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Predators Serve a Purpose
Predators help maintain the natural balance within ecosystems. They are important components in the food chain. When animals eat, digestion releases energy, allowing them to function and survive. Plants are at the bottom of the food chain; herbivores like giraffes are the next level. Above them, predators like lions gain energy from eating herbivores. When food chains are disrupted, chaos ensues. Wolves hunt old, weak and diseased members of their prey species, for example, naturally culling deer herds and thereby improving their genetic viability and preventing starvation from overgrazing. When predators disappear, all animals and plants in delicately balanced ecosystems suffer.
Causes of Endangerment
Habitat segmentation and loss are major threats to predators. Their breeding and hunting ranges are reduced or destroyed by human construction of homes, buildings and roads; by timber harvesting; by encroaching farmlands and urban expansion. Another problem, pollution, is complex since water, air and ground pollution are interrelated. Illegal poaching and unregulated hunting are usually predators' biggest threats. Tigers, worth roughly $10,000 on the black market, number about 3,000 individuals left in the wild. Wolves, long extirpated from countries such as Scotland, Ireland and England, remain endangered in some U.S. states. Climate change like global warming leaves polar bears with almost nowhere to breed, live and hunt.
Extinction is Forever
Once a predator or its food source species disappears, it will never return. Three tiger subspecies -- Bali, Javan and Caspian -- have already vanished. All five remaining tiger subspecies are highly endangered. The South China tiger has only 20 to 30 wild members. The Arabian wolf might number only a little more than 600 individuals in the wild. Thousands of predators are already extinct, including the Tasmanian Wolf (which was actually a carnivorous marsupial), Haast's eagle, Barbary and Cape lions, the Arizona jaguar and Zanzibar leopard. According to The Sixth Extinction website, today's extinction rate is increasing rapidly due to human interference in natural ecosystems. It rivals historical mass extinctions such as the one that eliminated dinosaurs.
Solutions
In some cases remedies may be too little and too late. But it's not totally hopeless. Endangered predators and other animals need more protective legislation with much stricter enforcement. For example, poaching must be better monitored, and poaching penalties must drastically increase. The world needs more and expanded wildlife preserves, sanctuaries and heavily protected parks. Captive breeding and wildlife reintroduction programs must be increased, with even higher priorities. Public education must expand. Concerned individuals can volunteer directly with animal welfare organizations or donate money for such organizations' direct "hands on" wildlife protection projects.