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Each day, peoples actions are causing unnecessary animal deaths or habitat destruction,
and most are completely unaware of it. Due to current human lifestyle, large numbers of wildlife
are being harmed or relocated and eventually, without a lifestyle adjustment, will no longer be
able to survive due to the effects of the humans around them. With increased awareness and
action throughout the world, this impact could be significantly lessened. If citizens worldwide
step up and take action, the world can resolve this problem.
An Invasive species is a species that is brought from its original habitat and introduced to
a new habitat where it has never been. Although this may seem a simple, meaningless
occurrence, invasive species typically destroy the habitat into which they are introduced. For
example, the Brown Tree Snake, a species originally from Australia and Indonesia has become
an invasive species in Guam. The Invasion Biology Introduced Species Summary Project
published by Columbia University in 2015 states that the brown tree snake was introduced as a
stowaway in cargo transported from the Admiralty Islands (near Papua New Guinea) by U.S.
military ships during World War II making it invasive to the island. However, this invasive
species was not only introduced to the islands of Guam, but also to Hawaii and other tropical
locations due to humans. This species has invaded these islands and caused countless local bird
species to become either extinct or endangered. This impact is affecting the ecosystems and
biodiversity of Guam. The Brown Tree snake has no predators in this foreign habitat, and its new
prey is not adjusted to escaping a foreign species. The Brown Tree Snake outcompetes other
snakes in the area, and its population is becoming overwhelming.
Now, because Guam is a U.S. territory, the United States is taking action on the problem.
To combat the invasive population of brown tree snakes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Wildlife Services will air drop mice laced with the painkiller acetaminophen into the dense

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jungles on the island (Gillian Mohney). The United States will take action by flying in mice (the
snakes natural prey) full of acetaminophen into Guam for the snakes to eat. This specific species
of snake can be killed by just 80 mg of this painkiller, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Wildlife Services, but it is harmless to humans. The hope is for the mice to make a
significant dent in the snakes population, and lessen their hold on the ecosystems. This is only a
temporary solution, because the population will slowly rise back to where it was, but it has so far
been successful.
The Zebra Mussel is another invasive species, located mainly in the Great Lakes of the
Northern United States. According to NOAA and the United States Department of Commerce in
2015, The arrival of this invasive animal and the damage they cause cities and ecosystems in
the Great Lakes region has focused much attention on the ballast water of cargo ships as a major
source for species introductions. Humans have introduced this species, and thus the culprit for
the destruction of numerous Great Lakes ecosystems. However, humans were not aware of what
was occurring when they introduced the Zebra Mussel, they may have not even noticed the small
shells in the water. Prevention is possible by educating people about how easy it is to start the
cycle. If people knew what it caused, they could take serious precautions to prevent it.
Introduction of foreign species is not the sole way people affect animals, many people are not
aware of how their lifestyle affects animals all over the country.
Universally people enjoy watching movies, and America is one of the largest producers
of them, the majority based out of Hollywood, California. However, many people are not aware
that the movies they yearn to go see in theatres actually have a nasty history, filled with animal
abuse and mistreatment. according to the Hollywood Reporter in 2015:

American Humane Association monitor Gina Johnson confided in an email to a

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colleague on April 7, 2011, about the star tiger in Ang Lees Life of Pi. While many
scenes featuring Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger who shares a lifeboat with a boy lost at
sea, were created using CGI technology, King, very much a real animal, was employed
when the digital version wouldnt suffice. This one take with him just went really bad and
he got lost trying to swim to the side, Johnson wrote. Damn near drowned.

