Endangered species conservation - how scientists bring back species from the edge of extinction

Hi everyone,

We always talk about endangered species and how we really need to help them. But we never really say how we can help them. I mean of course, stop climate change, remove the plastic pollution from the ocean, ban hunting, but those are massive tasks and not easy or quick to do. So how do scientists stop species from going extinct? With nearly 40 000 species threatened, there is no one solution for all species.

Habitat conservation and official protection

One of the most basic and yet often really effective form of conserving and restoring populations is to protect and conserve their habitats. This often includes legal bodies forbidding deforestation or mining. Many habitats have been made into national parks or other protected areas and in some places, visitors are strictly prohibated. In other places, voluteers are working day and night to clear plastic on beachs and in rivers. Bans on hunting and poaching have been effective in many speices such as sea otters, whose incredible fur lead to excessive hunting until an international ban on hunting, which pushed sea otter populations back up. Another common example of legal protections is whales. They were hunted close to extinction until protected by the International Whaling Commission. Although there are still countries that refuse to ban whaling, whale populations have been slowly making their comeback.

Captive breeding and artificial insemination

Now we start to move into methods that have a lot of critism. Don't get me wrong, banning hunting and whaling met a lot of opposition, but probably not as widespread as our next method. Lots of people don't like zoos, I get that, I don't particulary like looking at big cats pacing inside small inclosures or polar bears desperately trying to find shade in an ice free enclosure in the middle of hot summer. But lots of zoos do important conservation work. Sometimes, it isn't possible to protect an animal in its natural habitat. Lots of governments don't want to or can't ban hunting and it often continues illegally anyway. Many zoos have breeding programms to help with exactly those problems. They breed animals in the zoo and wait until the young have matured before sending them back to their natural habitat to boost the local population. This isn't without problems, animals can find transportation from zoos to wilderniss very stressful especially if it means long distance travel. There are also problems with the animals not being able to survive in the wild because of not being used to predators or different food to what they had in the zoo. Not to mention the fact that this still doesn't make their time in the zoo any better. Some animals like pandas don't always mate even when given the chance. Here zoos often resort to artificial insemination. Again this is met with the critism that these procedures aren't comfortable for the animals and are sometimes unnecessary.

Relocating species to a new habitat

The last point I want to talk about today, is possibly the most controversial. The idea of relocating species to a different habitat is constantly argued about among scientific circles. Many biologists and ecologists say that it's a bad idea, others say that it's necessary to stop these species from dying out. The main idea is that if a habitat becomes uninhabitable, for example it dries out due to climate change, researchers look for another area that the homeless animals might thrive in. Another name for this is assisted migration. This is currently being trialed in western swamp turtoises in Australia. Their habitat is drying out because of reduced rainfall. So a team has attempted to rehome them. Critics warn of these relocated species becoming invasive species and uprooting the new ecosystem. Species can also often have a hard time adapting to new environments due to different climates, landscapes, food options and predators, similar to how animals bred in capativity struggle when reintroduced to their actual habitat.

There are obviously more options that scientists are looking into, but these are a couple of them. We hope you enjoyed this post. Let us know what you think about these methods in the comments!

Your Green World Blog Team💚

Sources:
https://earth.org/how-many-endangered-species-are-there/
https://www.buildastash.com/post/types-of-wildlife-conservation
https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/biodiversity-conservation-types-importance-methods.php
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/endangered-animal-species-mating-spd
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/ten-animals-we-have-saved-from-extinction.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02732-0

Images:
Title image owned by a blog editor with copyright free images included.
Whale, owned by Blair Haggerty (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Close-Up Shot of a Panda Bear on a Tree Branch is owned by .M.Q Huang on pexels.com.

Comments

Eco system Galápagos: Part 1 Geography

Hello and welcome to the first post about the Galapagos Islands. Currents and Winds The volcanic islands of Galápagos started to form 4 million years ago. Where they lie, is unique. They are situated directly on the equator, on the Nazca tectonic plate. The Galapagos Islands are on the crossroads of three currents. The cold South Equatorial Current flows westward towards Galapagos. The warm Panama Current runs in from the north. And finally, the deep sea Cromwell Current runs from the west. The Galapagos Islands are also where the Northeast Trade Wind meets the Southeast Trade Wind. Galapagos Hotspot 21 Volcanoes make up the Galápagos Islands with 13 still active. The reason for this volcanic activity is a giant hotspot under the island. A hotspot is a gigantic column of super heated molten lava, rising up towards the surface. It is immense; at least sixty miles (97 kilometers) across and 1800 miles (2897 kilometers) deep. It connects the islands to ...

18.10.20 Animal Of The Week: Sloth

Hello, Sorry this didn't come out on Sunday as planned but this week's animal of the week is the sloth because the twentieth of October is Sloth Day. Habitat The sloth resides in Central and South America. It lives in the rainforests there and occasionally drops into the water for a bathe as, believe it or not, they are actually excellent swimmers! Diet Sloths eat leaves, twigs and buds which they find in the rainforest. As they don't have incisors they smack their lips together to make leaves more digestible. Sloths can survive on relatively little food as it takes a while for them to digest it. Sleep and Speed When you think of a sloth, you probably think of this slow, sleepy creature. They actually sleep for about 15 hours a day! Sloths have an extremely low metabolic rate (what basic calories your body needs to survive), which means they move at a slow pace through the trees. On average, sloths travel 40 yards per day ...

Discussion || Should Everyone Switch To Electric Cars?

