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Biology Investigatory Project: Topic
Biology Investigatory Project: Topic
PROJECT
Topic -Human involvement and
effect on wildlife
By – Shubham . D . Ghosh
Class XII th B
certificate
This is hereby to certify that the original and
genuine investigation work has been carried out to
investigate about the subject
matter and the related data collection and
investigation has been completed solely, sincerely
and satisfactorily by SHUBHAM GHOSH of CLASS
XII – B , Kendriya Vidyalaya Bhandup , regarding
his project titled
“ Human involvement and effect on wildlife”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It would be my utmost pleasure to express my sincere
thanks to my Biology teacher Mrs. Gulnaz kaur in providing
a helping hand in this project. His valuable guidance,
support and supervision all through this project are responsible
for attaining its present form. I would also like to thank
my parents as they encouraged me to put forward my project.
The Human Touch
Humans are now responsible for causing changes in the
environment that hurt animals and plant species. We take
up more space on Earth for our homes and cities. We
pollute habitats. We illegally hunt and kill animals. We bring
exotic species into habitats. All of these activities take
resources and habitats away from plants and animals.
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WATER
Larger floods are expected to increase erosion levels, reducing
water quality and degrading aquatic habitat.
Severe droughts stress and can kill plants on which wildlife
depend for food and shelter, and deprives wildlife of water
sources.
FOOD
Climate change has altered food availability for migratory
species; birds arrive on schedule to find their food sources--
insects, seeds, flowering plants--have hatched or bloomed too
early or not at all.
Milder winters cause seasonal food caches to spoil, so wildlife
species like the Gray Jay depending on food stores to survive the
winter are left without sustenance.
PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG
Droughts caused by global warming could dry up 90 percent
of central U.S. wetlands, eliminating essential breeding
habitat for ducks, geese and other migratory species.
Rising sea level and changes in salinity could decimate
mangrove forests, leaving many fish, shellfish, and other
wildlife without a place to breed, feed or raise offspring.
Habitat changes reduce biotic integrity (i.e., ecosystem health),
deplete native species, and greatly simplify the system and its
habitats (e.g., crop agriculture).
The process of habitat destruction is incremental. Each piece of
habitat may not seem important individually, but there are
cumulative effects. The process is more insidious than direct
overexploitation. No one holds a “smoking gun.” The native
species simply vanish.
The effects of these changes can be predicted mathematically.
Roughly, when 90% of the habitat is eliminated, 50% of the
species will be lost.
Selection of the lost species, however, is not random.
The larger, wide-ranging species, such as large carnivores, suffer
first. Because those groups often contribute to healthy ecosystem
processes, a wave of secondary losses may follow their decline
…
Animals that conflict with humans are also the victims of
concerted eradication efforts.
Species with a narrow geographic range, or species that
were never common, are vulnerable as well.
Species that are not effective dispersers are limited when
their habitat is disrupted.
Species with narrow niche requirements may see that niche
disappear quickly.
And species that live in colonies, or social groups, are often
affected when numbers decline.
When habitat is fragmented, some species die as a direct
result of lost resources.
Other species survive in reduced numbers in the habitat
fragments, but their vulnerability to extinction increases.
Populations existing in fragments become susceptible to
genetic disorders, demographic problems,
environmental variability, and catastrophic events.
Fragmented populations are especially vulnerable to
deterministic events, such as susceptibility to poaching, as
border areas become population sinks, where population
death rates exceed birth rates.
National and International Wildlife
Trade
Poaching and (legal and illegal) wildlife trade are another
common threat to animals.
But the introduction of ban and / or restrictions on
international trade in many endangered species (CITES)
several decades ago became an effective measure in halting
this problem.
International wildlife trade has also been closely linked to
drugs trade.
In one of the most outrageous cases of simultaneous drug and
wildlife smuggling which occurred at Miami Airport in 1993,
312 boa constrictors that arrived from Colombia were found
carrying inside them 39 kilos of cocaine. All of the snakes
eventually died.
The types of trades are as follows -
Pet Trade :
One of the most shocking examples of pet trade in endangered species took
place in Taiwan at the end of the 1980s.
As a result of a TV show featuring an orangutan, the demand for this
endangered animal in Taiwan surged, and the country saw as many as a 1,000
young orangutans entering it illegally and being sold via newspaper adverts.
The real toll was, of course, much bigger as the capture of young animals
involves killing its mother, and then many of them would have died in transit.
Many people who see exotic animals being kept as pets don't think about the
origins of that animal. Some people assume a pet store bred them, a breeder
bred them, or a supplier who breeds them sent them to a pet store or the
person who ordered the animal online. People assume animals come from clean
and well fed households, from people who care about the animals they are
breeding. But they don't often think about the other side of the pet world - the
illegal exotic pet trade world.
People buy and catch animals to keep as pets. Many of the people
who have animals as pets do not know how to care for them. Pets,
particularly ones like reptiles, amphibians, and fish, need special
equipment, heat, lights, and food in order for them to be healthy and
live. Between 50-90 percent of these types of animals sold each year
dies because they were not cared for properly.
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Indirect effects
The CZA was reconstituted for the sixth time in September 2007
with Minister of State, Environment and Forests as its chairman.
There is a total 15 member contingents in CZA for discharge of its
mandated functions.