Introduction-This semester I have been working on
this website for my Environmental Health class. The main purpose of this
website is to identify what we as a society are doing to the environment and
how this is causing problems to different ecosystems. In this website you will
see the detrimental effects that we cause to our environment. Have you ever
thought about what is happening to animals like the polar bear? They are losing
their entire habitat by global warming which is leading them to approach
extinction. There are about six billion people on earth today, and most of them
are thinking the same thing, "how can I help stop global warming".
Most people don't think one person can make a difference; so they don't change;
but the real question is, "is global warming an unstoppable force or is it
still containable"?
Polar Bears-In recent years arctic temperatures are at the highest that
have ever been recorded. This has a huge effect on the polar bear population.
The rise in temperature results in the melting of sea ice. This sea ice is much
needed for polar bears to hunt, rest and reproduce. Without the ice, polar
bears would struggle to survive. A study in the Hudson and James Bays has shown
that polar bears average weight in the past twenty years has dropped about 150
pounds. Now why would this happen? Most hypothesize that since the sea ice is
melting, it’s causing polar bears to swim further to find sea ice to rest and
hunt. Polar bears also use the ice for ice dens. A study showed that about half
of polar bears ice dens were located over a hundred miles off of the Alaskan
coast. This shows that without the ice, polar bears would be overpopulated on
land and this would create problems with the overpopulated human race. The
lack of sea ice also causes problems for other animals in that ecosystem that
polar bears feed on. A television show I saw on the National Geographic Channel
was doing a show on polar bears; it showed how they hunted different animal species.
One way they hunted for seals was digging a hole in the sea ice to expose the
seal and eventually capture it; but what if the sea ice was gone? Polar bears
are unable to catch seals in open water, so without the ice, they would starve.
That would take a huge part of the polar bears hunting strategy away. Polar
bears are not the only species that is struggling by global warming.
King Salmon-Global warming is affecting many species; another example
that I found was the King or Chinook salmon. The increase in temperature in
Alaska has increased the water temperature in the Yukon River. Fisherman in the
Yukon River noticed that at about 700 miles inland some of the salmon did not
smell right. Not only did the salmon have a terrible stench, they also noticed
that the fillet on the fish was oily and looked rotten. Studies showed that
about twenty to thirty percent of salmon were dying during their long 2,000
mile trip across Alaska trying to reach their spawning ground because of this
parasite. Scientists are hypothesizing that the increase in water temperature
is causing this parasite to be more abundant in the Chinook salmon.
