Download Biodiversity

Wild Species:
Biodiversity and Protection
What value do wild species have?
What is biodiversity?
What human activities are responsible for
biodiversity decline?
How has man protected wild species?
Ecosystem Goods, Services, and
Functions = $33 Trillion/year
• Gas, climate, and
water regulation
• Water supply
• Erosion control
• Soil formation
• Pollination
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Table 3-3; Ch 12.1
Biological control
Food production
Recreation
Raw materials
Nutrient cycling
Waste treatment
The Value of Wild Species
• Instrumental
– Sources for agriculture,
forestry, aquaculture
and animal husbandry
– Recreational, aesthetic
and scientific value
– Sources of medicine
• Intrinsic
– Value for its own sake
– Philosophical / morality
Red Panda, estimated 2,500 remain
Which is Wild or Cultivated?
• Highly adaptable to changing
environments
• Have numerous traits for resistance
• Lack genetic vigor
• High degree of genetic diversity
• Represents the genetic bank
• Need highly controlled environmental
conditions
Recreational, Aesthetic, and
Scientific Value
• Ecotourism: largest foreign exchangegenerating enterprise in many developing
countries
• $104 billion spent on wildlife-related
recreation
• $31 billion spent to observe, feed, or
photograph wildlife
Sources of Medicine:
Table 11-1
• Vincristine from rosey periwinkle cures
leukemia.
• Capoten from the venom of the Brazilian viper
controls high blood pressure.
• Taxol from the bark of the pacific yew used to
treat ovarian, breast and small-cell cancers.
What is Biodiversity?
• The diversity of life in nature.
– 1.75 million spp. described
– 112 million spp. estimated
• Scales of biodiversity:
– Ecosystems (habitat and niches)
– Species (richness)
– Genetic (different traits)
Saving Wild Species
http://www.fws.gov
Causes of Animal Extinctions
Reasons for Biodiversity Decline
• Habitat alterations
– Conversions
– Fragmentation
– Simplification
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Human population growth
Exotic introductions
Pollution
Overuse
Habitat Alterations
Human Population Growth
Pollution
Oil slick
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill March 24, 1989.
11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Exotic Species
Brown tree snake
Overuse
• Harvest of 50 million song birds for
food
• Trafficking in wildlife and products
derived from wild species - $10
billion/year
– 90% decline in rhinos
– 1.6 tons of tiger bones = 340 tigers
– Parrot smuggling: 40 of 330 species face
extinction
Consequences of Losing
Biodiversity: The Plane Analogy
• The whole plane is an
ecosystem.
• There are many different
parts (species) in the jet
plane ecosystem.
• How does removal of
one or more species
affect ecosystem
structure or function?
Past Wildlife Management Issues
• Restoring the numbers of many game
animals, e.g., deer, elk, turkey.
• Passing laws to control the collection and
commercial exploitation of wildlife.
• Poaching and over-hunting.
Endangered Species Act (1973)
• Creates an official recognition of species
as endangered or threatened.
• Controls over commercial exploitation of
endangered species.
• Government controls on development in
critical habitats even on private lands.
• Critical habitat protection lends itself to
successful species recovery programs.
• Habitat conservation plan (HCP) of 1982
creates a compromise for land use.
Contemporary Wildlife
Management Problems
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Road-killed animals
Population explosion of urban wildlife
Lack of natural predators
Wildlife as vectors for certain diseases
Pet predation by coyotes
Changed societal attitudes towards animals
International Steps to Protect
Biodiversity
• Convention on trade in endangered
species (CITES)
– Focuses on trade in wildlife and wildlife parts
– Treaty includes 30,000 species globally
• Convention on biological diversity
– Focuses on conserving biological diversity worldwide
– Does not yet have the support of the United States