14 DAY TRIAL // Human activity has triggered the fastest extinction rate in Earth's history. In the last 30 years, 33% of the natural places have disappeared: over 10% of the forests, 30% of the ecosystems and 50% of the freshwater ecosystems, due to increased agriculture and industry contamination as well as increased water consume. In the last 500 years, 844 vertebrate species disappeared because of the human activity.
The Dodo bird has turned into a symbol of the disappeared species. The last one of these flightless birds died in Mauritius, in 1680. Most of the endangered species live on islands. 85 of the 94 species of birds known to have disappeared in the last 400 years lived on islands. But mainland animals go through the same danger. Of the Siberian tigers only 180-200 individuals survive in the wild, while the southern Chinese tiger has been declared extinct last year.
Amongst the sea creatures, the sea turtles are extremely menaced. In the last 35 years, over 95 amphibian species were gone. About 11 % of the bird species are threatened with extinction. Over a quarter of the 400 butterfly species of Europe are menaced, 19 to extreme situations.
Over 70 % of the fishing places are so exploited that breeding does not compensate exploitation. This is the case of the Northern Atlantic where the cod, hake, haddock and flounder populations reduced by 95 % between 1989 and 1994. Annually, 20-40 million tonnes of sea creatures are returned to the sea, wounded or dead. These are accidental captures collected by the nets.
Today, there are worldwide about 8,000 zones protecting fauna, plus 40,000 sites protecting the habitat. Together they make 10 % of the Earth's surface.
Indeed, habitat loss is the greatest menace for a species, and the most difficult to impede. Human demographic boom pushes people in places that once belonged to wildlife. So are the tropical forests, which many say they will no longer be in 30 years. This is bad, as many resources would be lost. One quarter of the drugs employed by the western world come from the tropical forest. Tropical forests make 7 % of the land surface, and 80 % of the plant biodiversity. In India, deforestation has led to a drier clime in some zones, and flooding in others. Annually 1 % of the tropical forests are gone, and with them many species of plants, birds, reptiles and insects, many before getting a scientific name.
In Africa, cattle raisers overexploit rural areas. Many large animals, like elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, lions, crocodiles, large antelopes, wild pigs and primates cannot adapt to the forms of rural development.
It is expected that to the end of this century human population will grow by 5 billion, and this growth will occur mostly in the developing countries, the last salvation for planet's fauna.
Swamps are menaced as well, being dried for making homes or agriculture. In the last 100 years, 90 % of Europe's pastures have turned into croplands. In UK, this meant a drop by 64 % of the number of thrushes. In Madagascar, the growing population and poverty force the turn of forests into paddies, and because of this many lemurs lose habitat.
The colonization of Hawaii 1,600 years ago and subsequent agriculture eliminated 35 species of birds. Cats brought by Europeans in Australia and New Zealand turned feral, and together with the red foxes, they attack 64 species of endangered Australian marsupials and New Zealand endemic birds.
When fishermen introduced the Nile perch in Lake Victoria, for increasing productivity, the result was that these predatory fish eliminated 200 of the 300 fish species of the lake. In Botswana, wildebeests transmit aphthous fever to the domestic cattle, that's why a 1,300 km (800 mi) barrier was built to impede wildebeests to come in contact with domestic cattle. This hinders their migration and the wildebeests are plummeted from 250,000 to 30,000, as the antelopes die of thirst. The number of zebras in the same area dropped from 45,000 to 7,000.
Hunting is another factor of species disappearance. Along the centuries, hunters eliminated lions from Greece and Mesopotamia, hippopotamuses from Nubia, bears, beavers, wolves, lynxes and wild boars from UK and aurouchs from eastern Europe.
In 1824, the first white colonized the future Natal province of South Africa. The fauna was so rich that in one year through the Durban port 62,000 wildebeest and zebra skins were exported, beside 19 tonnes of ivory. By 1878, when the white population had reached the number of 30,000, very few game had remained. The quagga zebra was extinct, besides other two large antelope species.
In 1950, for the introduction of cattle raising in Huila province (Angola, by then Portuguese colony), athe famous Diploma Legilsativo no 2242 allowed free hunt in that region. The following massacre meant 1,000 rhinos, thousands of giraffes, and tens of thousands of wildebeests, zebras and buffaloes. No animal was left in two and a half years.
In the surroundings area of Kruger National Park, the population density of the bantustans is of 70-100 inhabitants per square km, living in deep poverty. No wonder poaching is not discarded by these people. In fact, these rural people are so good of tracking animals, that they make the best rangers. With the African rural exodus, their knowledge is lost. In Africa, diseases, severe droughts, civil wars, and neglect of the rural areas are factors that boost poaching. Annually, the poachers kill 20,000-30,000 animals only in the Serengeti National Park.
This is the impact of poaching from 1979 and 1990 in the Marromeu Delta, Mozambique: from 55,000 buffaloes to 3,696; from 2,720 zebras to 1,000; from 1,770 hippopotamuses to 260, and from 45,000 waterbucks (a large antelope) to 4,480. In the natural reserve Fosse aux Lions (Togo, western Africa), the population of forest elephants plummeted due to poaching in less than one year from 130 in March 1991 to 25 in 1992.
During the Cold War, many African civil wars were fueled by the Soviet Union and Western Powers, and both sides introduced on the continent large amounts of sophisticated weapons, ans many of them were pointed towards wild animals for feeding hungry troops and getting more funds for weapons from trading with ivory, rhino horns and other animal products. This way, the African wild ass has been pushed to extinction in Somalia. And all this did not end with the Cold War; the weapons are still there.
Wars and the increased numbers of fireguns at hand of the people, high number of refugees accompanied by rapid growth of the natality, aggravated contamination and tourism also menace many species. Motorboats hurt many dolphins and manatees, while the noise produced by boats underwater interferes with the delicate sonar of the dolphins.
The more valued a species is, the more costly are individuals or their organs, and this is how species enter into a vortex of extinction. The increasing prices motivate poachers to higher risks. The price of a Siberian tiger boomed from $ 9,000 to $ 24,000 in 10 years, not only for the skin, but also for the bones, eyes, whiskers, teeth, inner organs and sexual organs, priced in the traditional Oriental medicine.
The trade with elephant ivory, rhino horns, tiger products and others is a business evaluated to billions of dollars, the second illegal business after drug trafficking. In 1994, the traditional Chinese medicine destroyed the astonishing number of 20 million sea horses, fact that led to a drop by 60 % of their population in southeastern Asia. The golden parakeet (Guaruba guarouba) costs $ 500 on the Brazilian black market. Outside it is sold by $ 2,000.
The CITES convention is a powerful weapon impeding the illegal trafficking of endangered species and their products (skins, ivory, shells, bones, horns, wood). Many Zoos have special breeding programs aimed for saving endangered species. This how the St Lucia parrot (Amazona versicolor) was saved by Jersey Zoo (UK). The number of red wolves in US grew from 17 to over 60, due to such programs. Still, many of the captive animals cannot be released in the wild. Such predators could not be able to hunt.
In some south African countries, the stated ceded the exclusive control right over the fauna. Rural communities in 10 of the 31 fauna surveillance zones in Zambia received rights over the fauna: this reduced significantly the poaching and fauna is recovering. The implication of local people helped the survival of black rhino and desert elephant in Kaokoland, Namibia, in other African successes like Kankwane, South Africa.