wp3-----informative assignment----at least 1250 words

Clearwater 7

Cover Letter

Professor Snape,

I changed a few things around but kept a lot the same. As per your suggestion, I tried to clarify my thesis statement more and put more details in about what we can do to change around the habitats. I put more in about the cost of moving species to different habitats but there isn’t a whole lot of information yet about benefits, besides the moved species not dying out, because it’s only been done a few times.

I added a little bit more about polar bears because one of my peers said that he’d like more information about that and why it’s the face of the struggle. I had made an assumption that my target audience of people who have a basic knowledge of global warming and endangered species would know about the polar bear but I clarified it a bit more. My audience was the curious academic audience of my peers.

Sincerely,

Penelope Clearwater

Professor Snape

ENG 111-23N

17 November 2014

How Climatic Changes are Affecting Endangered Species

When you think of climate change endangering animals, the first thing that comes to mind is polar bears as they have become the face of this struggle. There are, however, plenty of other species that are affected just as much. “The major problem with climate change is not so much that climate is changing, but that it is changing faster than species can move or adapt” (Rout). I plan to look at which species are impacted that are closest to home, what we can do to help and how much this would cost. Setting up a separate habitat for species that might not have a habitat for much longer would be a good idea but should be worked out more since it comes at a cost and might not work out ecologically either.

Around the world there are endangered species are on the critical list such as the previously mentioned polar bears, tigers in India, the Sumatran orangutan and Mexico’s Santa Catalina Island rattlesnake and a few have become officially extinct like the Yangtze River dolphin. Global warming melting the polar ice caps endangers any animal relying on ice such as the polar bear which many people think of when they think of global warming endangering a species. It’s easy to be upset about these but hard to relate to however there are quite a few species in Indiana that are endangered. Georgia Parham of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Midwest Region tells us of a bat in Indiana that is having problems. Myotis sodalis, otherwise known as the Indiana bat, is in trouble because “they were struck four years ago by a deadly disease known as white-nose syndrome” (Parham). Climate change can stress these already stressed animals to the point where they die out. “Surface temperature is directly related to cave temperature, so climate change will inevitably affect the suitability of hibernacula” (Parham). Indiana bats require a certain temperature when hibernating so if it gets too hot or cold then there will be a rapid decline in their numbers. Since they have such requirements while hibernating, they only have a small portion of caves to choose from and those will dwindle in the years to come as their range is forced north because of climate change.

There are also bird species in the country that are in trouble too. According to Felicity Barringer of The New York Times, “…climate change is likely to so alter the bird population of North America that about half of the approximately 650 species will be driven to smaller spaces or forced to find new places to live, feed and breed over the next 65 years.” There are many species that are quickly losing their habitats and, as they migrate to try to find somewhere else to live, they lose more and more land. “Drought in Southern California is blamed for a sharp drop in breeding among California raptors, perhaps because a lack of water is killing the insects and small rodents they feed on” (Barringer). Other species that Barringer lists as being the most in danger are the “three-toed woodpecker, the northern hawk owl, the northern gannet, Baird's sparrow, the rufous hummingbird and the trumpeter swan.” In addition to the birds, there’s also the Karner Blue butterfly at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Ralph Grundel, a research ecologist at Great Lakes Science Center tells us, “Overall, Karner blue population counts at INDU have declined since the late 1990s despite ongoing habitat management.” He tells us that “recent studies (Fuller 2008) suggest that microclimate and climate change might play a role in this decline” because “climate change might create conditions to which the species is poorly adapted, either physiologically or ecologically” (Grundel).

Tracy Rout, a post doctoral research fellow at the University of Melbourne, and her fellow authors tell us there are alternatives to just letting them figure it out on their own. “Moving species threatened by climate change isn’t a new idea. In fact we’ve already moved some, while others are being considered” (Rout). In New Zealand they’ve already moved a species called the tuatara and had good results. The tuatara’s gender, when incubating, is determined by temperature. Since it’s much warmer than normal there, they’ve had mostly males hatch and not enough females. “This is expected to worsen as temperatures increase, putting the population at risk of extinction” (Rout). So the species was moved and so far has had no problems. They’ve developed a system that weighs the benefits versus the cons of moving a species to a place where they might adversely affect the habitat and species already there. “The benefit of moving a species is based on the likelihood it will go extinct in its original habitat as the local climate becomes hostile, the likelihood that a breeding population can be established at a new site, and the value or importance of the species” (Rout).

However there are problems with trying to move animals. “The ecological cost depends on the potential for the species to adversely affect the ecosystem at the new site” (Rout). Many times the benefits outweigh the ecological cost. “…the idea of introducing species to areas where they have never occurred before is controversial, because species introduced to somewhere they’ve never lived could have devastating consequences for the species already there” (Rout). She tells us to think of invasive species like the ones in Australia. The ecological cost is not the only problem though. Luntz, a staff writer at Australian Science tells us there is a paper released recently trying to figure out how much it would cost to lower the status of every endangered species. “They conclude it would cost $74.8 billion per year to protect and manage all land sites of global conservation significance. However, just $3.9 billion is required to conduct the interventions that would move critically endangered species to endangered status, while making endangered species merely threatened” (Luntz). He points out however that it would be less than a dollar per person in the world per month. The lead author of the paper, Donai McCarthy, says, “The total is just 1-4% of the value of ecosystem services being lost annually, which equates to $2.1 trillion to $6.5 trillion in losses per year” (Luntz). Not every species needs to entirely moved, though says co-author Prof. Stephen Garnett. He tells us, “In some cases actions as cheap as the provision of nest boxes are all that is required” (Luntz). These will be the easiest to save and so therefore if we go through with this plan, they will probably be the first to be dealt with. Garnett notes in the article that if nothing is done now, then there won’t be animals to save. Most of these animals are in the developing world where most of these species are that need to be saved.

When you review these points, the question of whether there are species close to home in trouble, if there’s anything we can do and the cost of such a thing, the answer is clear. There are plenty of options but whether we want to incur the cost of such a thing, both financially and ecologically then that’s a whole other matter. The bats and butterflies in Indiana might be more important to us than others. “It’s far from clear cut which species might benefit from this drastic action, and for which it would be a costly and risky mistake” (Rout). If we don’t want to spend the whole cost then picking and choosing which ones will be our main priority.

Works Cited

Barringer, Felicity. "Climate Change Will Disrupt Half of North America's Bird Species, Study Says." New York Times 9 Sept. 2014: A14(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Grundel, Ralph. “Climate Change: Effects on Animal Communities.” USGS: Science for a Changing World. U.S. Department of the Interior. 1 Aug. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Luntz, Stephen. "The Cost of Saving Species From Extinction." Australasian Science. Jan/Feb 2013: p. 9. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Parham, Georgia. “Indiana: Climate Change Raises Stakes in Efforts to Conserve Endangered Indiana Bat.” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Rout, Tracy, et al. "Should We Move Species Threatened By Climate Change?." Ecos 188 (2013): 1-2. GreenFILE. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.