How Human Activity is Impacting Wildlife
Humans enter sensitive ecosystems and extract precious specimens to sell for pets, or worse, to sell as ingredients for folk medicine or delicacies. (Kaufman and Franz, 1993, 357). This removal of species from the wild degrades the biodiversity and genetic variety in a system and this could eventually lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem.
Poaching is another harmful impact that humans have on wildlife. . (Kaufman and Franz, 1993, 357). Poachers hunt down animals like elephants and rhinoceros for their ivory, and leave the rest of the butchered animal to rot. Shark finning is in line with ivory harvesting. In this case the sharks are captured alive and their fins are cut off and the shark is then tossed back into the water where it drowns.
Habitat loss is also a major problem for wildlife. (Kaufman and Franz, 1993, 357). This is caused by human developments encroaching on wild areas, and because of deforestation for agriculture or lumber. And finally, humans cause habitat destruction by introducing non-native animals to ecosystems. (1993). For example Australia’s wildlife is constantly under attack from introduced species that came to Australia with the settlers like pigs, cane toads, foxes, and goats.
Domesticated animals also face human caused problems. The main problem with domestication is that only a select few genetic combinations and species are selected to breed. This causes genetic erosion within species of stock animals. This makes stock animals vulnerable to disease and environmental conditions that are not common to the normal stock animal such as drought. For example, back in the 1970s most of the cattle in Africa were of an imported breed. Local breeds of African cattle had almost completely been replaced by these imports, however, a few small herds remained. When a 7-year drought hit the continent most of the imported cattle were wiped out, as they had not evolved to endure drought conditions. (Kaufman and Franz, 1993, 361). In order to rebuild their herds, the African native breeds of cattle where reintroduced because they had evolved to withstand the effects of cyclic periods of drought.
There are many things that people can do to help minimize the impacts of human interference. First, land can be set aside to give wildlife a permanent and secure place to live that is protected against poaching, harvesting of timbers and animals, and that is free from the threat of human development. In order to make long term gains in conservation and wildlife protection, the public also needs to be re-educated on the importance of conservation and protecting the ecosystems of the world, and the importance of biodiversity to the quality of human life. Conservation efforts should not only educate people on setting aside land, but also on the importance of reducing the amount of resources that each person consumes, from energy consumption to items purchased in a department store. Better choices in product selection also should be encouraged to help people select products that are recyclable, to purchase fewer or no disposable products, to buy products that will last, to purchase cleaning products that are earth friendly, and not to purchase wildlife products like shark-fin soup, turtle, or endangered species of fish like certain varieties of sea bass.
Another thing that people can do to help protect biodiversity is to consume a wider variety of plants and animals. Feral animals should also be removed from ecosystems that they don’t belong to in order to allow the native populations to recover. Finally, pollution needs to be cleaned up, emission standards should be set, and more bio-friendly energy sources and products need to be developed to help reduce our dependency on products and energy sources that negatively impact the world and its wildlife.
References
Kaufman, Donald G. and Franz, Cecilia M. (1993). Biosphere 2000�Protecting our Global Environment. Dubuque, IA: Kendal/Hunt Publishing
