Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 97 views

    Science

    Uploaded by

    Junseob Lee
    Species have become extinct throughout geological history due to natural causes like climate change and catastrophic events. However, the current rate of species extinction is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural background rate due to human activities like overhunting, habitat destruction, and introduction of invasive species. Many animal species have been threatened or driven to extinction by unsustainable hunting by humans. Large predators in particular have been endangered due to conflicts with human activities like hunting and livestock. The introduction of non-native species has also negatively impacted many vulnerable native species. Habitat loss is another major driver of endangerment, as species' natural habitats are converted for agricultural and other human land uses.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Science

    Uploaded by

    Junseob Lee
    97 views2 pages
    Species have become extinct throughout geological history due to natural causes like climate change and catastrophic events. However, the current rate of species extinction is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural background rate due to human activities like overhunting, habitat destruction, and introduction of invasive species. Many animal species have been threatened or driven to extinction by unsustainable hunting by humans. Large predators in particular have been endangered due to conflicts with human activities like hunting and livestock. The introduction of non-native species has also negatively impacted many vulnerable native species. Habitat loss is another major driver of endangerment, as species' natural habitats are converted for agricultural and other human land uses.

    Copyright

    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

    Available Formats

    DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Species have become extinct throughout geological history due to natural causes like climate change and catastrophic events. However, the current rate of species extinction is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural background rate due to human activities like overhunting, habitat destruction, and introduction of invasive species. Many animal species have been threatened or driven to extinction by unsustainable hunting by humans. Large predators in particular have been endangered due to conflicts with human activities like hunting and livestock. The introduction of non-native species has also negatively impacted many vulnerable native species. Habitat loss is another major driver of endangerment, as species' natural habitats are converted for agricultural and other human land uses.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    97 views2 pages

    Science

    Uploaded by

    Junseob Lee
    Species have become extinct throughout geological history due to natural causes like climate change and catastrophic events. However, the current rate of species extinction is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural background rate due to human activities like overhunting, habitat destruction, and introduction of invasive species. Many animal species have been threatened or driven to extinction by unsustainable hunting by humans. Large predators in particular have been endangered due to conflicts with human activities like hunting and livestock. The introduction of non-native species has also negatively impacted many vulnerable native species. Habitat loss is another major driver of endangerment, as species' natural habitats are converted for agricultural and other human land uses.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Species have become extinct throughout geological history.

    Biological evolution, driven by natural climate change, catastrophic


    geologic events, and competition from better-adapted species, has
    involved extinction of billions of species since the advent of life on Earth
    about three billion years ago. In fact, according to the fossil record, only
    2–4% of the species that have existed on Earth exist today. In modern
    times, however, species threatened by human activities are becoming
    extinct at a rate that far exceeds the pace of extinction throughout most
    of geologic history. (The mass species extinctions that occurred at the
    end of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras are noteworthy exceptions to
    this generalization. Geologic data show evidence that a cluster of very
    large meteorite impacts killed about 85% of the Earth's species,
    including the dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago at the end of the
    Mesozoic Cretaceous era.) Meteorite impacts notwithstanding, scientists
    approximate that present extinction rates are 1,000 to 10,000 times
    higher than the average natural extinction rate.

    Species endangered by unsustainable hunting

    Overhunting and overfishing have threatened animal species since


    aboriginal Europeans, Australians, and Americans developed effective
    hunting technology thousands of years ago. The dodo, passenger pigeon,
    great auk, and Steller's sea cow were hunted to extinction. Unstainable
    hunting and fishing continue to endanger numerous animals worldwide.
    In the United States, many of the animals considered national symbols—
    bald eagle, grizzly bear, timber wolf, American Bison, bighorn sheep,
    Gulf of Mexico sea turtles—have been threatened by overhunting.
    (American bison, incidentally, are no longer considered threatened, but
    they exist mainly in managed herds, and have never repopulated their
    wide range across the American and Canadian west.)

    Large predators and trophies

    Many large predators are killed because they compete with human
    hunters for wild game like deer and elk, because they prey on domestic
    animals like sheep, or sometimes because they threaten humans.
    Consequently, almost all large predators whose former range has been
    developed by humans have become extirpated or endangered. The list of
    endangered large predators in the United States includes most of the
    species that formerly occupied the top of the food chain, and that
    regulated populations of smaller animals and fishes: grizzly bear, black
    bear, gray wolf, red wolf, San Joaquin kit fox, jaguar, lynx, cougar,
    mountain lion, Florida panther, bald eagle, northern falcon, American
    alligator, and American crocodile.

    Endangerment caused by introduced species

    In many places, vulnerable native species have been decimated by non-


    native species imported by humans. Predators like domestic cats and
    dogs, herbivores like cattle and sheep, diseases, and broadly-feeding
    omnivores like pigs have killed, starved, and generally outcompeted
    native species after introduction. Some destructive species
    introductions, like the importation of mongooses to the Pacific islands
    to control snakes, are intentional, but most of the damage caused by
    exotic species and diseases is unintended.

    Endangerment caused by habitat destruction

    Many species have become extinct or endangered as their natural habitat has been
    converted for human land-use purposes. The American ivory-billed woodpecker, for
    example, once lived in mature, bottomland hardwood forests and cypress swamps
    throughout the southeastern United States. These habitats were heavily logged and/or
    converted to agricultural land by the early 1900s. There have been no reliable sightings of
    the American ivory-billed woodpecker since the early 1960s, and it is probably extinct in
    North America. A related subspecies, the Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker, is also
    critically endangered because of habitat loss, as is the closely related imperial
    woodpecker of Mexico.

    You might also like