Extinction

When you think about extinction, what do you think of? Dinosaurs, perhaps, or the Saber Tooth Tiger. These animals are all extinct. Extinction happens when an entire species, any common organism that shares the same traits to breed together, dies out. There are millions of different species living on Earth today! Many may think that’s not a big deal, but all the species are really important. You might not believe it, but over 99% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now gone; that’s over 1 billion species. Extinction can happen in many different ways and sizes. Mass extinction is when a large percentage of all the species on Earth become extinct in a short amount of time. Scientists believe that mass extinctions happen because of environmental or climate change. For example, the loss of most dinosaurs was actually part of mass extinction. It was likely the result of an environmental disaster caused partially by a meteor hitting the earth 65 million years ago (“Extinction”). Then, around half of all species died off after the dinosaurs went extinct.

Species can also be extinct by normal evolutionary pressure. Evolution is the process by which species change over generations. It’s called “the theory of evolution,” and according to the theory of evolution, all living things are constantly competing for resources, so when a species loses its resources, they eventually die or become extinct.

For most of Earth’s history, somewhere between ten to a hundred species die out every year; however, species have been going extinct for about 1 billion years. Some biologists say that as many as 11 species on Earth go extinct every hour. If you thought extinction was not a big deal, you should change your mind because humans have done many things that caused the death of animal species.

A few examples of human activity that have caused extinction to include industry, farming, cutting down trees, and commercial fishing. These things all result in a lot of pressure on the environment, especially since when a species dies out, it can affect the whole ecosystem (“Extinction”).

It is important to remember that all living things share this planet. Humans depend on other life forms like food, clothing, medicine, and shelter. If we put too much pressure on the environment, we might drive the organism we depend on to be extinct (“Extinction”).

Even though the issue of extinction sounds unfortunate, it is not too late to do something about it! Scientists who study conservation and wildlife protection are working to stop invaders, and there have already been successes. For instance, work has been done on the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. One of the Alaskan Aleutian islands is called “Rat Island” because it was full of invasive rats. Scientists came to that island during the late 1700s, and for over 200 years, rats have been devouring eggs and hatchlings from birds on the island. In hopes of solving this problem, conservation biologists have put bright blue poison kibble, a solid, around the island to poison the rats. By 2010, the island was rat-free. You might experience this in your everyday life. In fact, from my experience, when I go to my backyard after it rains, I always see African Land snails; they are invasive, so I put a special chemical to prevent the snails from coming.

As aforementioned, extinction is a major problem, and it is an even more dire situation than a few years ago. Thus, it is important for us to understand our contribution to the environmental problem as well as try our best to prevent it.

References

“Extinction.” BrainPop, 18 Aug. 2022. www.brainpop.com/science/ourfragileenvironment/extinction/. Accessed 22 Sep. 2022.