Presently, almost 70-75% of species which have ever existed are found to be extinct today and it
is not over yet. We are facing numerous problems today but Wildlife extinction is one of the
major problems as it plays an important role in preserving economic, aesthetic, cultural and
ecological values of any country.
Extinction means the loss of animal species .It can be defined as the end of the last surviving animal
of that species on the earth. Charles Darwin defines extinction as “a normal process: species
originated at some point by spitting from existing species and at some point they died out”. The
extinction of species in some particular region can be termed as Local extinction. We can’t eliminate
the possibility that the locally extinct species can be found in some other part of the world.
India has about 7.6% of mammals, 12.6% of birds, 6.2% of Reptiles, 4.4% Amphibians and 11.7%
fishes when compared to world’s animal species. Out of the total 8.5% Animal species that India has
2.9% of which are considered to be globally threatened. Some of this includes Bengal Tiger, Gangetic
Gharial, The great Indian Bustard, Blackbuck, The Asiatic Lion.
Though the problem seems big, our efforts can surely help in preventing extinction of animals. One
of the solutions can be to focus on the causes of it and finding the ways to reduce it. Human
activities such as urbanization, deforestation, use of tropical forests for timber/wood etc causes
harm to wildlife. To reduce this, we can ensure zero human activities in the nearby areas
surrounding parks and sanctuaries. Due to lack of availability of food and water in their habitat,
animals are generally seen in areas outside the reserved protected areas as seen in recent incidents,
where people-animal conflict most of the time result in killing of animals. So required amount of
food and water should be made available to the animals in their habitat.
Wildlife trade, poaching, Farmers or rancher shootings also accounts for extinction of animals. The
Government should introduce strict laws for these so that no one dares to cause harm to animals.
Other reasons include global warming, pollution, introduction of invasive species. All above reasons
are directly or indirectly resulted from “Human Activities” and this should be the centre point to look
into.
Animal Extinction can drastically change the Ecosystem. Animals also have to interact with the other
organisms to survive. Hence extinction of any animal species will also make life difficult for other
organisms. The whole ecosystem will get disturbed and it will also have adverse effects on human
beings.
We will surely, not like to bring a situation where our future generation can only imagine of
a tiger by seeing it in books or in the list of Extinct species. Immediate steps need to be taken and to
act on it, sincere human efforts are required to try and prevent the animals from getting extinct. The
life of Animals is in our hand.