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What value do wild species have? What is biodiversity? What human activities are responsible for biodiversity decline? How has man protected wild species?. Wild Species: Biodiversity and Protection. Ecosystem Goods, Services, and Functions = $33 Trillion/year.
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What value do wild species have? What is biodiversity? What human activities are responsible for biodiversity decline? How has man protected wild species? Wild Species: Biodiversity and Protection
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
Reasons for Biodiversity Decline • Habitat alterations • Conversions • Fragmentation • Simplification • Human population growth • Exotic introductions • Pollution • Overuse
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