Sign up with Biogems, Union of Concerned Scientists, or Red Jellyfish. Just Google those things and on their websites they list ways you can help, including a lot of signing online petitions and stuff.
The biggest threats to extinction and the loss of biodiversity are habitat loss/fragmentation, climate change, pollution, introduciton of invasive species, etc. These are in turn caused by two main things, an increasing human population and an increasing per capita use. So we can either stop having children(not likely) or reduce how much we consume. (Energy, goods, etc.)
I think "Nothing" is the best answer. The least arrogant, anyway. Maybe if we focused on our own species, instead of trying to control every single other species, we'd be better off...and all other life forms would be too. They don't need our protection; they need our absence.
The reason they are becoming extinct is because we focus on our own species too much without a care for anything else.
I like your response Duncelor. It's kind of like my dad always wondered; why are these brilliant sciensts working on finding life on other planets or if black holes exist when our planet needs the most help. Actually I think he's exactly your age.
It's so hard for the handful of people that want to help these species when the rest of the world continues to live life in their self-absorbed, kill everything for their own gain type of mindset.
let private breeders and the general public own them. creating a demand for them in the pet industry. that way the animal is worth something. atleast in our country if something has no monatary value it is cared for. with captive breeding programs atleast the species wont be lost. look at gators in florida. the goverment protected them and now they are over populated and starting to eat people all the time. i grew up in south florida and always wondered why they were ever protected. every canal lake pond creek and river had them . orange grove pond were loaded with them. with all the fruit trees racoons and other small animals were abundunt and gave the gators plenty of food. the alligator farms had hundreds of them breeding and producing babies for the meat industry. which gave them a value to the owner. since they were worth money they were cared for.
I have heard that an effective way to "protect" a species, is to eat it. People care about what they can harvest, and work to make sure they can continue to harvest. Plus, people hunting animals, is said to eliminate the weak from the herds, supposedly making the herd stronger. I hear of enviro wackos doing such zany stunts as releasing mink from mink farms, to which they run crazy, get run over by cars, or get eaten by other wildlife, and end up dead or far worse than they ever were in human captivity. And then consider the animals that humans love to eat. Cows and chickens. Are they "endangered?" No, not at all. There's no "shortage" of them at all, because farmers actually are smart, and work to insure the future needs of people are met, because in so doing, tends to be profitable. And with some 6.5 billion humans, and rising, in the world, I would think that catering to the many needs and wants of largely humans, would be the most logical and humane approach. Including better respecting our powerful drive and need, to reproduce.
This always gets me in trouble and even though I am half kidding there is still absolute truth in what I say. THE most invasive species in North America is the Norther European people that came here and displaced the native population, brought with them both rampant diseases that wiped out between 75-80 percent of the native inhabitants PLUS a host of other invasive plant and animal species that often times crowded out additional native species and then proceded to disrupt the entire ecosystem of North america for the next 500 years. Then and only then did they begin to worry about "invasive species." Seems a bit hypocrytical on the face of it. The great extention event that that we are in now (that perhaps will rival or surpass the Creatacious extention 65 million years ago) started nearly 500 years ago in North America due solely to the advent of the white man on this continent. Those who would dispute me need only to pick up a history book. Entire tribes, civilizations and groups of people in the Caribeans and the eastern seaboard of North America are EXTINCT and that does not count the animal species that are gone as I am refering to human species. Much of the species lost in the South Pacific ecosystems are the direct result of the white explorers that brought rats, pigs and disease with them. I am not belittling the efforts to control present day invasive species but the simple fact is that ALL of the modern invasive species are being introduced by the efforts of modern man just as in the past. It is impossible to control this problem until the source of the problem is identified and corrected...and that goes back to man. In the long history of the world the spread of western culture might be finally countd as the worst event in human history. Scos de Yo naga.
the question should be - what should we do to get rid of exotic species? Invasive plants (to america) such as japanese barberry, garlic mustard, japaneese stiltgrass, and others, are a huge threat to biodiversity because no native animals eat them. They grow everywhere and and leave no room for native plants to grow. There are animals who are invasive species who are also bad for ecosytems in which they inhabit. whether or not Invasive (or exotic) species need protection is not even a question being asked in the scientific community. It is a fact that they are harmful and must be removed.
agreed. I visited Glacier, Rocky Mountain, and Roosevelt National Park last summer and they were trying to get rid of a whole variety of exotics. At each park they handed you a newspaper of recent events in the park, and there was always a page about the exotics. They asked people to help identify where they were at in the park so that they could be removed properly. They had walking walking the roadsides spraying them.
