​ENDANGERED
Facts
1. 500 years ago there were 10 million elephants in Africa. By 1979, there were about 1.3 million. By 1990, only 610,000 remained, and the number was falling fast.
2. In January 2013, the Fish and Wildlife Services reported 2,054 species worldwide that are endangered or threatened. 1,436 exist in the US alone.
3. As estimated 50% of all endangered species live in the rainforest. The planet’s largest rainforest –The Amazon – lost more than 17% of its forest cover in the last century due to human activity.
4. Freshwater ecosystems are home to more than 100,000 known species of plants and animals, and are now one of the most endangered habitats in the world as a result of human development, pollution, and climate change.
5. Groups of birds are named as following: - A parliament of owls- An ostentation of peacocks- An unkindness of ravens- A covey of quail- A gaggle of geese- A fall of woodcock- A pitying of turtle doves- A cast of hawks
6. The largest land mammal that ever lived was the hornless rhino, Indricotherium, which was 26 feet long and 17 feet tall at the shoulder. It weighed approximately 30 tons. Indricotherium became extinct in eastern Asia during the Oligocene, 38 to 26 million years ago.
7. Protista and Monera together account for about 5% of all species, the fungal and plant kingdoms for another 22%, and animals for the remaining 73%.
8. Factors that threaten the earth’s creatures include deforestation, water scarcity, erosion, pollution, climate change, pirate fishing, overfishing, oil and gas development, infrastructure, and illegal wildlife trade.
9. The cat was one of the most sacred of all animals to the ancient Egyptians and were mummified in enormous numbers. It was absolutely forbidden to kill a cat and, if one died of natural causes in a house, all the members of the household shaved their eyebrows.
10. A species is defined as endangered or threatened when it is suffers from these factors: damage to its habitat for recreational, or entertainment purposes; disease or predation of the species; and hazards to the continued life of the species.
How you can help:
To assist in reducing the numbers of endangered animals deforestation, pollution, illegal poaching and loss of biodiversity are areas that need much focus. Firstly focusing on deforestation; in the time it takes to read this article, an area of Brazil's rain forest larger than 100 football fields will have been destroyed. During the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down, killing many rare and exotic animals. To stop deforestation I suggest lowering the use of wood and if you are purchasing wood in large amoutns, like a house or deck, research your wood type and where it comes from. Also enforce stricter laws on the deforestation worldwide. Focusing now on pollution, the human race has to pretty much lower their use of everything. We are killing the earth, its creatures and if that dosent catch your attention, ourselves. It is our responsibility to look after this world and everything in it. To lower pollution humans have to change their whole mentality, we think wastefuly and we act wastefully. 14 billion pounds of garbage are dumped into the ocean every year. Most of it being plastic. Illegal poaching isn't as big of a worldwide problem but it does affect many animals worldwide. Rare animals are killed and harmed everyday just for money, this has led to near extinction in many species. Biodiversity is essential to life. It is the variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable. Biodiversity is a process in which every animal or plant is linked, for example, say a certian breed of bee was to go extinct, certian plants would no longer be able to reproduce and therefore die out. But if that specises of plant dies out, there may be a species of catipiller that can only eat that plant and then that butterfly will die but it could be one birds main food and then it would suffer. So on and so on. There is much more you can do but these are just a few ideas.
