Causes of Wild Animal Endangerment

I found it amazing when I was doing research on wild animal endangerment what information is out there. I have done extensive research on this topic because it really struck home with me. I have been helping to rescue animals for several years and realized that the issue of animal endangerment goes just beyond domestic pets.

Three hundred and fifty wild species have been lost on our planet in the last fifteen years, Beautiful, sometimes dangerous. they are an essential part of our global eco-system. Each fills a place that is part of our inter-dependent planetary survival. Sometimes a danger that affects a wild species may be survivable, but the danger can be transferred to a domestic or semi-domestic species. This applies in the case of the wild bumblebee. It can survive the varrao mite but that mite kills the Honey bee

Travel by humans and the transportation of goods can bring dangerous diseases from one part of the world to another. For example the transportation of rabid racoons from Florida to Georgia by hunters has encouraged that rabid disease to travel north to Canada's Eastern Provinces.

We are all familiar with the efforts made to rescue seabirds and mammals from oil spills. South Africa made a huge and successful effort to clean and rehabilitate penguins after an offshore oil spill. Excessive warming of the planet is a less visible killer. Some species are abandoning their traditional migration routes. Alternatively they depart later and return earlier thus damaging their nesting instincts and our reliance on nature's pollinators to seed the earth.

Wetlands, forests and other areas of wilderness habitat are rapidly diminishing. For example the Gran Chaco of Brazil is being transformed into farmland, displacing both wildlife and its indigenous peoples. Natural environmental change is slow and allows nature and animals in the wild to adapt. Turning wilderness areas into farmland leaves no time for adaptation and the animals become homeless and threatened.