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Endangered Animals And The Struggle To Save Them

By: Lucien Oliveira

The 21th century has begun, and with it came the perfecting of new "weapons" to fight against several species extinction. Biotechnology is what is now being used to help getting species out of the list of endangered animals. But biotech on its own is not the answer. Saving natural habitat is essential and involves commitment on our part since we are the ones to put a stop to what we started: overexploitation, deforestation, pollution, over-hunting, CO2 emissions, etc.

Cloning is one of the "weapons" being used to recreate animal endangered of becoming extinct. A project to recuperate the European mouflon population has been carried out successfully. The European mouflon is a wild sheep that inhabits the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Other ongoing projects involve the banteng (a species of Asian cattle), small cats such as the African wild cat, several antelope species, and even the giant panda, which China has being doing cloning using rabbits as surrogate mothers for the cubs. But many critics say that cloning just give a false sense of security. They say it shouldn't be our main "weapon", but a backup element.

This fight has definitely expanded to the laboratory. Techniques such as artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and inter species embryo transferences are being used to help endangered animals to breed. It is biotech conservationism. In 1975, Kurt Benirschke, a physician, started the first "Frozen Zoo". He started gathering cells from the most endangered species such as cheetahs, pandas, chimpanzees, scimitar-horned oryxes, black-footed ferrets, and California condors, having in mind a backup resource to fight extinction. Nowadays, many scientists and physicians are combining assisted breeding, wildlife management, and re-introduction of animals bred in captivity to have successful results.

However, biotechnology is not the only answer. There are several measures to be taken in order to have a satisfactory outcome in our fight to save endangered animals. Stopping natural habitat destruction is one of them. There are many items in the list of actions we have to perform in order to have really good results. Many good examples of actions with great results are the conservation areas, which are sanctuaries to the species protected by it. For instance, the Royal Chitwan National Park, which protects the Indian rhino and the Bengal tiger, and the protected areas in Madagascar, which include tropical rainforests, lime stones, wetlands, and thus, a variety of animals. There are also several marine conservation areas which account for the protection of sea turtles and many marine fish. All these actions are part of a greater fight: mankind fight to restore life on Earth back to reasonable conditions, including all endangered animals.

Article Source: http://www.articleresourceindex.com

Lucien Oliveira is a freelance writer with strong interest nature, wildlife and earth. You can find more wildlife turtles and turtle food . Read more about fish marine and other wildlife.

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