This document discusses how human interactions have negatively impacted species through activities like overhunting, pollution, and habitat destruction, but also notes how awareness and conservation efforts have helped restore some populations. It provides examples of how pesticides like DDT devastated bird populations but bans enabled recovery, and how neonicotinoids now threaten bees. The document advocates balancing human needs with sustainable wildlife management through techniques like regulated hunting and reintroductions.

1. 12/4/2015 Research Project
Essay
Potentially devastating human
interactions with species and our
positive changes to help bring
them back from the brink
Stacey Holla
ENVIRONMENTAL TECHINICAN PROGRAM
NIAGARA COLLEGE
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
Class: COMM 1133(55)

2. Name: Stacey Holla
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
COMM 1133(55)
Friday, November 27th 2015
Page 1 of 6
For billions of years, the Earth has gone through cycles of creation and extinction. It
should be common knowledge that 90% of all species to walk to the Earth at one point in time or
another, have gone extinct, mostly from natural disasters like meteors. Today, unfortunately, it
is humans who are causing most of the hardships in species survival. Humans are a keynote
species; our environment would be very different, or cease to function in some aspects, without
us. We change our ecosystems to suit ourselves, not truly thinking or caring, about what
happens to everything. We use toxins on our crops to kill off species of wildlife we view as
pests; we take over habitats to be used for farmland to grow those same crops; we hunt wild
animals to the point of extinction for the thrill and sport of it. However, change is possible.
With education and awareness, we are able to change the views of society and help arrest the
damage we have done, even reverse the negative effects we have had on our environment.
Human society started out as a hunter/gatherer species. As we grew and developed our
society, we discovered technologies to make life easier, such as agriculture. The ability to
cultivate a reliable food source was a major contribution to the eventual rise of human to the top
of the ecosystem. Other species benefited from agriculture as well like rodents and insects. As
these “pest”, as we viewed them, thrived by eating the crops, new technologies were needed to
cull their numbers, protecting the crops. Pesticides were developed and in the early 20th century
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT for short, was the one used in abundance, without any
proper research. The effect though, was the thinning of the egg shells of birds of prey, like Bald
Eagles and Peregrine Falcons. Peregrine Falcons were hit hard, so hard in fact that there were
fears the birds were gone for good. Scientists and activists got together and raised their voices
causing governments to take notice and make changes. In 1975, only 324 pairs of Peregrine

3. Name: Stacey Holla
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
COMM 1133(55)
Friday, November 27th 2015
Page 2 of 6
Falcons were left in the U.S., and in 1999 they made it off the endangered species list and have
numbers of more than 6000 with help of breed/release programs (Journey with Nature, n.d).
This increase had been directly related to the ban on DDT as well as tireless recovery effects of
many people.
A new example has arisen recently in the news. Neonicotinoids have had a similar effect
on the populations of pollinating insects. Studies have shown that these chemicals adversely
affect pollinating insects, specifically honey bees, messing up their ability to forage in the wild.
It has also believed to be linked to the rise in a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, or
CCD, where the majority of worker bees just disappear from the hive leaving the queen behind
with little or no support caring for the immature bees and the colony dies (Colony Collapse
Disorder, 2015). Ontario has made history by becoming North America’s first to restrict their
use which is “…blamed for the decline in bees and other pollinators” (Atkins, 2015). With hope,
the removal of neonicotinoids will do for bees as the removal of DDT did for birds of prey.
Despite human views, each species in an ecosystem is important and needed.
Ecosystems, like machines, need the right “parts” to function right. Ecosystems are a
large scale system of checks and balance, with species populations living in balance with one
another. Humans love to re-configure their environment, removing what is perceived as ugly or
useless and replacing it with something pleasant. Removal of species, especially a fellow
keynote, can cause huge issues. Beavers, for example, are known as nature’s engineers as they
alter the landscape and create unique ecosystems that do not exist without them.

