Every Day Is Special: Endangered Species Day

Showing posts with label Endangered Species Day. Show all posts

December 28 – Endangered Species Act Day

Posted on December 28, 2014

This is a busy time of year – and lots of people are recovering from (or still enjoying) overeating, partying, hosting, and traveling. It's hard to get most people to care about sea turtles and sei whales when they have three loads of laundry to do or brand new video games to play.

So Endangered Species Day is not today; it's the third Friday in May.

But today is the anniversary of the signing of the Endangered Species Act. On this date in 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the bill into law.

This law was designed to protect species that were in danger of going extinct – especially when the cause for extinction was humankind's growth or activities. The U.S. Supreme Court later decided that the intent was to “reverse the trend toward species extinction.”

Before this law was passed, there were laws that protected this creature and that other creature, and once in a while there were laws that protected certain types of creatures (such as migrating birds). One obvious creature to protect in the U.S. was the nation's symbol, the bald eagle.

But the Endangered Species Act helps to protect all the Endangered and Threatened species listed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Celebrate!

Check out this Kids Planet PDF about endangered species.

Be inspired by this article in Kid World Citizen.

Also on this date:

Mathematician and astronomer Thomas Henderson's birthday

Anniversary of the consecration of Westminster Abbey

Pledge of Allegiance Day

Anniversary of chewing gum patent

Anniversary of dishwasher patent

They're Always Changing the Map Day

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on:

December holidays
December birthdays
Historical anniversaries in December

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

May 16 – Endangered Species Day

Posted on May 16, 2014

The official website for Endangered Species Day offers downloadable materials and a list of events. There is also a nice slideshow of youth art about the theme. Check it out!

There is a new TV show called “Extant” that I have seen advertised recently. I don't know whether or not it will have something to do with species survival, but the word extant is the opposite of extinct. Obviously, a species is extinct if there is not one surviving organism of that species alive. If you have one or two or hundreds or billions of that species alive, it's extant.

But what about the term endangered? How low do populations have to drop for a species to be categorized as endangered? Are there other criteria for an endangered species?

The criteria is way too complicated for me to accurately describe it here. However, I will provide some comparison

Extinct – Scientists only call a species extinct when there have been careful surveys of the creature's known habitat at the appropriate time of day and year, and such widespread, long-lasting surveys leave no reasonable doubt that every last creature has died.

Extinct in the wild – When a population of organisms has been collected by zoos or rescue organizations in an effort to protect and breed them, usually with the hope that they can be reintroduced back into the wild – and when the exhaustive survey described above turns up no other members of that species, it is considered extinct in the wild.

Critically endangered (possibly extinct) – This unofficial category is used by some scientists when there are still unconfirmed sightings of a creature, or when there have not yet been widespread surveys to confirm a feared extinction.

Critically endangered – The criteria is too complex for me to represent accurately here, but I can give you some idea: if the population of a creature has dropped 90% over the past ten years, and seems to be still dropping, and/or there are fewer than 50 mature individuals still alive, and/or the chances of extinction over the next decade are 50% or more, it's likely categorized as CE.

Endangered – This is more along the lines of a 70% drop over the past decade, and/or fewer than 250 mature individuals, and/or the likelihood of extinction in the next decade is about 20%.

Vulnerable – Around 50% population drop, and/or population of fewer than 1000 mature individuals, and/or the chance of extinction in the wild is estimated at 10% within the next decade.