Thursday 23 May 2013

ENDANGERED


Mans greed intensifies on a daily basis and at what cost?  We see the $$$$ profit rolling into our economies, helping to make the rich richer and doubtless providing employment for others but at what cost long term, to the earth and its inhabitants.

Here in Australia our koalas are now listed as vulnerable with numbers dropping by 40% in Queensland and 33% in NSW over the past 20 years.  Many have been injured in the bush fires that have raged across our country recently.  We have driven them out of their homes by allowing councils to destroy their habitat for housing developments, bulldozing the trees that supply their feed.  Their favoured habitat is open forest and woodland but that has now become suburbia where they face the added problems of roads, dogs and swimming pools.   Unless they have access to a safe haven of undisturbed habitat large enough to support a koala colony, their days as suburban koalas are numbered.  Scientists have found that koalas facing these sorts of problems are more prone to disease and have lower rates of reproduction.

  You can help some of the less fortunate here ... 

https://www.savethekoala.com/adopt-a-koala



Likewise in our greed for Palm Oil which is used in everything from soap to petrol these days because it is a cheap alternative - we are decimating the forests of Asia for their timber or burning them to clear the land and replace them with Palm Oil plantations.

The animals are killed for food in some areas, or in retaliation when they move into agricultural areas and destroy crops. This occurs more in times of environmental stress when orangutans can't find the food they need in the forest.

Females in particular are most often hunted. When caught with offspring, the young are often kept as pets. 

This pet trade is a major problem. It is thought that for each orangutan reaching Taiwan, as many as 3-5 additional animals die in the process. Recent enforcement of the law in Taiwan has reduced the importation of orangutans, but the trade remains a threat in Indonesia where there is still demand for orangutans as pets.

There is also trade in orangutan skulls in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). 



How can this be right?  How can mankind - supposedly the smart race allow this to happen?  We are at risk of losing so many animal species due to our greed.  Do you care enough to say Stop?

No comments: