The Amazon Rainforest has been experiencing a heat wave and severe drought for several weeks and it is affecting all the wildlife in that area. In certain areas of the Brazilian Amazon, there is very dense leaf coverage making it easier for fires to start and spread. Over 7,000 fires were reported in September (with some of those being controlled fires). There was recorded water temperature reaching a record high of over 100° Fahrenheit last month, with temperatures expected to rise if nothing changes. With these extreme temperatures, there have been reports of thousands of fish floating on the river and hundreds of river dolphins washing up on the banks.
There are a handful of river dolphin species–Amazon River Dolphin, Baiji, Indus River Dolphin, Tucuxi, Irrawaddy Dolphin, and many more–all of which are either endangered or critically endangered. Dolphins help to control the fish population and they are great indicators of an alive and thriving ecosystem. When there are dolphins dying it shows that something is horribly wrong.
The rainforest is burning by the minute and there is going to be more wildlife loss if something doesn’t change soon. I don’t want one of my favorite animals to go extinct because of climate change, at least not in my lifetime. An example of something you could do to help is to reduce your paper intake. A handful of the fires that were reported last month were because people were trying to access other parts of the forest to cut trees for paper.
Do you think that another river dolphin species will go extinct in our lifetime?
Do you plan on making any changes to help? If so, how?
Do you think the water temperatures will keep rising, stay the same, or fall? Why?
Replies
Good topic choice and well done Chloe!
Sadly I think that another river dolphin species will go extinct in my lifetime because climate change is just getting worse. I think they will start to fall in a while because people are trying to stop these fires.
If the oceans and rivers keep getting polluted and damaged, then there definetly would be a possibility some dolphin species could go extinct. It's very sad to think about, but the good knews is it can be simple do prevent. Do the right thing and through away trash and keep clean the environment you may be in.
I think that there will be dolphin species that will go extinct in the near future, unless many people make plans to help. The forest fire problem will most likely continue to get worse because fires will progressively get worse unless something changes soon. I think, unless the fires stop or slow down, the water temperatures will keep rising slowly.
I think that if we keep polluting our oceans and rivers, and continue hunting these animals we might lose dolphins and many other species of sea creatures in our lifetime even though they have been living here longer than us just because of our human intervention with nature.
I think that it's sad that some people don't think that what they're doing might be affecting the environment and the creatures living in it. Hopefully, more and more people will make an effort to help save the animals.
I hope these dolphins won't be extinct in my lifetime but they might. I would help if I get the chance dolphins are such cool animals they are very intelligent and it thought correctly can do tricks and speak to humans.
I personally do not know for sure if another river dolphin species will go extinct in my lifetime, but I have a feeling at least one species will die off. I would make changes to my behavior to help the environment and for the animals if lots of other people did as well. I think the water temperature will continue to rise as time goes on.
I understand what you're saying about only making conservation efforts if other people are too. I also think that even though it's sad, some dolphin species will go extinct in the next 50 years.
I think that a river dolphin species may go extinct in the wild. However, I think that institutions that prevent these species from going extinct will raise these dolphins in captivity so that they won't go extinct. Trying to be more mindful of paper usage could help prevent companies from chopping down trees in the Amazon, making it easier for the wildlife. I think that the temperatures will keep on rising as the trees are being cut down, but if the drought ends I think that the temperature will fall again.
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