Animal crackers no more?

 

By: Josh Leach

 

Animal crackers have been a favorite childhood snack since the Nabisco Company began production in 1902.  However, the company may need to retire several of their iconic animal figures within the next 12 years.  Tigers, bears, hippos, elephants, giraffes, and lions are all either classified as endangered or threatened.  Environmentalists are witnessing a plummet in the populations of these animals.  Gone are the warnings of rare South American butterflies dying out, because the devastating effects of habitat destruction, over hunting, pollution, and climate change are now more apparent than ever as the most well known species face extinction.

Just how desperate are the world’s animals?  Well, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation has surveyed nine subspecies of giraffe.  Their populations span from the Masai giraffe at 37,000 to the West African giraffe at a mere 300.  According to National Geographic, “Only about 3,200 tigers can be found in the wild today—a far cry from the iconic cat's situation a century ago, when 100,000 tigers roamed vast stretches of the Asian continent.”  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service believes only 500 grizzly bears are currently living in North America.  Most shocking of all, only 250 lions are left in West Africa.  These animals are always the first to be introduced to young children, but soon they will no longer exist.

The vast majority of people in the world are ignorant of this oncoming disaster.  When asked how many tigers are living in the wild, Austin Hill said, “Around four million.”  He was close to the general consensus of Seckman students, which estimated the world’s tiger population at a million.  They were shocked to discover how close tigers actually are to extinction (only 3,200 left).  In fact, some biologists claim the genetic diversity in a population that small is simply too low for the species to recover.  Inbreeding has already become a huge issue in environmental preserves.  Hopefully, the probable extinction of these big cats will finally bring the severity of this situation to the attention of the public.

People are wondering how to prevent the continuation of the sixth mass extinction in the earth’s history.  Humans have accounted for the extinction of thousands of species since the beginning of civilization.  Josh Kurosz believes, “We should take whatever measures are necessary to conserve our vital resources.”  Ways to end this environmental catastrophe have been tiresomely repeated for over two centuries.  Plants and animals require space to live, and suburbanization has progressively eliminated forests and grasslands.  Furthermore, consumerism has destroyed rainforests to create disposable milk cartons, and mines have ripped into mountains to make soda cans.  Pollution is the greatest of all threats.  School buses emit 270 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer.  A student’s trip to school can release pounds of pollution.  Climate change has been responsible for four out of the five greatest extinctions in the planet’s history.  Carpooling, recycling, reusing materials, and countless other environmentally friendly options exist.

The future is up to everyone alive today.  The human race must redefine its place in the world.  If mankind continues to exert its will over the natural world, then there will soon be nothing left to lord over.  People must make up their minds on whether they want to live in a world completely bare of natural beauty.  Will animal crackers be the only thing left to remind future generations of what they have lost?