Wildlife conservation is the
practice of protecting endangered plant and animal species and their habitats.
Among the goals of wildlife conservation are to ensure that nature will be
around for future generations to enjoy and to recognize the importance of
wildlife and wilderness lands to humans. Many nations have government agencies
dedicated to wildlife conservation, which help to implement policies designed to
protect wildlife. Numerous independent nonprofit organizations also promote
various wildlife conservation causes.
Wildlife conservation has become an increasingly important practice due to the
negative effects of human activity on wildlife. The science of extinction is
called dirology. An endangered species is defined as a population of a living
being that is at the danger of becoming extinct because of several reasons.
Either they are few in number or are threatened by the varying environmental or
predation parameters.
Major threats to wildlife can be categorized as below:
• : Fewer natural wildlife habitat areas remain each year. Moreover, the habitat
that remains has often been degraded to bear little resemblance to the wild
areas which existed in the past.Habitat loss—due to destruction, fragmentation
or degradation of habitat—is the primary threat to the survival of wildlife in
the United States.
When an ecosystem has been dramatically changed by human activities—such as
agriculture, oil and gas exploration, commercial development or water
diversion—it may no longer be able to provide the food, water, cover, and places
to raise young. Every day there are fewer places left that wildlife can call
home.
There are three major kinds of habitat loss:
• Habitat destruction: A bulldozer pushing down trees is the iconic image of
habitat destruction. Other ways that people are directly destroying habitat,
include filling in wetlands, dredging rivers, mowing fields, and cutting down
trees.
• Habitat fragmentation: Much of the remaining terrestrial wildlife habitat in
the U.S. has been cut up into fragments by roads and development. Aquatic
species’ habitat has been fragmented by dams and water diversions. These
fragments of habitat may not be large or connected enough to support species
that need a large territory in which to find mates and food. The loss and
fragmentation of habitat make it difficult for migratory species to find places
to rest and feed along their migration routes.
• Habitat degradation: Pollution, invasive species and disruption of ecosystem
processes (such as changing the intensity of fires in an ecosystem) are some of
the ways habitats can become so degraded that they no longer support native
wildlife.
o Climate change: Global warming is making hot days hotter, rainfall and
flooding heavier, hurricanes stronger and droughts more severe. This
intensification of weather and climate extremes will be the most visible impact
of global warming in our everyday lives. It is also causing dangerous changes to
the landscape of our world, adding stress to wildlife species and their habitat.
Since many types of plants and animals have specific habitat requirements,
climate change could cause disastrous loss of wildlife species. A slight drop or
rise in average rainfall will translate into large seasonal changes.Hibernating
mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects are harmed and disturbed. Plants and
wildlife are sensitive to moisture change so, they will be harmed by any change
in moisture level. Natural phenomena like floods, earthquakes, volcanoes,
lightning, forest fires.
•
o Unregulated Hunting and poaching: Unregulated hunting and poaching causes a
major threat to wildlife. Along with this, mismanagement of forest department
and forest guards triggers this problem.
•
o Pollution: Pollutants released into the environment are ingested by a wide
variety of organisms.Pesticides and toxic chemical being widely used, making the
environment toxic to certain plants, insects, and rodents.
•
o Perhaps the largest threat is the extreme growing indifference of the public
to wildlife, conservation and environmental issues in general. Over-exploitation
of resources, i.e., exploitation of wild populations for food has resulted in
population crashes (over-fishing and over-grazing for example).
•
• Over exploitation is the over use of wildlife and plant species by people for
food, clothing, pets, medicine, sport and many other purposes. People have
always depended on wildlife and plants for food, clothing, medicine, shelter and
many other needs. But today we are taking more than the natural world can
supply. The danger is that if we take too many individuals of a species from
their natural environment, the species may no longer be able to survive. The
loss of one species can affect many other species in an ecosystem. The hunting,
trapping, collecting and fishing of wildlife at unsustainable levels is not
something new. World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international
non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation,
research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife
Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. It is the
world's largest independent conservation organization with over 5 million
supporters worldwide, working in more than 90 countries, supporting around
1300[4] conservation and environmental projects around the world. It is a
charity, with approximately 60% of its funding coming from voluntary donations
by private individuals. 45% of the fund's income comes from the Netherlands, the
United Kingdom and the United States.IUCN and many other national and local
NGO,s orking for the the preservation of nature..