Wild plants and animals have plenty to worry about on a normal day, but humans increase these worries tenfold. By increasing problems like pollution, invasive species, overexploitation, disease, climate change, and habitat loss, we pose major threats to their livelihood.
This doesn’t mean we have to forsake innovation, but understanding these major threats to wildlife and how we can be more responsible neighbors on the earth we share are essential.
1. Pollution
Pollution is largely caused by human existence, and it invades habitats in the form of exhaust fumes, trash, sewage, chemicals, and industrial emissions. Physical litter is easy for us to spot, but there’s a bigger issue when the planet we share is unable to process all the chemicals, nutrients, and waste fast enough to balance things out.
While humanity has done a great job of following pollution back to its source point and making changes there, it’s still not enough. With billions of people on the earth minor mistakes add up over time.
For many animals to survive, we need to minimize pollution as much as possible. For example, when we realized that raptors like peregrine falcons and seahawks were hunting down prey with super-concentrated DDT levels and this caused a major decline in their population, we banned its use completely.
2. Invasive Species
In a testimony before the Senate regarding solutions to control invasive species, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Acting Director Jim Kurth pointed out “invasive species have interfered with the recovery or contributed to the decline of 42 percent of federally listed threatened and endangered species”.
Many of these invasive plants and animals come in through human activity, either as they latch onto ships or infiltrate shipping crates. Sometimes they’re accidentally or intentionally released, like Burmese Pythons in the everglades. Other times they’re enabled by or forged to migrate by climate change.
They threaten native wildlife that aren’t used to dealing with these new creatures, either by becoming their prey or finding them as competition for limited food and space resources. Invasive species can also cause or carry illnesses that native populations have no immunity against, potentially wiping them out in a single season.
Learning to identify harmful invasive species in your area (like the lionfish in Florida) can help you remove them, unburdening your local wildlife with minor effort.
3. Overexploitation
Humans have many uses for animals, from companionship to food, and even medicinal uses. As human numbers have skyrocketed, these instances of exploitation have major impacts on wild populations around the globe.
From overfishing of fish for food and sport to trapping wild parrots like the African Grey as pets, technology and demand have devastating impacts. Mammals are still hunted as trophies, amphibians sought after for research, and reptiles like crocodiles revered for exotic leathers.
Federal regulations do their part to limit these activities, but they only work if people abide by the laws. Make sure you aren’t participating in any activities that increase demand for shady business, like buying wild-caught parrots, and prioritize ethical practices, like sustainable fishing companies, whenever possible.
4. Disease
While it’s normal for animals to deal with illness and disease, a healthy population will have developed defenses that prevent viruses, bacteria, and parasites from devastating their communities.
These defenses include:
- Genetic diversity of a population
- Species diversity
- Evolved resistance
When an ecosystem loses their biodiversity or access to resources, or they have to deal with issues like invasive species or pollution and climate change, their natural defenses drop.
This is when you see issues like fibro papillomatosis (tumors) that affect sea turtles or white-nose syndrome on beneficial bats of the northeast and mid-Atlantic, potentially wiping out important communities.
By limiting the factors that deplete their natural defenses, we can help keep these animals strong against illness.
5. Climate Change
Climate change was once a theoretical warning, but it’s very much in effect now. Temperatures are notably increasing (not due to the sun’s influence); ocean water expands as it warms and land-based ice is melting, contributing to rising sea levels, precipitations patterns and drying up in certain areas and devastating others, and the oceans acidify as they absorb carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
While it’s certainly uncomfortable for us, it’s devastating for our friends in the wild. Climate change is rearranging their entire lives, changing suitable areas for them to live and restructuring their food chains.
We often look to polar bears when discussing this topic because their homes are literally melting beneath their feet. Losing the ice caps not only contributes to rising sea levels, but it limits the amount of solar heat the earth can reflect away from the surface.
While it will take tens of thousands of years to undo what’s been compounding since the industrial revolution, we still have time to slow the change. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions overall, turning from fossil fuels to responsible and renewable energy sources, is an important first step.
6. Habitat Loss
Habitat loss can occur in a number of ways:
- Destruction of habitats, like bulldozing trees during deforestation or filling in marshlands for urban development. Even mowing fields can eradicate an important community.
- Fragmentation as habitats is dissected by roads and human development or riverways are impeded or diverted. These fragments force wildlife like coyotes to venture into cities or cross dangerous roadways or compete over spaces that are much too small to support their needs.
- Degradation, often through aforementioned factors like pollution or invasive species. These disrupt the normal process of the environment, often too quickly for native species to adapt.
Humans exasperate this issue as they claim wild land for agriculture, resources exploration, and development, but they can also be part of the solution. Taking the time to create a certified wildlife habitat in your community (or even your own yard) gives animals a small, protected refuge. Speaking out to your representatives about preserving natural land is another impactful way to get involved.
