Animal species continue to suffer from habitat loss and climate change
Posted April 18, 2022
By Kiki Fonseca and Hugo Roman Rizo
Cub Investigative Reporters
The list of extinct and endangered animals is growing, and a one big factor is the depletion of their habitat and climate change, including cutting down forests for products like paper, which kills and puts more species on the endangered list than most people think.
A victim of its habitat being destroyed is none other than the Splendid Poison dart frog. The Splendid Poison dart frog was native to Panama, Costa Rica. The Splendid dart frog was the most colorful frog in the world and also had a really loud beeping sound for a crock. Only being an inch and a half big and weighing about one oz the loud colors of its skin worned preditories of its poison. Its diet mostly consisted of small insects like ants, young crickets, small beetles, and termites. Its habitat was put in jeopardy due to destruction of its forests and the suburbanization of the area around it, now extinct since 2020.
Sadly, when numbers drop for the predator they become more endangered. It alters the entire ecosystem of its surrounding species, sharing its space and living habitat.
With leaving its eycosytem unbalanced it can potentially affect our ecosystem as a species. With an unbalanced ecosystem it can be pretty bad for everything else relying on it to be balanced. Like electricity, the modern world relies on it to be working for many privileges, like light in rooms and keeping food cold in refrigerators.
Scientists study the instincts of animals in nature to better understand the natural behaviors as a species.
“Animal research can benefit both humans and animals. In humans, this work has helped doctors create treatments we use in our daily lives, like cold or pain medication.” states Arizona State University's Ask A Blog.
The study of all different types of species and living animals has also led to medical progress. Scientists also wouldn’t have been able to help animals with common shots and vaccines that protect them. If more and more species of animals go extinct the ability to study them will be lost, which could put the medical world behind and could hurt humans as a species. Not only is it critical to study animals to fill in the knowledge gaps when learning about good health and disease in animals and humans, but also, they have helped humans test new strategies of medical procedures, and have helped humans have many breakthroughs with medications that we commonly use today. For instance, in 1950, medical researchers and scientists studied sheep to help develop prosthetic hips.
A big implication is that animal species and their habitats cannot change fast enough to keep up with climate change and deforestation, and as time goes by there would be the likely chance that favorite animals will be headed towards near extinction. For example the Jaguar, mostly known for being one of the biggest cats in the world, is a victim of having their own habitat torn away and it is now being considered a near threatened species by the international union for the conservation of nature. Taking a look at a place in Mexico, Belize being the only nation to preserve these creatures.