Endangered species

The following lines are verbatum quotes from web articles which are from Government/Scientific agencies. Click on each line to see the original article.

What CAUSES an animal to become threatened or endangered?

Facts About Endangered Species

How many species of creatures become extinct every year? The answer depends on which expert you ask. Though scientists disagree, all accept the fact that many species are in danger of becoming extinct. Ecologist Stuart Pimm observes: "The controversy about how fast we are losing [species] is fundamentally a debate about our future." He adds: "Over the past centuries, we have accelerated the rate of extinction of species far beyond the natural rate. Our future is poorer as a consequence."

Where are they?

The Queensland Government says many are along and near Guanaba Creek which runs right down the middle on this map in the hatched areas.

In the last 500 years, human activity is known to have forced 820 species to extinction (or extinction in the wild).

The world is losing endangered species at an ever increasing rate. Over the past two decades, public and governmental awareness of this plight has increased. Even so, with but a few notable exceptions, efforts to protect and restore many plant and animal species near extinction have been piecemeal or have not been undertaken at all.

As human populations grow and more and more plant and animal species become endangered, it is important for students at this level to become aware of the types of efforts that are underway to try to protect our vital global ecosystems and the kinds of people, groups, and institutions that are conducting them.

Addressing endangered species problems successfully is a complex task that involves knowledge of the problem itself and its context. Problem-solving decisions and on-the-ground management are complicated and affected by numerous considerations.

Increased human population growth causes problems for other life on this planet. As the human population grows, an increasing number of species become extinct. People change the habitats, or homes, upon which living creatures depend. Rapid development has destroyed or altered many of the natural environments to which individual species are adapted. When humans pollute, spray pesticides, use toxic chemicals, introduce non-natives species or poach, their actions affect what happens to other living things.

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