tress in global ecology system. If the forest’s destruction rate…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays