Rasmussen Collage Endangered Species Responses Discussion

In keeping with the environmental concerns this week, discuss your initial reaction to the following statement.

“Eventually, all species become extinct. Thus, it does not really matter that the passenger pigeon is extinct and that the whooping crane and the world’s remaining tiger species are endangered mostly because of human activities.”

Do you agree or disagree with this? Why or why not?

Do you feel the Endangered Species Act should be strengthened or weakened? Explain.

1 PEER

I disagree with this, not only a humanitarian level but also on a utilitarian level. Many species are essential pieces of their local ecosystem, and if they were to go extinct there would be significant impact on their ecosystem. In the worst case scenario, this could result in a “trophic cascade” where the effect travels through the entire food chain.

One example of a trophic cascade is the wolves in Yellowstone National Park. The wolves being hunted into near extinction, causing the elk and deer populations to boom out of control, meaning that their grazing grounds expanded to streamside willows and aspens, leaving stream banks more vulnerable to erosion while also reducing the local bird population. This decrease in the local bird population then caused an increase in mosquito and insect populations. (Cho.)

I believe the Endangered Species Act should be strengthened, because by the time a species qualifies for protection it’s often so late that it’s very difficult to actually protect the species.

References:

Cho, R. (March 26, 2019). Why Endangered Species Matter. https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/03/26/endangere…

PEER 2 AG

yes, I agree with this statement because if everything is gonna end then whats the point in defending and protecting the endangered species. Although, protecting endangered species may delay the time everything is going to be gone due to the fact that we are not messing with the food chain and we let nature take its course. The endangered species act should be strengthened because if this statement is true and we want to protect our species then we need to increase regulations to prevent poachers and hunters to continue to take our environment.