Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Lions and tigers and bears. They look like higher order species to me.

Trophy lions include this stuffed specimen at an international hunting exposition in Dortmund, Germany, in 2011.

If wildlife activists have their way, (click here) U.S. hunters trekking to Africa soon won't be able to bring back any lion skins or skulls as trophies....
...African lion populations have seen "a substantial decline" over the past two decades and are estimated to be around 32,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which monitors species numbers globally. 
The threats include not only trophy hunters, but loss of habitat, humans eating lion meat, and commercial sale of their body parts, said Adam Roberts, executive vice president of Born Free USA...

Habitat loss by any species is extinction. Habitat loss is the most critical component to species survive. On a warming planet there are distinctive ways to end it. 

Encroachment is the word of choice, but, that sometimes implies permission to continue to destroy habitat or remove it. Encroachment is suppose to be a definitive term, now it is more or less a term of permission to continue to encroach and cause further loss. 

While most of the species facing extinction are viewed as a victim of human population growth, the fact there are droughts, extreme weather and floods destroying habitat means it is far more than human encroachment. It means there is something going on with Earth and not just human behavior. At least not just human behavior in destroying habitat, but, certainly human behavior in greenhouse gas emissions.