What Are The Causes Of Extinction Essay

National Geographic states “by such things as climate change, an intense ice age, volcanoes, and that space rock that smashed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, obliterating the dinosaurs and a bunch of other species. These events are known as the Big Five mass extinctions, and all signs suggest we are now on the precipice of a sixth.” Which means we are seeing signs of the next big mass extinction in the future. My position of this is that I am for the thought of the animals increasing over

It was the worst man made ecological disaster in history. The problem this film presented was man’s ability to cause disaster and rather than being part of the solution, they are part of the problem. This is a problem. Nature has evolved over millions of years to become this perfect ecosystem and it takes man only a few years to destroy millions of years of work. When it came to the Great Plains this was the case.

Despite that, an increasing number of people worldwide are against commercial whaling. This is due to the issues associated to commercial whaling such as the inhumane killing methods, the non-demand whale products and the disruption of ecosystem (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1). One of the main issues associated to the infamous commercial whaling is the inhumane killing methods. Ideally, humane killing is the causing of death without pain, stress or distress perceptible to the animal, thus, rendering an animal insensitive to pain as swiftly as technically possible is the aim of humane killing (Gillespie, 2005). Unfortunately, methods used in modern commercial whaling does not classify as humane killing.

15 The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert Over the past half a billion years, five mass extinction events have radically changed life on earth. Is mankind rapidly propelling the earth to a “Sixth Extinction”? The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is a compelling story of the forces we have unleashed and the consequences we will reap, if we fail to act quickly. The “Sixth Extinction” has already begun, and this time it is our fault. Kolbert tells the history of past extinction events, providing an understanding of the evolution and ecology that drove them.

With them came smallpox, measles, chicken pox, influenza, and many other diseases. “Before the arrival of Columbus, Native American disease wasn’t dominant in the land. Due to the lack of exposure of disease in their younger years, Native Americans were vulnerable to the European diseases that would come with the Columbian Exchange. The diseases would soon destroy many societies of the ancient Aztec, Maya, and Inca. Through many estimates it is foreseen that alien diseases caused over 50% deaths of the Native American population.

The rate of oil spills has increased rapidly as humans become more reliant on oil as an energy source. In fact, there have been more than 50 mega-spills since 1970. One of the worst effects of oil spills is the immense impact on marine wildlife. Humans should reduce their oil usage because oil spills are harmful to marine mammals, dangerous to whales, destructive to aquatic birds, deadly to fish, and can be as disastrous as the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The effects of oil spills on mammals are catastrophic.

They never feared of loosing their homes but now so many of them already lost their homes due to deforestation. Habitat destruction is a huge problem and if we don 't put a stop to it now we will kill off some of the greatest species. An example of a species that is endangered from deforestation is the tiger and mountain gorilla. No one would have ever though that these two would be endangered of extinction but now it is huge problem. The list of endangered animals in the Amazon forest goes on and on.

Paleocene was a time of dense forests and evolutionary experiments due to the extinction of the dinosaurs and other giant reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous. This paved the way for mammals and birds to evolve to fill those empty niches. The Eocene was the time of global warming, with temperatures across the planet soaring. Forests thrived and trees grew even in polar regions. The Oligocene was the start of the global cooling that would eventually shift the Earth 's climate to one where glaciers were present and ice ages were possible.

It occurs due to rise in global warming which occurs due to increase in temperature of atmosphere by burning of fossils fuels and release of harmful gases by industries. Climate change has various harmful effects but not limited to melting of polar ice, changes in seasons, occurrence of new diseases, frequent occurrence of floods and change in overall weather scenario. • Loss of Biodiversity: Human activity is leading to the extinction of species and habitants and loss of bio-diversity. Eco systems, which took millions of years to perfect, are in danger when any species population is decimating. Balance of natural processes like pollution is crucial to the survival population is decimating.

This act was passed in order to allow the United States Secretary of the interior to be able to create a list of species and their subspecies of animals that were threatened with worldwide extinction. This act also forbids the importation of any species that is on the list of endangered animals, with the exception of importation for scientific, Educational, or zoological reasons. This Act was passed in fact due to many reasons. For example, in 1914, the passenger pigeon once being the most abundant bird in the United States was declared Extinct. Later, in 1944 the whooping crane had reached an all-time population low of only 21 birds, this prompted lawmakers to create an act that would help endangered