Most movie producers make an effort to hide the rules they break when producing a film,
cutting corners to save them money, especially when living animals are used in the film.
Although the American Humane Association (AHA) is in charge of monitoring this in the film
industry, they often look the other way when animal abuse occurs on movie sets. According to
Pamela McClintock from the Hollywood Reporter, Life of Pi earned almost $609,000,000 from
the box office, but many viewers who support the film had no idea of what happened on the set.
King was the name of the Bengal Tiger that filled the role of Richard Parker in the film and he
almost drowned on set, a fact that many officials involved in the film tried to hide. Bengal tigers
are an endangered species, located primarily in India or in captive for breeding. This was not
only breaking laws applying to the production of a movie, the AHA also stamped the No
Animals Were Harmed credit on the film, a dishonest statement to movie viewer. Many people
would have chosen not to see the film if they knew what had happened behind the scenes, but the
truth was hidden from the public. The Hobbit, a movie based off of a popular book series, also
had evidence of animal abuse tied to the production. TIME magazines Sonia Van Gilder Cooke
indicated that the production company is responsible for the deaths of up to 27 animals, largely
because they were kept at a farm filled with bluffs, sinkholes and other "death traps. This quote
refers specifically to the filming of the film The Hobbit by Warner Brothers and their known
mistreatment of animals throughout filming. Their treatment of the animals used in the film was

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illegal in the United States, but the company housed the animals in New Zealand, where it was
filmed. Wranglers in charge of working with the animals and checking on them during filming
reported he tried to fill in some of the sinkholes, made by underground streams, and even
brought in his own fences to keep the horses away from the most dangerous areas. Ultimately,
[he found it] an impossible task. (Cooke). One pony named Rainbow, used as a hobbit horse in
the film, was found lying down at the bottom of a bank with a broken back. Rainbow was later
euthanized, one of many horses found injured on the property. Other injuries caused by their
housing included; sliced open legs from improper fencing, yellow liquid in the intestine from a
change in grain, a dozen chickens mauled to death by dogs, six goats and sheep that fell into
sinkholes, and one horse with its head lodged in a stream from falling off a bluff in its enclosure
(Sonia). All of these events occurred before the production company arranged for the animals
used in filming to be housed in a barn. Many wranglers quit mid-filming after complaining of the
animal treatment resulting in no change. Although the United States has its fair share of animal
mistreatment cases, Americans are not the only culprits.
Many countries in Africa are hunting elephants for the ivory their tusks are made out of,
and they are driving them into extinction. In central Africa, the hardest-hit part of the continent,
the regional elephant population has declined by 64 percent in a decade (Brad Scriber 2014).
This is significantly more than in the past, due to the increase in value and demand of ivory.
Many African and Chinese cultures believe ivory to have magical powers, and they use it in
medicine and ornate weapons. However, they are taking the ivory at too quickly of a rate,
elephants have only 7-12 calves in their lifetime, a number that is decreased when they are killed
mid-life. National Geographics Brad Scriber even included that Elephants are vital to the web
of life in Africa. As a keystone species, they help balance all the other species in their

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ecosystem. Killing large numbers of their population is causing a chain reaction in the
Savannah, affecting populations of other local species and destroying the ecology of the habitats
that they are coming from. Elephants are large, slow moving creatures and poachers have
perfected methods for killing as many of them as possible, Poachers [use] poisoned arrows to
kill iconic individual elephants. In February, a poison-tipped arrow killed Torn Ear, a well-known
Kenyan elephant. Three months later, Satao, another of Kenya's most beloved elephants, was
also killed by a poisoned arrow by poachers, who cut off his face to remove his massive tusks
(Scriber 2014). The local people are emotionally destroyed losing these iconic elephants that the
recognize, but they are unable to stop the poachers. The main source of poaching in Africa stems
from local poachers trying to make a large amount of money quickly. Because the source of
profit is the tusks of elephants, poachers cut them off of an elephants face and typically leave
them to die. There has been a change for the better in terms of catching poachers in Africa, In
2013, Google gave the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) a $5 million Global Impact Award to look
for new ways to detect and deter wildlife crime. WWF is now using bungee-launched drones and
other poacher-tracking technologies in Namibias National Parks (Amy Lou Jenkins 2015). This
is a completely new concept, being able to monitor illegal actions without having a law
enforcement patrol doing the job. With these drones, thousands of elephant and rhinoceros lives
could be saved, and the species could return from the brink of extinction. The technology needs
some work and adjustments, but their program is being called air shepherd because of its
potential for helping these species. It is people causing this abuse, and it is people who need to
fix it. Our society is capable of reversing what has been caused, but people need to become
educated and begin cleaning up after themselves. All animal mistreatment and negligence laws
need to be updated to fit in with current occurrences.

