GOAL
Identify the animals in danger of extinction and the effects this extinction may have on the environment to know more about the animals in danger of extinction. Also, to understand how wild animals in captivity are managed.
EARLY FINDINGS
Animals in danger of extinction:
- According to a 2019 report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), about one million of the estimated eight million animal and plant species on Earth are at risk of extinction within decades.
- About one-third of all species in the United States are at heightened risk of potential extinction in the next couple of decades.
- The main reasons for wild animals' extinction are climate change, destruction of their habitat, illegal hunting, expansion of livestock and crop operations, deforestation, and human population growth.
- According to the International Union for the Conservation, about 60% of the world’s largest animals are threatened with extinction.
- The top ten species that are critically in danger of extinction
are Javan rhinoceros, cheetah, tiger, red tuna, Asian elephant, vaquita porpoise, mountain gorilla, Irrawaddy river dolphin, Sumatran orangutan, and baulan turtle.
Worldwide Web and Environmental effect:
- A single species' disappearance can make a huge difference on a global scale.
- The Worldwide Web, also known as the food web, is the intricate systems of connections between living organisms and their environments. Plants, animals, and humans depend on each other as well as microorganisms, land, water, and climate to keep the entire ecosystem alive and well.
- Many endangered species are top predators whose numbers are dwindling due to conflicts with humans. People kill predators all over the world and destroy their habitats to expand human communities and agricultural operations.
These human interventions affect the balance and biodiversity of the global ecosystem.
- An example of endangered predators is the gray wolf. "Wolves kept other animals' populations from growing exponentially. They hunted elk, deer, and moose and also killed smaller animals such as coyotes, raccoons, and beavers.
Without wolves to keep other animals' numbers in check, prey populations grew larger. Exploding elk populations in the western United States wiped out so many willows and other riparian plants that songbirds no longer had sufficient food or cover in these areas, threatening their survival and increasing numbers of insects like mosquitos that the songbirds were meant to control."
PROPOSED NEXT STEPS
Our preliminary research indicated that the information on animals in danger of extinction is publicly available. Thus, we'd recommend to deep dive into the subject following the outlined plan below:
- Find additional 5-7 environmental effects of wild animals' extinction along with an explanation on how these effects can affect humanity and the global ecosystem. (3 hours, $87)
- Find 5-7 reasons that caused wild animals' extinction in the last decades along with an explanation of each reason and how it affected the wildlife. (3 hours, $87)
- Examine a saved animal (that was in danger of extinction) history: how their extinction began, what reasons started this extinction, how this animal numbers changed over years, what plan and steps helped in increasing its numbers again, how this animal was saved. An example of this kind of animals would be the gray wolf, the bald eagle, and the gray whale. (3 hours. $87)