Problems with Wildlife
Problems with Wildlife
It is blatantly obvious that the level of wildlife has been decreasing amazingly over the years. Species of animals and plants are rapidly becoming endangered or even extinct. There are many factors that are making this problem a reality. Habitat destruction, hunting, and pollution are the three major factors that are destroying our wildlife. The destruction of habitat is the greatest of all threats to wildlife, whether they're rich tropical forests, mangroves, swamps, coral reefs, or your own local grassland or woods. Most wild plants and animals are so closely adapted to their own particular habitat that they become rare or endangered if it is damaged or removed. Globally, the most worrying losses of habitat are the tropical rain forests, because these contain, by far, the largest number of species. Although large areas of tropical rain forests still survive, they are still being lost at an alarming rate, areas the size of small countries each year. Coral reefs, another rich habitat, are threatened by fishing and shell collection. The first comprehensive map of our planet's reefs indicates that they collectively cover just about 110,000 square miles, an area about as big as Nevada. That's about half the size that scientists had estimated (Discover, Dec2001, Vol. 22 issue 12, p20, p2/6, 1c). The coral reefs are dramatically decreasing. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the center for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia, studies the environmental conditions that reefs need to survive. Rishing temperatures, he says, are one of the most Antal 2
Insidious threats. If temperature increases seen in the past decade continue, Hoegh-Guldberg predicts that in fifty years coral reefs as we know them will be gone. Short of drastically decreasing oru emissions of greenhouse gases, the best thing we can do for the reefs is reduce the amount of pollution they're exposed to, he
It is blatantly obvious that the level of wildlife has been decreasing amazingly over the years. Species of animals and plants are rapidly becoming endangered or even extinct. There are many factors that are making this problem a reality. Habitat destruction, hunting, and pollution are the three major factors that are destroying our wildlife. The destruction of habitat is the greatest of all threats to wildlife, whether they're rich tropical forests, mangroves, swamps, coral reefs, or your own local grassland or woods. Most wild plants and animals are so closely adapted to their own particular habitat that they become rare or endangered if it is damaged or removed. Globally, the most worrying losses of habitat are the tropical rain forests, because these contain, by far, the largest number of species. Although large areas of tropical rain forests still survive, they are still being lost at an alarming rate, areas the size of small countries each year. Coral reefs, another rich habitat, are threatened by fishing and shell collection. The first comprehensive map of our planet's reefs indicates that they collectively cover just about 110,000 square miles, an area about as big as Nevada. That's about half the size that scientists had estimated (Discover, Dec2001, Vol. 22 issue 12, p20, p2/6, 1c). The coral reefs are dramatically decreasing. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the center for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia, studies the environmental conditions that reefs need to survive. Rishing temperatures, he says, are one of the most Antal 2
Insidious threats. If temperature increases seen in the past decade continue, Hoegh-Guldberg predicts that in fifty years coral reefs as we know them will be gone. Short of drastically decreasing oru emissions of greenhouse gases, the best thing we can do for the reefs is reduce the amount of pollution they're exposed to, he