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World Wildlife Fund has recently released the 2014 Living Planet Report, which is
essentially an explanation of where the planet is at with its endangered species and plant life.
According to the report, Between 1970 and 2010 populations of mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians, and fish around the globe dropped 52 percent, an astonishing majority of their
populations. It describes that half of the wildlife on the globe has been lost in 40 years. This is
immensely larger than the statistics of the past, and its all due to humans and their ecological
footprint. This means we have had a 52% drop in wildlife biodiversity in the world, not even
including plant species or insects. WWF announced this from their research on wildlife
populations globally, also finding that the majority of high-income countries are increasingly
consuming more per person than the planet can accommodate; maintaining per capita ecological
footprints greater than the amount of biocapacity available per person. People in middle- and
low-income countries have seen little increase in their per capita footprints over the same time
period. World Wildlife Fund has found a direct correlation between the over-consumerism of
high-income first world countries, this exact consumerism is creating the massive ecological
footprint in countries like the United States, Russia and parts of China. Low-income third world
countries do not go through so many materials and goods, and do not create the environmental
impact of larger, richer countries. Illegal animal trades and poaching are much more common in
third world countries. These high-income countries use five times the ecological resources of
low-income countries, but low income countries are suffering the greatest ecosystem losses
(Half). Although first world countries have a larger impact, they are stealing their resources from
small, poor countries. Low-income countries consume a fraction of the resources of high-income
countries, but they do not have enough resources to support their economy. They solve this issue
by using alternate means of income, including poaching and illegal animal trading. This leads to

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the black market of foreign animals in the United States. The report summarizes by stating the
declining trends are not inevitable. To achieve globally sustainable development, each countrys
per capita ecological footprint must be less than the per capita biocapacity available on the
planet, while maintaining a decent standard of living. They know this environmental future is
not a lost cause, but efforts need to start being made to turn things around. Just because humans
as a whole have made this extensive negative impact on wildlife and our own living environment
does not be that it is irreversible. It will require people worldwide to take action and focus on
changing the fate of the globe. If everyone had an ecological footprint that fit in the globes
holding capacity, the problem could be solved.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, caused by the oil company BP, is one of the better
known accidents that affected wildlife. Since the spill, each year roughly 500 sea turtles have
been found stranded, most of which were the very endangered Kemps ridley sea turtles (How).
This Gulf spill affected countless families and cities along the coast, but the news does not
typically focus on the hundreds of sea-life creatures that became stranded or intoxicated by the
oil that had infiltrated their habitat. Sea turtles were by far not the only species affected, the
National Wildlife Federation includes that 17 percent of the dolphins were not expected to
survive in the affected area. Local plant species and even species living close to the shore were
also affected by the toxic sludge that became an abundant presence in their ecosystem. The cause
behind this disaster was a mere accident, but according to Steven Mufon of the Washington Post,
A federal judge in New Orleans [recently] ruled that BPs gross negligence and willful
misconduct had caused the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and that the
companys reckless behavior made it subject to fines of as much as $4,300 a barrel under the
Clean Water Act. This huge destruction of habitat was caused by human negligence, and killed

