What Animals are at Harm?

Each animal deserves the same amount of lifespan as any other animal. One animal may have to be killed because it will come after an animal smaller then them. An the other option is the smaller animal may be killed by a bigger animal because the bigger animal came after it. Each of the species has to do their best for survival and we know why a predator does it, in some cases they have to have adequate nutrition. We consider these type of relationships a predator prey relationship.

In this article, there were two proposed studies by Colorado Parks and Wildlife to kill black bears and mountain lions in designated areas to see if mule deer fawn survival rates will increase. To learn more about this click here. The issue is this mule deer survival rate is not just in Colorado it’s all over the West. If they kill the carnivores  they know it will not work studies have shown killing a carnivore is not going to help the mule deer population increase. The key to survival for the breeding females is protection access to a suitable habitat especially in the winter, and access to adequate nutrition. The other downside is they know killing mountain lions and Bears will result on average more than 3.2 million animals every year and they feel like that will send a negative message on how Colorado views wildlife. Again the thing effecting these deer is mainly an unsuitable habitat for the deer.

This connects to what we learning in class because during class a few units ago we discussed a lot about predator prey relationships with videos,discussions and activities. One thing we did was we each were assigned a national park. I was given the Great Smoky Mountains and we had to answer questions one being about predator prey relationships. If you want to look at examples of some of those relationships visit that site. Another way we were shown more examples of predator prey relationships was through a variety of different YouTube videos. We witnessed many different predators going after a smaller prey, and in one case they prey did try to fight back and defend the rest of their pact after the predator had gotten one of the smaller animals. We also did a variety of notes that gave us other examples, as well as what a predator was and what a prey was. Also we learned how there are different predators some have to get an animal for the whole group and in some cases they are just getting it for themselves and that may be how they pick the size of the prey.

 

 

Flint Water Crisis

The water crisis in Flint was a big story back in the beginning of 2016, it didn’t get much attention because during that time the presidential campaigning was going on. Almost recently there was an article written in the paper that discussed the issue of the Flint Water Crisis here. Flint had plans to switch their drinking water source again, but because of the recent problems in Flint they were told they needed to take extra steps before they could do that. The U.S Environmental Protection agency were the ones who ordered Flint to complete a three mile interconnection so it can test the water from the new site before it makes the change. 

In the beginning, before the crisis completely began the city had decided they were going to switch from Detroit Water to Flint Water. Why did they switch? They switched to save money, but corrosive water caused lead, a neurotoxin, to leach from aging pipes into homes. It has now been decided that before there is any switch in water sources it needs to be properly planned.

I can not believe a terrible crisis like this happened to so many people. Especially kids it said in the article doctors have found high lead levels in young people. It’s devastating to hear things like that. I understand why they made the switch to Flint Water it  was to save money, but before you do that it’s important to make sure you are making the right decision for the people who will be involved. In this case before  they made the decision it doesn’t seem that they planned enough. An considering they also made this type of decision the fact that they did not act soon enough is an issue. Why didn’t anyone act sooner? Is it that they weren’t aware of the problem or they didn’t think it was a big deal or didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. In any case there was a time where these people were very concerned for there well being  which many should not have to feel.

Illegal Dumping in River causing harm to Salmon Habitat

Everyone deserves a safe, clean and healthy environment to be in. We as humans want to live in a nice area that is kept clean and is healthy to live in. We don’t want to live in garbage. We would prefer to have a nice home to be in. It’s important to think of that with species also. Each species has a habitat, they might share it with a similar species to them, but it’s their habitat. The last thing we should be doing is throwing garbage in or around their habitat.

In the article, “Illegal dumping at Goldstream River could jeopardize salmon habitat” is about the Goldstream River and people are dumping trash things like beer cans and even a couch into the river and in the banks and terrestrial areas around the river. It doesn’t matter if the trash does not go directly into the river but if it’s on those areas around the river the chemicals can leak into the river and contaminate the habitat.The salmon are living in this river and are being affected by the contamination. Here’s why you shouldn’t contaminate the ground or a body of water.

One way this connects to what we are learning in class is the food web. The chemicals that are currently being leached into the river is impacting the health of the river, but it also most importantly impacts the salmon. It doesn’t stop there though it impacts the entire food web. If another species comes along and eats the salmon it will get whatever the salmon had. An whoever eats the next species will also get it, and it just starts becoming a chain reaction. If you want to learn more visit this site about food webs. It connects because we learned how energy flows through food chains and food webs. We talked about how animals eat other animals and that would be an example of this like I said earlier if a species eats the salmon they will get whatever the salmon may have from the trash.

Another way this connects to what we learned in class is from section 4 when we learned about how each species has a specific role to play in the ecosystem. In this case a salmon would be considered a specialist. They only live in one type of habitat like a river or stream. They can’t tolerate many many different environmental conditions. If salmon can’t tolerate different environmental conditions, what about when their habitat is being destroyed by garbage? For more information about species who are specialists click here. It’s not healthy for the salmon to have to live in a destroyed habitat by all the chemicals, or fair to other animals who consume the salmon to become inflicted with any sort of disease from the chemicals.

