Day Twenty-Three

Conservation (Part One)

As indicated by the name, the Conservators' Center has a presence in conservation. There is so much you can do with it - you can conserve by "going green" or by setting up breeding programs for endangered species, or raising awareness. It is very important to be aware.

Our planet has almost 7.1 billion people. There is almost 316 million in the United States alone. The only places that are left relatively untouched in our country are national parks. Even then, barricades have been erected and trails made. There is a strong human presence in some of these parks. There are almost no places in the world that are still untouched by humans.

We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction in the last half billion years. This current mass extinction is experiencing some of the worst die-off of species since the dinosaurs were wiped out sixty-five million years ago. The difference with this one is that this extinction was caused by humans. This was a big thing that we discussed in my Tropical Ecology course during the winter. There is a list (which is also an acronym) that list the five largest threats to biodiversity (very important!) in no particular order.

I present the HIPPO model.

Habitat destruction
Invasive species
Pollution
Population
Overharvesting

Habitat destruction is self-explanatory. It is when animals and plants lose their homes due to deforestation, dredging, plowing, and so forth. Take the recent news of what happened in Greensboro. A bear cub somehow wandered onto the campus of the North Carolina A&T State University. This university is in downtown Greensboro, nowhere near a suitable bear habitat. Something similar happened almost three years ago at my college, Rochester Institute of Technology. A bear cub ended up on campus near the dorms. State wildlife officers tranquilized the bear and took it to a park. Just a few months later, the bear, now infamously the "RIT Bear," wandered onto a road and was hit and killed by an oncoming car.

Why did this happen? Again, similar to what happened in Greensboro, RIT is in western Henrietta, New York (and it's called Rochester Institute of Technology.... I know). This is an urban area. What are bears doing here?

They had no home. These bears were hungry and ended up somewhere they shouldn't have, and put themselves (and others' lives) at risk. One bear died unnecessarily because he was probably hungry.

Invasive species is a whole other story. They are species that are not native to the ecosystem but fit into a niche (how an organism makes a living in its ecosystem) and then its population booms. Since they are not native, they often have no natural predators. Take into consideration the zebra mussel of the Great Lakes. It is native to Russia, but was brought over into North America (they were found in the Canadian side of Lake Huron). They are theorized to have been in the ballast water of ships. These mussels are now everywhere in the Great Lakes, growing so densely that they are now attached to docks, the underside of boats, and the substrate. They cause damage to plumbing and are believed to have caused avian botulism that has killed thousands of birds in the Great Lakes area. They are also responsible for the near extinction of many species in the area.

Other examples of invasive species include lampreys, European starlings, fire ants, Dutch elm disease, and ambrosia beetles.

Pollution is self explanatory. There are many avenues of pollution including, but not limited to, noise, air, and earth. Think about the ozone layer - there's a  hole in it. The hole has been shrinking in recent years, but it's still there. This is due to increased carbon dioxide from fuel emissions and other sources. We experience acid rain due to power plants that burn fossil fuels. When acid rain ends up in the lakes and streams, the organisms living in these sources are hit hard. Many organisms such as salamanders and frogs have a hard time living in acidic conditions. Eggs won't hatch and trees end up with damaged leaves.

Climate change, AKA global warming, occurs due to pollution. The atmosphere traps "greenhouse gases" and the planet is slowly heating up even though we're technically still in an Ice Age. Due to global warming, the polar ice caps are melting and the sea levels are also rising.

To be continued...