Wildlife conservation
Key examples of human-induced habitat loss include deforestation, agricultural expansion, and urbanization.
[5] The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant shift in human behavior, resulting in mandatory and voluntary limitations on movement.
Deforestation is often done for several reasons, often for either agricultural purposes or for logging, which is the obtainment of timber and wood for use in construction or fuel.
[4] Poaching for illegal wildlife trading is a major threat to certain species, particularly endangered ones whose status makes them economically valuable.
[13] Such species include many large mammals like African elephants, tigers, and rhinoceros (traded for their tusks, skins, and horns respectively).
[13][14] Less well-known targets of poaching include the harvest of protected plants and animals for souvenirs, food, skins, pets, and more.
[15] Poaching causes already small populations to decline even further as hunters tend to target threatened and endangered species because of their rarity and large profits.
[20][17] 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.
[26] Phenomena like droughts, wildfires, heatwaves, intense storms, ocean acidification, and rising sea levels, directly lead to habitat destruction.
Increased severity and longevity of wildfires can completely wipe out entire ecosystems, causing them to take decades to fully recover.
[27] Meanwhile, a warming climate, fluctuating precipitation, and changing weather patterns will impact species ranges.
These accounts show a cute and fun side of owning exotic pets, therefore indirectly encouraging illegal wildlife trade.
They, along with other big social media companies work to protect species from illegal, harmful trade online.
[34][35] Research has shown that machine learning can filter through social media posts to identify indications of illegal wildlife trade.
This filtration system is able to search for keywords, pictures, and phrases that indicate illegal wildlife trade, and report it.
[38][39] Conservation of a select species are often prioritized on several factors which include significant economic and ecological value, as well as desirability or attractiveness.
The leatherback sea turtle faces numerous threats including being caught as bycatch, harvest of its eggs, loss of nesting habitats, and marine pollution.
[49] Habitat conservation is usually carried out by setting aside protected areas like national parks or nature reserves.
High genetic diversity increases survival because it means greater capacity to adapt to future environmental changes.
[52] For large, terrestrial vertebrates, a popular method is to use camera traps for population estimation along with mark-recapture techniques.
When designing a wildlife monitoring strategy, it is important to minimize harm to the animal and implement the 3Rs principles (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement).
[59][60] Distributing vaccinations to wildlife who are particularly vulnerable is useful in conservation to prevent or decelerate extreme population declination in a species from disease and also decrease the risk of a zoonotic spillover to humans.
In most cases, these risks escalate in conjunction to other anthropogenic stressors, such as climate change or habitat loss, that ultimately lead a population to extinction without human intervention.
[61] Methods of vaccination varies depending on both the extent and efficiency of limiting the transmission of disease, and can be applied orally, topically, intranasally (IN), or injected either subcutaneously (SC) or intramuscularly (IM).
[65] These wolves are primarily exposed to the rabies virus by domestic dogs and are facing extreme population declines, especially in the southern Ethiopia region of the Bale Mountains.
The wolves consume the bait and with it ingest the vaccine, developing an immunity to rabies as antibodies are produced at significant levels.
[69][70] A substantial amount of funding comes from the sale of hunting/fishing licenses, game tags, stamps, and excise taxes from the purchase of hunting equipment and ammunition.
[74] Seeing this rise in support for NGOs, the U.S. Congress made amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1979 and 1986 “earmarking U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds for [biodiversity]”.
[74] From 1990 till now, environmental conservation NGOs have become increasingly more focused on the political and economic impact of USAID funds dispersed for preserving the environment and its natural resources.
[75] After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the start of former President Bush's War on Terror, maintaining and improving the quality of the environment and its natural resources became a “priority” to “prevent international tensions” according to the Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2002[75] and section 117 of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.