“The Guide”

“The Guide” was a film about a young boy named Tonga who wanted to be a tour guide. He was very passionate about becoming a tour guide. There were different things that he would have to try to figure out before he became one. He luckily had an opportunity to work with a very experienced biologist named E.O Wilson. Mr Wilson did seem like he was able to give assistance to Tonga. Many of the ways that this can be connected to what we are leaning in class is through identifying unknown species, poverty as a root cause and biodiversity loss by cutting down trees.

The first way we can connect this film to what we are learning in class, is something we learned just a few units ago was identifying unknown species. When we learned in class we discussed a lot that we focused on bigger animals more than small animals and that may be just because we sometimes consider bigger animals more common. We also learned that there are a lot of animals that are still considered unknown. There was an article about 86 percent of Earths species are still unknown here. It’s exactly the way it was in the film. Mr Wilson who is an experienced ant biologist had the kids in the area of Africa look for different species and each one came back with a different type of species for Mr Wilson and Tonga to identify. However, one child,came back with a bug of some sort that no matter what Mr Wilson did he could not find it. Mr Wilson was impressed and said “that was the best animal of the day because he couldn’t identify what it was. This is similar to what we learned in class again because there are species out there that biologists  still can’t identify.

Another way this relates is because Tonga mentioned in the film that he wants to be a tour guide and it was his dream to be a tour guide. He mentioned his family and locals would cut down trees for survival which leads to biodiversity loss.Biodiversity loss was one of our environmental problems that we learned about. Since Tonga had wanted to be a tour guide he seemed devastated that trees are getting cut down. We also read an article about why trees matter in class and created a list of why they matter because as we learned trees are incredibly important for survival. If you want more information on why cutting down trees is bad visit the article linked about  effects on cutting down trees.

Finally, another way this relates to class is Tonga was a boy and his family lived in poverty. One of the reasons why it was hard for Tonga in the beginning to fulfill his dream of becoming a tour guide was the fact his family was living in poverty and struggled to make  it through the day. This is one of the reasons Tonga’s family would cut down the trees is because they were living in poverty. As we discussed in class this was an environmental root cause ,and we answered a question to this  topic because, those who are living in poverty they struggle to make it through the day. They just are trying to survive a day and they have to do what’s best for them at that point in time, and maybe not what’s best for the environment in some cases. Poverty is a big topic we learned about its prominent in developing countries and for Tonga and his family he may be living in a developing country considering it was hard for his family to make it through  day when they don’t have many resources at there use. Poverty is an issue that many people may be faced with if you want to learn more about poverty, there is more information  here.

The Connection Between Cleaner Air and Living Longer

It’s a known fact by many that if we have cleaner air more people will live longer. Air Pollution is a serious problem and it’s not something to take lightly. This is air that we breath in for survival, and at one point it was terribly polluted. If we just take a moment to think about how many germs are in the air, and how much we take in of that  because we need it, it’s crazy to think about.

This is what this article was talking about, back in the 1970s it didn’t seem to concern anyone the way that our air was potentially hurting our health and the environment. However, then something happened that caused them to make a change for the good of everyone. It’s the time when the environmental movement held the First Earth Day and also when Congress signed the Clean Air Act. Since then the act has clearly been challenged, based on studies though it has made a huge change by really improving the quality of air. If we look at a large place like Los Angeles they have many people living more then a year longer now because of what the Act has done. Even, in smaller places like Steubenville Ohio they have people continuing to live longer then ever before. Also different countries India and China they have people living five years longer then they would have that’s how big of an impact this has made for people. It’s not all just the clean air act, but it is the primary cause as to why we have reduced the amount of pollution in our air. If you want to see more about the Clean Air Act click above.

In class recently we have been talking about Environmental History. One of the things we covered in a Environmental History Timeline was the Clean Air Act.While I was researching more about this law I learned it was the first and most influential modern environment laws, and one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world. This law is also adminsitered by the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA). The EPA isn’t something we completely covered however, it was something that plays a big part in what we learned which is the Clean Air Act. It does not surprise me how successful this law has been with eliminating air pollution because as we learned it is one of the most influential environment laws. The EPA administered it and without that it may not have been created. Since we have the Clean Air Act it has helped eliminate a lot of the challenges we used to face with air pollution.

We however did not just start right with the Clean Air Act. The First Earth Day had happened right before the Clean Air Act had gone in affect. The First Earth Day was something we had discussed in class when we did our timelines. When doing the timelines I gave further description of the First Earth Day. I learned had we not had as much support from Republicans,Democrats,rich,poor and city slickers we wouldn’t have had the Environmental Protection Agency, The Clean Air Act,and the Clean Water Act. I think it is  important to understand how important the First Earth Day was because it led to the creation of many great things. It’s important that we also talked about this in class because it helps us understand the deeper meaning of everything that is a part of our environment.