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countless animals as well as some humans. If humans, and this company, were more aware of
their capacity to destroy, this likely could have been avoided by them taking the proper
precautions. It was a preventable mistake, and hopefully this catastrophe will prompt other large
businesses to make adjustments for potential accidents.
Its is common for humans to affect their surroundings but many are unaware of how they
are affecting local wildlife, by destroying habitats or harming them. If the awareness of humans
effect on wildlife is not spread, eventually it will be irreversible. If people are educated and an
effort is made to change, the repercussions of their actions can be fixed. If people knew about
the different animal abuse and wildlife effects topics I researched, a lot could start to change
worldwide.
Works Cited "17 Elephants Butchered for Ivory in African Park." National Geographic. National Geographic
Society, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
"About Us." Home. NWRA, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
"Animal Conservation - National Geographic." National Geographic. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar.
2015.
"Cockfighting." PETA. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
"The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust: Antipoaching." The Antipoaching Project. The David
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
"Deforestation." WorldWildlife.org. World Wildlife Fund, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
"Wildlife Facts." Wildlife Facts. National Parks Conservation Association, n.d. Web. 23 Mar.
2015.
"Animal Fighting Facts." Winning the Case against Cruelty. Animal Legal Defense Fund, Feb.
2009. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

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Green, Ronda, and Karen Higginbottom. The Negative Effects of Wildlife Tourism on Wildlife.
Gold Coast, Qld.: CRC for Sustainable Tourism, 2001. 2001. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
"Gulf Oil Spill." Smithsonian Ocean Portal. Smithsonian, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
"Half of Global Wildlife Lost, Says New WWF Report." WorldWildlife.org. World Wildlife
Fund, 30 Sept. 2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
Howard PUBLISHED March 18, 2015, Brian Clark. "World's Largest Single Marine Reserve
Created in Pacific." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 19
Mar. 2015.
"How Does the BP Oil Spill Impact Wildlife and Habitat? - National Wildlife Federation." How
Does the BP Oil Spill Impact Wildlife and Habitat? - National Wildlife Federation. National
Wildlife Federation, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
"Invasion Biology Introduced Species Summary Project - Columbia University." Invasion
Biology Introduced Species Summary Project - Columbia University. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar.
2015.
Jenkins, Amy Lou. "Drones Inhibit Rhino and Elephant Poaching."Examiner.com. N.p., 16 Mar.
2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
Kirby, David. "Activists File Complaint Over Alleged Abuse of Dolphins and Whales at
SeaWorld." TakePart. N.p., 21 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Lallanilla, Marc. "Will Poisoned Mice Solve Guam's Snake Problem?"LiveScience. TechMedia
Network, 26 Feb. 2013. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Mohney, Gillian. "Snake Population to Be Bombed With Poison Mice."ABCnews. ABC, 22 Feb.
2013. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Mufson, Steven. "BP's 'gross Negligence' Caused Gulf Oil Spill, Federal Judge Rules."
Washington Post. The Washington Post, 4 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.
"The National Humane Education Society -Entertainment Issues:Captive Creatures." The
National Humane Education Society -Entertainment Issues:Captive Creatures. N.p., Oct. 2009.
Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
"Our Current Projects." Greenpeace. Greenpeace USA, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

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Scriber PUBLISHED August 18, 2014, Brad. "100,000 Elephants Killed by Poachers in Just
Three Years, Landmark Analysis Finds." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 18
Aug. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Sonia Van Gilder Cooke. "27 Animals Died During Making of The Hobbit, Say Handlers |
TIME.com." NewsFeed 27 Animals Died During Making of The Hobbit Say Handlers
Comments. TIME, 19 Nov. 2012. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
Szalay, Jessie. "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 06
Mar. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
"The Reality of Zoos." PETA The Reality of Zoos Comments. PETA, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.
"Wildlife Conservation." WorldWildlife.org. World Wildlife Fund, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.
"We Need Your Help!" NOAA. United States Department of Commerce, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
"Animals Were Harmed: Hollywood's Nightmare of Death, Injury, and Secrecy Exposed |
Hollywood Reporter Exclusive." Animals Were Harmed Hollywoods Nightmare of Death Injury
and Secrecy Exposed Hollywood Reporter Exclusive. The Hollywood Reporter, n.d. Web. 25
Mar. 2015.
"Zebra Mussel (Dreissena Polymorpha)." Zebra Mussel. Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources, n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.