Over the last hundred years, hunting and forest destruction have reduced overall tiger populations from hundreds of thousands to perhaps 3,000 to 5,000. Tigers are hunted as trophies and also for body parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine. All five remaining tiger subspecies are endangered, and many protection programs are in place. Poaching is a reduced—but still very significant—threat to Siberian tigers. Tigers live alone and aggressively scent-mark large territories to keep their rivals away.
Human induced fires are a main threat. They set fires to fields in order to improve fertility for livestock grazing, killing ticks and other insects, making scrap metals visible to collect, and stimulating fern growth. According to the World Wildlife Foundation (2014), “indiscriminate logging, forest fires, and land conversion for farming are the main causes”. Leopards are quite solitude creatures, so not having forests to take cover in is taxing on their existence. An area of about 5,000 km^2 is the last viable habitat in Russia for the Amur leopards (World Wildlife Foundation, 2014).
(WWF) We run the risk of losing them forever. And yet, although they are a universal symbol of wildlife diversity, they continue to be hunted for their flesh, hide, tusks and ears. Between 1979 and 1989, worldwide demand for ivory caused elephant populations to decline to dangerously low levels. During this time period, poaching fueled by ivory sales cut Africa's elephant population in half. Since they were big targets and sported the largest tusks, Savannah elephants took the worst hit.
The Bornean orang-utan species has about 40,000 animals left in the wild, a much healthier number then the Sumatran orang-utan but still not ideal. While there are millions of acres of degraded land that could be used for plantations, many oil palm companies choose to use rainforest land to gain additional funds by logging the timber first. They also use uncontrolled burning to clear land, resulting in hundreds of orang-utans being burned to death and those who survive are left with nothing to eat. Approximately the area equivalent to 300 football fields per hour is being destroyed of the rainforests where the orang-utans reside, through the conversion to
The next oldest bear that evolved was from the Subfamily Tremaratinae, the family of the Adean (or Spectacled Bear). The Spectacled Bear diverged about 15 million years ago. They are about 5 feet long and weigh 200-300 pounds. They have a black or blackish brown coat, there muzzle throat and chest cream colored, with golden rings around there eyes. They are scarce because of over hunting and people destroying their habitat.
They are rare and endangered and live in some of the most extreme high altitude and cold climate on It is a sad fact that the biggest threat to snow leopards are humans. Humans have hunted them for their fur and their bones; fur to wear as coats and hats, and bones to be used in traditional medicines. They have also destroyed snow leopard habitat and food sources by killing the prey animals they need to feed on. When the natural wild prey animals are not available snow leopards will often kill and eat domestic livestock like sheep and goats belonging to villagers they share the mountains with. The second reason why snow leopards are endangered is the global warming .
The free access to weapons makes the life of the hunters easy. “In the 1970s, the global demand for ivory threatened to make the elephant extinct. Poachers, with access to automatic weapons derived from civil wars and international arms sales, were killing herds of elephants faster than ever before. From 1970 to 1985, the total elephant population of Africa decreased by half.” Also in 2002 the largest shipment of illegal ivory was seized by authorities in Singapore, it consisted of 532 elephant tusks and more than 40,000 cut pieces of ivory. Also, the demise of elephants can be attributed mostly to loss of its habitat.
The gray wolf also called the timber wolf, is the largest of about 41 wild species within the dog family They range in size from 26" to 38" shoulder height, 39" to 80" in length (tip of nose to end of tail), and vary in weight from 57 to 130 pounds. Their coats may vary in color from grey to brown, from white to jet black. They usually hunt at night and feed primarily on large hoofed mammals such as deer, caribou, elk, and moose, but sometimes eat berries, birds, beaver, fish, and insects. Animals that they kill are usually young, old, or otherwise weaker members of their populations because they are easiest to capture. Most pursuits of prey range in length from 110 yds.
The chipmunk normally lives three years but can live up to seven, depending on their environment. If their forest environment is free from an over abundance of predators and humans chipmunks will live up to seven years. Lately, humans have caused a drop in the chipmunks’ habitat and their life has been shortened to about 5 years. The forest is being cut down and the chipmunk has fewer trees to hide in. They also have fewer places to burrow which has caused a decline in the chipmunk population.
White Siberian Tiger There are many endangered species. Over 10, 801 different species are considered to be endangered. An endangered species is a population of organisms that is at risk of becoming extinct. This is caused by human’s destruction of habitats and poaching. In order to prevent more species from becoming extinct, the endangered species act was enacted.