 

Increased Health and Environmental Risks from Forest Fires

Health Impacts From Forest Fires

Increased Health and Environment Risks from Forest Fires
There are many reasons why a Forest Fire can begin. Forest Fires are devastating disasters. We always seem to try to find different ways that we can prevent forest fires however, I think there end up being ways that they will just start and it is out of our control. The problem is forest fires are beginning to cause problems for not only the environment,but humans as well.
This article was interesting to read. It was written differently then some articles as there was a reader who asked a question about forest fires. The question that was asked was, “What are “smoke waves” from wildfires and how can the be hazardous for our health?”-Doug Jenkins. This was interesting as the writer of the article answered the question as to why there is and most likely will be an increase in health and environmental risks from Forest Fires. The answer was a little alarming to hear about. It was stated “these smoke waves may be more dangerous for our health rather then the fire itself.” Based on the article it seemed people are more concerned over the smoke waves then the actual forest fire. It seems it is because the smoke waves are more intense. I believe this biggest reason these smoke waves are created is because of what was stated in the article, “climate change will likely cause smoke waves to be longer,more intense and more frequent.” As the climate will change that will cause the occurring of more places to get hotter and drier which will cause a forest fire. There will be a significant increase in forest fires and with that comes the smoke.
In our class right now we are talking about root causes of environmental problems. The fifth root cause of environmental problems is, we have tried to manage nature with insufficient knowledge about how nature works. In other words we haven’t made wise choices with nature. An with this root cause one of the examples listed was about forest fires.
While talking about root cause number five as stated above one of the examples given was about forest fires. In class we were told to read the story titled, “How the Smokey Bear effect led to raging Wildfires”. After reading, we had a discussion on how this article related to root cause number five. We talked about how the settlers brought back livestock. The livestock was brought here so it would eat grass and prevent fires from starting. But there was still trees,plants and shrubs. Which is essentially fuel,and now fires are burning largely and they were getting rid of forests, but also wiping them all out. The article relates to what we’re learning in class, because here we discussed how forest fires begin and the article did that as well. The forest fires begin due to climate change when it gets hotter and drier. It also mentioned the environment and health impacts these forest fires can have,if you want to learn more visit this website above
In conclusion, to have a better understanding of how we can take action to prevent having forest fires is to just be familiar. If we are familiar and have the proper knowledge as to how we can prevent a forest fire, we may not be able to completely stop them, but we can prevent them from happening on a regular basis.

Invasive Species Strike People Can Starve

An article that came up this week while reading different articles about the Environment and problems that are currently occurring and one that stood out was titled When Invasive Species Strike the Third World, People Can Starve. It’s an interesting problem that can mostly effect many people that are living in the third world. It is also probably things that these people living over in the third world should be educated over to be aware on how they can protect their resources they have without losing all of them.
The article at first started focusing on certain species they have brought in things like wild hogs and mongooses. It had led to invasive species being first world problems. It then transitioned into saying that in the 21st century the developing world will see a rise in invasive species. This issue is more complex then it seems it goes deeper then many may think it’s to a point where people have to leave their home and are going hungry. However, there are more factors that contribute to the challenges these people are faced with. Many of those challenges are similar as some include the rate of agricultural expansion. 
In the article it was identifying different parts of the problem says the problem is also their ability to fight back. The decisions was made to try and put and end to this issue and they wanted to eradicate the pests that are affecting them. It was know that it was important to fight back but also knew they had to fight back quickly because these pests can become difficult to eradicate. They did things like putting an investment in research programs,developing warning systems, and tried to educate people like farmers and rangers to put an end to these invasions and they would most likely be the first to know.
The article’s focus was about when invasive species strike the third world people can starve. It’s a problem that I believe needs a solution to if there can be one that is found. I believe it is a part of a cause of one of the five categories of environmental issues. Although, this may fit into more then one category I believe it only fits under one of these categories and I think that category is under the Food Supply issue category.
This problem only strongly fits under this category although it’s possible it could fit into another one it only strongly fits here. It fits here because this problem deals as well as effects the food supply. I believe it gave many good examples in the article about how it deals with food supply. For example, an example they gave of a plant/animal in the article was a species like prosopis which is a thorny mesquite shrub. This plant is from Central and South America it invaded Ethiopia in the 1970s and spread out over more then 1.7 million acres of the country’s choicest grazing lands. That mesquite pushed out the plants that cattle typically graze on and it poisons anything that dares eat it. This example seemed to rid all the cattle because they would graze on those plants. This would also cause a problem for the people of these areas because if the cattle is gone because of this prosopis plant then the people will have nothing.
I believe the reason why rapid human population growth effects this problem is because human we can be compared just as much as an invasive species. When invasive species are coming it’s causing people to starve. We also have to question with so many humans because of our population growth can’t we cause the problem as to why people are starving. 
If we think about how big our population could be with rapid human population growth and hunger is bad for us and our environment then people will starve. As stated above we can compare this to when invasive species strike the third world people can starve. If there is a big increase in population then this causes there to be less food for people to consume. Similarly to if we all all these species coming in from all possible different areas it can cause people to starve.