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

• Biological control

• Food production

• Recreation

• Raw materials

• Nutrient cycling

• Waste treatment

Table 3-3; Ch 12.1

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 exchange-generating 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

• Human population growth

• Exotic introductions

• Pollution

• Overuse

Habitat Alterations

Human Population Growth

Pollution

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill March 24, 1989. 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Oil slick

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

• 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