Major dangers to wildlife

Fewer natural wildlife habitat areas remain each year. Moreover, the habitat that remains has often been degraded to bear little resemblance to the wild areas which existed in the past. Habitat loss due to destruction, fragmentation, and degradation of habitat is the primary threat to the survival of wildlife.

Climate change: Global warming is making hot days hotter, rainfall and flooding heavier, hurricanes stronger and droughts more severe. This intensification of weather and climate extremes will be the most visible impact of global warming in our everyday lives. It is also causing dangerous changes to the landscape of our world, adding stress to wildlife species and their habitat. Since many types of plants and animals have specific habitat requirements, climate change could cause a disastrous loss of wildlife species. A slight drop or rise in average rainfall will translate into large seasonal changes. Hibernating mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects are harmed and disturbed. Plants and wildlife are sensitive to moisture change so, they will be harmed by any change in moisture level. Natural phenomena like floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, lightning and forest fires also affect wildlife.

Unregulated Hunting and poaching: Unregulated hunting and poaching causes a major threat to wildlife. Along with this, mismanagement of forest department and forest guards triggers this problem.

Pollution: Pollutants released into the environment are ingested by a wide variety of organisms. Pesticides and toxic chemical being widely used, making the environment toxic to certain plants, insects, and rodents.

Overexploitation: Overexploitation is the overuse of wildlife and plant species by people for food, clothing, pets, medicine, sport, and many other purposes. People have always depended on wildlife and plants for food, clothing, medicine, shelter and many other needs. More resources are being consumed than the natural world can supply. The danger is that if too many individuals of a species are taken from their natural environment, the species may no longer be able to survive. The loss of one species can affect many other species in an ecosystem. The hunting, trapping, collecting and fishing of wildlife at unsustainable levels is not something new. The passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction, early in the last century, and over-hunting nearly caused the extinction of the American bison and several species of whales.

Deforestation: Humans are continually expanding and developing, leading to an invasion of wildlife habitats. As humans continue to grow, they clear forested land to create more space. This stresses wildlife populations as there are fewer homes and food sources for wildlife to survive.

Population: The increasing population of human beings is a major threat to wildlife. More people on the globe means more consumption of food, water, and fuel, therefore more waste is generated. Major threats to wildlife are directly related to the increasing population of human beings. Low population of humans results in less disturbance to wildlife. The activities like nuclear test, use of phones, loudspeaker etc produced a harmful radiations which decreased the growth rate of animals and plants. These radiations also change the genetic order of DNA. Nowadays governments were making a law to restrict the use of loudspeaker, fire crackers and many harmful substances.

Culling: Culling is the deliberate and selective killing of wildlife by governments as a population control measure. An example of this is shark culling; in which Australian government shark control programs have killed thousands of sharks, as well as turtles, dolphins, whales, and other marine life. There are also examples of population culling in the United States, such as bison in Montana and swans, geese, and deer in New York and other places.