ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST

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ENDANGERD SPECIES

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN),more than 23000 species are endangered at the moment. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service only recognize a small number of these species — somewhere between 400 and 1500 species.  These aren’t all mammals — the list also includes plants, birds, corals, and amphibians — but even this monumental list may not be accurate.  Scientists believe that it only represents a small fraction of the species that face a threat or the danger of extinction.

The culprits behind this threat i human interference — according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), human behavior has increased this trend toward extinction between 100 and 1000 times what it would be naturally.

Interference isn’t just damaging to the animals themselves — it threatens the biodiversity of the ecosystems where these species live.
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An endangered species is a species  that is very likely to become extinct  in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss,poaching and invasive species. The the international union for conservation of nature (IUCN) red list  lists the global conservation status  of many species, and various other agencies assess the status of species within particular areas. Many nations have

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laws that protect conservation-reliant species  which, for example, forbid hunting, restrict land development , or create protected areas. Some endangered species are the target of extensive conservation efforts such as  captive breeding  and habitat restoration.

The Importance of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms — all the animals, plants, insects, and microorganisms that make up an ecosystem. Why is this variation so significant? Simply put, it creates the foundation for life in the habitat — if one species dies out, biodiversity ensures that there is another species that can take its place to maintain the stability of the ecosystem.

One of the best recent examples of this is the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Wolves were wiped out in the park more than 100 years ago and just recently introduced again.  The effect on the local ecosystem was staggering.

Once the wolves were reintroduced and able to establish

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themselves, they thrived and were not alone — herbivores started to return, and with them came new plant life.  Many of the species that had left the park because of the unbalanced ecosystem returned, and the entire area has started thriving once again.

This prosperity is primarily because of the wolves.  wolves,in this instance,are a keystone species  — they have an inordinately significant impact on the ecosystem with both their presence and their absence. 

Without them, the large herbivores were able to breed unchecked, and eventually, these animals wiped out their own food source and had to move on. As odd as it sounds, without the wolves, even the rivers and wetlands in the area dried up.

Now, introducing wolves isn’t the perfect solution to restore crumbling ecosystems — while they may be a keystone species in Yellowstone, they would unbalance other ecosystems where they are not native. Just look at what’s happened to the Everglades — non-native pythons are thriving in the swampy wetlands, but these apex predators are destabilizing the ecosystem  because they have no natural predators, so they’re free to eat, breed and grow.

Endangered Species Act

Under the Endangered species Act of 1973 in the united states,  species may be listed as "endangered" or "threatened". The salt creek tiger beetle  (Cicindela nevadica lincolniana) is an example of an endangered subspecies protected under the ESA. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as the National Marine Fisheries Service are held responsible for classifying and protecting endangered species. Also, they are also responsible for adding a particular species to the list can be a long, controversial process (Wilcove & Master, 2008, p. 414).

Some endangered species laws are controversial. Typical areas of controversy include criteria for placing a species on the endangered species list and rules for removing a species from the list once its population has recovered. Whether restrictions on land development constitute a "taking" of land by the government; the related question of whether private landowners should be compensated for the loss of uses of their areas; and obtaining reasonable exceptions to protection laws. Also lobbying from hunters  and various industries like the petroleum industry,construction  industry, and logging has been an obstacle in establishing endangered species laws.

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The bush administration  lifted a policy that required federal officials to consult a wildlife expert before taking actions that could damage endangered species. Under the obama administration , this policy has been reinstated.

Being listed as an endangered species can have negative effect since it could make a species more desirable for collectors and poachers. This effect is potentially reducible, such as in China where commercially farmed turtles may be reducing some of the pressure to poach endangered species.

Another problem with the listing species is its effect of inciting the use of the "shoot, shovel, and shut-up" method of clearing endangered species from an area of land. Some landowners currently may perceive a diminution in value for their land after finding an endangered animal on it. They have allegedly opted to kill and bury the animals or destroy habitat silently. Thus removing the problem from their land, but at the same time further reducing the population of an endangered species. The effectiveness of the Endangered species act – which coined the term "endangered species" – has been questioned by business advocacy groups and their publications but is nevertheless widely recognized by wildlife scientists who work with the species as an effective recovery tool. Nineteen species have been delisted and recovered and 93% of listed species in the northeastern United States have a recovering or stable population.

Currently, 1,556 known species in the world have been identified as near extinction or endangered and are under protection by government law. This approximation, however, does not take into consideration the number of species threatened with endangerment that are not included under the protection of such laws like the Endangered Species Act. According to natureserve's global conservation status, approximately thirteen percent of vertebrates (excluding marine fish), seventeen percent of vascular plants, and six to eighteen percent of fungi are considered imperiled. Thus, in total, between seven and eighteen percent of the United States' known animals, fungi and plants are near extinction. This total is substantially more than the number of species protected in the United States under the Endangered Species Act.

Ever since mankind began hunting to preserve itself, over-hunting and fishing have been a large and dangerous problem. Of all the species who became extinct due to interference from mankind, the dodo,passenger pigeon , great auk , tasmanian tiger and steller's cow are some of the more well known examples; with the bald eagle, grizzly bear, american bison,eastern timber wolf and sea turtle  having been poached to near-extinction. Many began as food sources seen as necessary for survival but became the target of sport. However, due to major efforts to prevent extinction, the bald eagle, or Haliaeetusleucocephalus  is now under the category of Least Concern on the red list. A present-day example of the over-hunting of a species can be seen in the oceans as populations of certain whales have been greatly reduced. Large whales like the blue whale, bowhead whale, finback whale, gray whale, sperm whale, and humpback whale are some of the eight whales which are currently still included on the Endangered Species List. Actions have been taken to attempt a reduction in whaling and increase population sizes. The actions include prohibiting all whaling in United States waters, the formation of the CITES treaty which protects all whales, along with the formation of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). But even though all of these movements have been put in place, countries such as japan continue to hunt and harvest whales under the claim of "scientific purposes". Over-hunting, climatic change and habitat loss leads in landing species in endangered species list. It could mean that extinction rates could increase to a large extent in the future.

The Effect on Humans

Animals aren’t the only ones being affected by the destabilization of these ecosystems world-wide — it’s impacting humans too. This isn’t the first mass extinction to hit this planet — in fact, it’s the sixth, with the last one being the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago — but it is the first mass extinction that we are both a part of and a major cause of.

Just look at the bees. Bee species across the globe are under significant threat, both because of human behavior — specifically, pesticides that are destroying bee hives — and because of changing climates. While human intervention has started to help restore the shrinking bee populations, it is the perfect example of what might happen if we allow this ecosystem destabilization to continue.  To put it quite frankly,  if bees die out , humanity goes with them.

Without bees, we’d lose most of the fruits and vegetables that we eat on a daily basis — strawberries, watermelon, walnuts, cucumbers, and peppers will all go extinct without bees to pollinate them, just to name a few.  It also means that coffee will become an exorbitantly expensive luxury commodity if it survives, chocolate will die off, and even getting a hamburger will be next to impossible — bees also pollinate the alfalfa that feeds the cows that become your burger.

As plants and animals go extinct, we also lose things like potential medicines and cures that could exist in herbs we haven’t even discovered yet. We may also experience more diseases like Lyme disease and West Nile Virus as pests like ticks and mosquitoes spread and thrive.

Widespread disease is a worst-case-scenario projection, but if we continue to act like the planet is our trashcan, both literally and figuratively, it could become our reality and humans could potentially find themselves facing extinction right alongside the bees, white rhinos, and other endangered species.