Threats To Wildlife Essay

Threats to Wildlife

Today, scientists estimate that species are going extinct at a rate estimated at between 1,000 and 10,000 times what is natural, which translates, at the most modest of approximations, to between 200 and 2,000 species extinctions every year, and, at the more extreme end, to between 10,000 and 100,000 per year. Thus, it has become blatantly clear that human action and development have become, overwhelmingly, the largest threat to wildlife on the planet. The threat that we pose, however, can take many different forms: from the development of oil and gas, to overfishing and general pollution, almost every way we exploit our world has consequences for the beings that share it with us. With this in mind, we have drawn up the Top 5 ways we pose a threat to our planet-mates.

#5 Infrastructure

We use fresh water for everything, from bathing, to irrigation, to, of course, drinking, but only about 33% of that 3% is actually available for our use, as the rest is either stored in glaciers, or otherwise unavailable. As a result, as our population grows, so does the rate at which we manipulate this relatively small portion of the planet’s resource, which leaves very little for the other species that live here. This includes all land-based species, which many people seem to forget includes the plants that we also rely on. The situation is already so dire that 1.1 billion people across the world lack adequate access to fresh water supplies—and that’s us humans, the species that controls it—and the state of affairs is only getting worse. The WWF estimates that by the year 2025, a mere decade away, around 66% of the world’s human population will face water shortages, to say nothing of the other species whose very existence depends on