Hi Everyone! Thank you so much for joining me today, as I hop on the blog to discuss whether everyone switching to electric cars would really help the environment. In other words, should everyone switch to electric cars? This is the first part of a two-part series, discussing electric cars, so stay tuned for part two!! I would like to start this post by stating that I am by no means an expert. This is knowledge I have from my own experience, and from research I have done. If anything is incorrect please take it as it is and accept that this is a discussion and I am taking on board all opinions from reliable sources on this complex topic. Electric cars are a huge topic when it comes to sustainability and "saving our planet". There is no debating the fact that electric cars are better for the environment than diesel or petrol once they are on the road. But the production of them is often very polluting, with one study show...

Climate change: what is it and what's the problem

Hello, I've noticed that we are always mentioning climate change. Not only us blog editors but also politicians, activists and so on. The words climate change are bounced around in the media and probably in your households, but do you actually know what it is or how it works? I know that for a long time, I didn't know what it really meant. I hope that this post changes that. What is climate change and how does it work? The words climate change describe a slow shift in the earth's temperature and changes in the weather patterns. Having a single warm winter does not instantly mean climate change. Climate change happens over a long period of time. If you look at a temperature graph over the years, it doesn't go up in one day and then stay the same for another hundred years. It curves up slowly but steadily. This is a average temperature graph from 1880 to just after 2000. You can see how the temperature gradually gets warmer....

2021: How Our Year Went, Favourite Posts and Some Goals For 2022 | a wrap up

Hi Everyone! Today we wanted to share some thoughts on how our blogging year went in 2021 and some goals for 2022. We are now at the end of January, which is very scary, but we hope you will still enjoy this slightly belated wrap-up. In 2021, we published 36 posts in total. This is pretty good, we posted on average roughly every 10 days. However, there was a lot of time when we didn't post at all and our posts became increasingly just the monthly fact file. Many of you enjoyed the fact file, and for the most part, we enjoyed writing it but it became a bit of a chore by the end, hence the change we have made over to top tips. We think it would be nice to change our monthly post every year, and we will of course involve you in that just as we did this year. Our best posting months were by far August and September, which is understandable because we were on holiday for August and could schedule a lot of posts for September! Something we want to wor...

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

How much do you know about migrating birds? - Quiz

Hello everyone, We've got another quiz for you and this time it's about migrating birds. As most of you probably know, there are loads of birds that fly to a different country or even continent to avoid harsh weather and to find better feeding and breading areas. Questions True or False? Birds use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate while migrating? How many miles does an arctic term migrate? a) between 10 000 and 20 000 km b) between 20 000 and 30 000 km c) more than 40 000 km True or False? Arctic terns can fly 600km in a day. What percentage of birds migrate? a) about 40% b) about 60% c) about 80% True or False? Great snipes travel 5 000 miles at 70mph. How long can the bar-tailed godwit fly non stop for? a) nearly 5000 miles b) nearly 7000 miles c) nearly 9000 miles True or False? Bar-headed geese can fly up to 5.5 miles above sea level. ...

Coral reefs

Hello! We would love to introduce you to the topic of coral reefs and especially coral reef bleaching, as it is a greatly ignored but certainly significant topic. Have fun! 5 coral reef facts 1. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and is 2300 km long! 2. Less than 0.1% of the world's ocean surface is covered in coral reefs. 3. At least 25% of all marine animals live there. 4. Coral reefs are often known as the rainforests of the ocean. 5. In 1 square kilometre of coral reef, up to 35 tons of fish can be 'produced'. The 5 biggest coral reefs in the world 1. Great Barrier Reef (near Australia) 2. Red Sea Coral Reef (near Egypt, Israel and Djibouti) 3. New Caledonia Reef (Pacific Ocean near New Caledonia) 4. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (near Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras) 5. Florida Reef (Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico near Florida) What is coral? Coral is actually made up of small anim...

The Responsible Traveller by Karen Edwards || a practical guide to reducing your environmental and social impact // BOOK REVIEW

HI Everyone! Our January monthly post was a zero-waste challenge, but as we explained in our 2023 wrap up , this year we will be alternating a monthly challenge with a book review, of course related to the environment. This week, I'm going to share a recommendation for a fantastic book, all about how you can travel more sustainably and responsibly. I absolutely love travelling, but I'm also very aware of the impact it has on the world, and I am very keen to learn more about how I can further reduce my impact. That's why I bought this book around a year ago, and I've really enjoyed reading it and learning from it. This is a practical, small-format guide, sharing both basic information about the climate crisis and the impact of various travel activities, and how you can do your bit. It shares specific journeys that are more environmentally friendly options, for example long distance train journeys such as The Alaskan Railroad with its stunning alpine forests and wide ar...

Turning waste into valuables

Hi, So this post was requested on Twitter after our September Top Tips about recycling . Today we will be talking about how to turn complete waste into something reasonably valuable. This is basically a form of upcycling but to a more extreme level. 1. Ecobricks So, almost a year ago we did a post about ecobricks , but they are such a good example of turning waste into valuables that we decided to put it here anyway. Ecobricks are a building material made from plastic. The waste plastic is washed and then compacted into a clean plastic bottle (also waste). The bottle becomes very hard and durable. Multiple bottles can then be used as bricks and cemented together. The 'bricks' are strong and do not decompose. For more info, read our post where we go into more detail. 2. Metals Although this may seem like something not worth the time. When you separate the metals in waste (for example an old car), you can get usable metal out ...

Green World

Search This Blog