Threats Towards Tigers and Taigas

There are only 400 Siberian tigers left in the wild. On the website, russia.wcs.org it says “The main threats to the survival of the Amur tiger are poaching, habitat loss, and illegal hunting of ungulates, which are tigers' main prey. Because they increase access for poachers, roads are another important threat to the Siberian tiger. The main threats to the survival of the Amur tiger are poaching habitat loss, and illegal hunting of ungulates, which are tigers' main prey. Because they increase access for poachers, roads are another important threat to the Siberian tiger.” On the website, ifaw.org it says, “As apex predators, tigers play an important role in maintaining a balanced food web in their ecosystems. In the absence of their natural predators, prey species populations can explode, leading to overconsumption of vegetation, damaging habitats or prey species expanding into human settlements.” This makes me feel bad for the Siberian tigers, who are getting closer to extinction, while we are carelessly destroying their habitat. How would you feel if someone just destroyed your house, and threatened your kind?

Siberian tigers are apex predators, playing a major role in their ecosystem. According to the website worldwildlife.org, “Poaching is the most immediate threat to wild tigers.” They are hunted for their precious fur to trade. On the website crownridgetigers.com it says, “A prized pelt could fetch as much as $20,000. Because of this black market trade, tigers are, unfortunately, often worth more dead than alive, and poor people living in the tiger's native range frequently turn to poaching to supplement their income. As a result, tiger numbers have plummeted.” We need to help tigers live.

The biomes of this world are also being threatened by human activity. Especially marine and cold biomes. Places like the taiga are being threatened by CLIMATE CHANGE. This has been a big problem for ages. Climate change occurs because human activities release carbon into the atmosphere. This carbon melts ice and snow, flooding and melting animal homes. Maybe in the future, we won’t have winters anymore. According to  https://www.un.org/, “Climate change can be a natural process where temperature, rainfall, wind and other elements vary over decades or more. In millions of years, our world has been warmer and colder than it is now. But today we are experiencing unprecedented rapid warming from human activities, primarily due to burning fossil fuels that generate greenhouse gas emissions.” To simplify, climate change is the warming of the world.

Humans cut down trees for wood. According to https://study.com/, “Human activity, such as logging and urbanization, has resulted in a rapid loss of taiga biomes and biodiversity. Furthermore, human-driven climate change has also had severe negative impacts on the climate and vegetation of taiga regions.” Trees provide us with wood, but they also provide us with OXYGEN. Oxygen is a substance found in the air that is important to our bodies. According to https://www.dkfindout.com/, “The air you breathe contains a life-giving gas called oxygen.” Oxygen comes from plants in a process called photosynthesis. 50 to 85 percent of your oxygen comes from plants. (https://www.nationalgeographic.org/) If plants and trees were gone, oxygen would slowly disappear with the society of humans.