Prevent Species Extinction? The Modern

¶ … Prevent Species Extinction?

The modern society and the technological progresses it experiences are to a large degree responsible for the fact that numerous species become extinct. It is a dilemma for most of the general public whether or not they can do anything in order to prevent species from becoming extinct. In their attempt to come up with a solution to put an end to species extinction, people have discovered that there are a series of factors that can influence a species' chances of survival. Even if it risks extinction, scientists proved that a species can thrive in an environment if the right number of individuals is introduced and if the land they are provided with is satisfactory.

Introduction:

While it is difficult to deal with a species on the verge of extinction, it is especially difficult for society to find an answer to the situation currently experienced by the Grizzly Bear population. In spite of the fact that the grizzly bear could be found in large numbers in territories across North America, there are presently little individuals from the species residing in the northern Rocky Mountains. Alarmed by the decreasing number of grizzlies, wildlife biologists got actively engaged in determined what caused this and how it could be prevented.

One of the first things wildlife biologists discovered was that grizzlies would have more chances of populating a nature reserved if the number introduced was higher than 20 individuals. Also, it became obvious that bears would increase in numbers if the nature reserve they lived in were to be added new bears were introduced at a certain interval.

The survival and welfare of Grizzly bears largely depends on the territory they inhabit, since when compared with most carnivores, this species needs a lot of room. In order for a grizzly bear population to have even the smallest chances for survival over several years, it would require at least half of the normal area of land an adult female uses.

Material and methods:

In an attempt to discover important information to assist them in creating a suitable environment for the grizzly bear population to be revived, wildlife biologists used several techniques. With the purpose of finding out what the minimum population to be introduced in a nature reserve was, wildlife biologists employed a computer simulated (stage 2) reproductive history of each bear in a population and altered the number of individuals so as to determine if certain numbers of bear populations would generate individuals who would last for 100 years. Even though this provided wildlife biologists with important information, they went further (step 3) and tried to see what happened if new bears were added to the initial population over the 100 years course. Wildlife biologists consulted historical data (step 4) with the intention of discovering what the home range (amount of land used throughout a lifetime) an adult female was. Combining information obtained during the previous steps, wildlife biologists found the minimum land area a bear population needed in order to have 50% chances of survival.

Step 6 involves the combination of information found in step 4 with that found in step 5. The scatter plot (a graph) was used in order to compare data sets, with the purpose of finding if the critical reserve was influenced by the home range.

Results: