Hobbies And Interests
Logging
The economic pressure of the logging industry is the single greatest threat to temperate rainforests. Removing individual trees causes soil erosion on a large scale because the trees are very large and heavy. As more trees are removed, wildlife becomes threatened due to habitat loss. Eventually, the removal of too many trees causes fundamental change in the ecosystem, with too much soil washing away, too much silt entering streams, and too few breeding spaces for wildlife.
Climate Change
In slightly drier summer months, the trees of this ecosystem derive a great amount of their water needs from fog. Shifts in weather patterns due to climate change, such as an increase in El Nino frequency and intensity, are linked with greatly decreased amounts of fog generated along the Pacific coast during these months, endangering the plant community. Researchers have measured significant reductions in fog levels over the last century all along the Pacific coast.
Development
During the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, human development along the Pacific coast exploded, beginning with the California Gold Rush of 1849. As old-growth forests were leveled and milled, the lumber produced created cities like San Francisco, built right on top of the cleared ground.
Invasive Species
As people, planes, ships and trains travel thousands of miles to visit temperate rainforests, they unknowingly carry along small hitchhikers from every branch of life on their shoes, luggage, cargo or vehicle. A small number of these survive and thrive in the alien ecosystem. These invasive species crowd out native life, diminishing biodiversity and upsetting delicate food webs. Temperate rainforests contend with invasive species such as Jubata grass and the water mold pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death, among hundreds of others.