Big Fishing Industry

CC: The Guardian 

Big Fishing industry leads to environmental changes that we have a hard time imagining, including completely destroying fish populations. With the massive hauls of fish that some of these techniques get, you can destroy an entire ecosystem in a days fishing. We need to find much more sustainable fishing methods that will lead to food for humans, but also healthy fish populations. 

Trawling, and in particular bottom trawling is one of the worst methods of fishing for conservation. Bottom trawling is unselective and severely damaging to seafloor ecosystems. The net indiscriminately catches every life and object it encounters. Thus, many creatures end up mistakenly caught and thrown overboard dead or dying, including endangered fish and even vulnerable deep-sea corals which can live for several hundred years. This collateral damage, called by catch, can amount to 90% of a trawl’s total catch. In addition, the weight and width of a bottom trawl can destroy large areas of seafloor habitats that give marine species food and shelter. Such habitat destruction's can leave the marine ecosystem permanently damaged.

Long lines have been accurately described as a “curtain of death” that catches any living creature unfortunate enough to bite a baited hook. They are indiscriminate – they catch not only the “target” (for example tuna or swordfish), but endangered sharks, leatherback and loggerhead turtles (legally protected), and seabirds, especially albatross. Over 25% of long-line catch is thrown back into the sea, usually dead. Long lining must be banned internationally. It is killing protected species of animals and is putting many other species in danger of extinction. It is the main culprit in the decimation of shark populations by over 90% and must be outlawed immediately if we are not to face the collapse of fish populations and the ocean ecology.

We need to protect our resources, so they can continue to help us for centuries to come instead of for a few more decades if we are lucky. These massive hauls of fish lead populations to plummet and gives no time for population growth. We need fish to survive, our oceans will be empty of life soon if we don't start to change our methods.

Michigan Wolf Debate

Credit: U.S Fish and Wildlife

The Great Lakes Region has been the site of major controversy when it comes to Wolf conservation, and Michigan is no exception. Despite success in their population rebounding to better number, due to hunting and other policies their numbers are still unstable. All it takes it one disease and it could potentially completely destroy the population, so we need to continue to protect them instead of making money of allowing them to be killed.

An "endangered" species is, according to the act, any species "which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range," (excluding certain insects). Inclusion of range extends protection to animals that may be overall reduced in number, even if significant populations exist somewhere.

In the Lower 48 states, gray wolves now occupy about 10 to 15 percent of their historical range. Wolves used to roam almost everywhere but the southern U.S. east of Texas and south of Ohio. Today, in addition to the Great Lakes population, Rocky Mountain wolf packs roam parts of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, and a small group exists in Arizona and New Mexico.

We first need our permanent populations to increase in populations in order for wolves to expand their range and try to reclaim some original territory. This means putting the short term financial benefits behind the long term ecological benefits, which is not the way human beings think unfortunately. It will take a movement to show people why we will all benefit from protecting wolves for the time being, and just making people care about wolves. 

Wildlife Corridors

                                                                            CC: Crystal/Flickr

Wildlife Corridors are a relatively new idea in wildlife conservation, but they could open the door to populations expanding to their natural home ranges. Different populations of species are separated by civilization all over the world, so being able to connect them could allow for increased genetic diversity, more expansive population ranges, and populations moving back to their natural ranges. It could lead the way to established conservation all over the world, which would help preserve the few healthy ecosystems we have left.

Above is a male mountain lion living in the Santa Monica Mountains in California. He is surrounded by civilization, and unable to reach other mountain lions because of it. This means that he is unable to breed, which means his presence in the area is meaningless unless he is able to reproduce and bring in a steady population of mountain lions. The area most likely wouldn't be able to support a larger populations of mountain lions, but putting in a wildlife corridor would make it a much safer place and could add to the habitat of mountain lions. Mountain lions could then at least move in and out of the area to use the resources. 

Wildlife Corridors are put over highways and other major roadways to give wildlife a safer way of accessing areas they couldn't before, and prevent roadkill from occurring. They can be very fancy and complex, or very simple, but the fact that instead of having to cross eight lanes of traffic they can now have a much safer option, is a huge win for conservation. Wildlife Corridors are popping up more and more around the country, but we need to do more to give animals a better shot of being able to distribute. Wildlife Corridors are much more common in the Western United States than in Eastern United States, and it is in the east that these populations are the most scarce, so we need to build more all over the country.

Looking forward the distribution of these species relies on us, and we must make the effort to give them routes to safely pass from territory to territory. If we give these animals a shot, they will find a way, we just cannot make it impossible for them to travel.

Keystone Species

Keystone species play the largest role in their ecosystems, and they not only impact the animals directly around them, but they impact the ecosystem around them as a whole and actually impact the landscape around them. When wolves were returned to Yellowstone, we saw ecosystems return to much healthier levels because that is how they were naturally meant to be; the check and balance system of the predator prey relationship keep the ecosystem much healthier. 

Wolves are a keystone species because of how they impact other species around them and the landscape. Without wolves, the vegetation wasn't being given enough of a chance to grow because elk and other grazing animals would just eat all the vegetation. Entire forests of saplings were being eaten destroying the plant life, and the populations of these herbivores was reaching the point where it was headed toward a collapse. Eventually there would not have been enough resources to support these huge populations and thousands would die off changing the ecosystem completely. Wolves not only kill and eat animals, they also keep the herds on the move so they can't over graze one area. Also areas where the herd would be easily trapped, they avoid, which allows for more full forest growth. The vegetation can help to keep river banks stable and prevent erosion of the river banks. Last but not least, wolves also help other species survive by decreasing certain species of herbivores, and also providing food for other species.

Looking around the world, many keystone species populations are threatened, especially keystone predators. These large animals require the most land to meet their survival needs, and with constant human expansion it leaves them with less and less space for survival. As their numbers decrease, it makes them much more at risk to extinction because of the lack of genetic diversity. If we lose our keystone predators, it will be fully humans responsibility to maintain populations of hundreds of organisms, and we have seen how that goes. There is also the issue of the social stigma that I always talk about that hinders these animals survival, it is because not many humans know the truth about them, just the negative stereotypes. You are much less likely to help an animal if you are scared of it or think it is a man eater, so we need to realize these animals just want to be left alone and given their space.

As human beings we need to realize that we hold the future of the world in our hands, we control the fate of every species in the world, including our own. Soon though we are going to have changed the environment so much that we will not be able to reverse the damage we have caused, and we will meet the same end of many species before us. These species help keep stable and healthy the ecosystems we have already damaged, and we need them to minimize the damage we have already caused.