Transcript Day 3 (Ch.17-23) - Protection & Recovery

Chapter 17
Preserving
Earth’s Biological
Diversity
Delisted - On August 8, 2007
Biological Diversity
Species Richness
Genetic Diversity
Ecosystem Diversity
Extinction Types
• Local Extinction
• Ecological Extinction - functionally extinct
• Biological Extinction - extinct
• Commercial Extinction
Some Stats About Species
• 1.4-1.8 catalogued organisms
• 5-100 million thought to exist - we don’t
know!
• 99.9% of all that existed are now extinct
Extinction-Level Events (ELE),
• 5 recognized mass extinctions
• Most famous being the dinosaurs
Endangered and Extinct
Species
• Background Extinction vs. Mass
Extinction
Continuous, slow
rate of extinction
over millions of
years 1 every 200
years
Numerous
species disappear
over geologically
short time frame.
Endangered Species
• Endangered Species Act
IUCN - The Red List
International Union for Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources
Red List Categories
Why Biological Diversity
Ecosystem Services and Species Richness
Nests
eventually
become small
islands of trees
Gator trails clear
out aquatic
vegetation
Maintains
smaller fish
populations by
eating gar
Digs underwater
holes used by
other aquatic
organisms
Endangered and Extinct Species
• Earth’s Biodiversity Hotspots
Small area - rich in diversity
• Most wide reaching act passed by the U.S.
• National Marine Fisheries Services monitors ocean species.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services monitors all other wildlife
species.
• Act forbids federal agencies to carry out, fund or authorize
projects that would endanger species or their habitat.
• Forbids Americans to purchase endangered species
• There are 1,260 species currently on the list.
Efforts to Weaken the ESA
• Make protection of endangered species
on private land voluntary.
• Have governments compensate
landowners for their land.
• Make it harder to list newly endangered
species.
Efforts to Strengthen the ESA
• Find out what species and ecosystem the country
has.
• Locate and protect the most endangered ecosystems
and species within such systems.
• Put more emphasis on preventing species from
becoming threatened and ecosystems from
becoming degraded.
• Provide private landowners who agree to help protect
endangered ecosystems with significant financial
incentives.
Delisted
Species
CITES
CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted
in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN (The World
Conservation Union).
172 countries signed
CITES works by subjecting international trade in
specimens of selected species to a permit process.
Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES)
1973
Roughly 5,000
species of animals
and 28,000 species
of plants are
protected by CITES
against overexploitation
through
international trade.
Conservation Biology
• Scientific study of how humans impact
organisms and development of strategies to
protect diversity
• Wildlife management differs from
conservation biology in that wildlife
managers focus on game species
Conservation Biology
• Protecting Habitats
Wildlife Management
Example of artic snow geese impact
Benefits & Problems with
Zoos
•
human domination over equal creatures
•
Some criticize their educational value as being
superficial and useless.
•
Point to the often unnatural and controversial
conditions of keeping animals in captivity
•
behavioral patterns such as pacing, rocking and
swaying indicate suffering of animals in
unsuitable enclosures.
Arabian
Oryx
Between October 1996 and March 1999, the numbers of
Arabian Oryx in the wild in Oman fell from 400 to 100. In
3 years, poachers have removed or killed at least 200
oryx. The situation has become so precarious that 39
wild oryx have been moved to enclosures to protect
them from poaching.
Kiawa Island – Gopher Tortoise