4. Name: Stacey Holla
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
COMM 1133(55)
Friday, November 27th 2015
Page 3 of 6
European fur traders hunted beavers to the point of extinction in most of eastern Canada.
With their numbers in steep decline, it soon became quite obvious how important they were in
their ecosystem and a protection act was put in place. The flooded areas caused by their dams,
called beaver ponds, create unique an ecosystem, rich in biodiversity of both flora and fauna.
Due to their importance as an ecosystem manager, places started to try to re-introduce the
beavers back, soon realizing it was not as easy as just sticking a pair or two of beavers in an area
and just letting nature happen. Beavers proved the need to get the balance of a population
correct, as they were too easy to re-introduce and re-populated quicker than natural predators
could take out : “On Prince Edward Island, where beavers have been eradicated and re-
introduced twice, most recently in the 1940’s, the province is now culling the population”
(Backhouse, 2012). Other animals prove easier to re-introduce and maintain a sustainable
population over time. Wild turkey proved to be one of these species, it seemed rather easy to
balance a turkey population than a beaver population.
Overhunting had played a key role in the decimation of wild turkey in Ontario by the
early 1900’s, but so did habitat loss from the logging, mining and shipping industries booming
during that time period. By 1909, wild turkey could no longer be found anywhere in Southern
Ontario, yet further north and in neighbouring provinces, an over abundant turkey population
was the problem. The solution, wild turkey were trapped from those over populated areas and
released back in protected areas of Southern Ontario; Now there are over 70, 000 birds, a level
found to be a sustainable population for the habitat (Wildlife Management, 2015). Over time, we
will get better at the balance act that is an ecosystem, and in the meantime we try to right the

5. Name: Stacey Holla
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
COMM 1133(55)
Friday, November 27th 2015
Page 4 of 6
wrongs of our overhunting and destruction of habitat through re-introduction programs,
protection acts and hunting laws.
Going back to our ancestral roots, Humans are carnivores, hunting animals for protein.
Since the agriculture age, ranching, or farming animals, have become more and more the way we
get our meat, such as chicken, beef and pork. Some meats, on the other hand, just are not the
same when farmed and thus the need to hunt them in the wild, like deer, moose and elk. The
problem is finding a balance between feeding the hungry masses today and still having more to
hunt for days to come. Elks, for example, were hunted to the point of expiration. This caused a
big problem as it was a major food source for both the aboriginal tribes and the artic carnivores.
The government faced a dilemma, they needed to re-introduce the elk, but needed to first find a
way to balance the needs of the elk with the dietary needs of predators and Humans.
The answer to the conundrum was sustainable hunting. Allowing the elk a chance to re-
establish their population before allowing hunting of them and then only allowing hunts when
population was healthy enough: “Ontario’s Elk Management plan (2010) allows the
consideration of elk hunting once a population is considered self –sustaining” (Wildlife
Management, 2015). Strict guidelines are outlined by the government to define what is
considered a sustaining population, as well as what type of hunt or how many animals are
allowed to be hunted, for not only elk but also moose and deer populations (Elk Management
Plan, 2014). With sustainable hunting, balance between Human needs and the needs of various
species can be found to ensure healthy, sustainable populations.

6. Name: Stacey Holla
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
COMM 1133(55)
Friday, November 27th 2015
Page 5 of 6
Humans are not the most considerate species to have to share a planet with. We pollute
the earth, water and air with toxic chemicals, take over almost everything around us and do
everything to the extreme like hunting. We also have started to wake up and grow up, realizing
we have a responsibility to our future generations, to leave a planet worth living on. We have
shown our potential to open our eyes to the big picture and adapt our ways to be a help, not a
hindrance, on our co-habitators of this small planet we call home. We all have to learn to share
the planet, it is the only one we have.

7. Name: Stacey Holla
Teacher: Keith Hobbs
COMM 1133(55)
Friday, November 27th 2015
Page 6 of 6
Bibliography
Atkins, E. (2015, 06 09). Ontario restricts use of pesticides blamed for decline of bee
populations. Globe and Mail. Retrieved 11 05, 2015, from
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/ontario-unveils-first-restrictions-on-
class-of-pesticides/article24874268/
Backhouse, F. (2012, 12). Rethinking the Beaver. Canadian Geographic. Retrieved 10 05, 2015,
from Canadian Geographic:
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/dec12/beaver2.asp
Colony Collapse Disorder. (2015, 11 28). Retrieved from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
Elk Management Plan. (2014). Retrieved 11 05, 2015, from Province of Ontario:
http://www.ontario.ca/document/elk-management-plan
Journey with Nature : Peregrein Falcons. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 05, 2015, from Nature.org:
http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/indiana/journeywi
thnature/peregrine-falcons.xml
Wildlife Management. (2015, 10 07). Retrieved 11 05, 2015, from Province of Ontario:
http://www.ontario.ca/page/wildlife-management