Endangered Species Quizzes Online & Trivia

Functional extinction is a term that is used to describe a certain type of extinction. Certain factors must take place in order for the species of animals can be described as functional extinction. These factors include that the animal does not even have any fossils left. They do not contribute to the ecosystem or food chain based on the population that is still left on the Earth. Next, the population of this animal species is not reproducing and is not showing signs of growing. Some of these animals that fall under the category of functional extinction include the South China tiger, Ivory-billed woodpecker, Christmas Island forest skink, Christmas Island shrew, Baiji dolphin, Pinta Island tortoise, Christmas Island pipistrelle and the Northern White rhino.

Extinct in the wild is a term given by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It categorizes animals that do not exist in nature by themselves, but only in conservatories or reserves. Basically, very few of animals with this label are alive, and none can be located in the wild. Animal species can make a comeback from this distinction if they are bred in captivity, released into the wild, and maintain viability over a long period of time by reproducing successfully. However, reintroduction can be difficult or unsuccessful because certain traits and survival techniques were not passed down from parent to offspring. This means that oftentimes, reintroduced animals die off and revert back to 'extinct in the wild' status.

Poaching is illegal yet popular in almost every area of the world. Unfortunately, there are several reasons for this. The first reason being the fact that many developing nations don't have opportunities for work and to make a living—those that do have those opportunities make very little doing so. There is also a high demand for endangered or exotic animals. To meet this demand, poachers will kill or capture wildlife to sell at a high price, often to the highest bidder. Even in the United States, hunters will poach by harvesting animals out of season or on land that is supposed to be protected. Regardless of location, it's popular because it's unlikely to be caught and if caught, punishment is not severe.

There are several ways that endangered animals are being protected or conserved. One of these ways include the Endangered Species Act signed into effect by President Nixon in 1973. This act prevents endangered wildlife from being harmed, protects habitats essential to survival, and creates plans to raise population numbers. It also provides resources to Native American tribes, landowners, and individual states. On a global scale, different organizations and countries are creating nature preserves and cracking down on illegal hunting, poaching, and overfishing. Unfortunately, there is a high demand on the black market for exotic or endangered animals and the penalties for hunting, trapping, and poaching are still not harsh enough to prevent it.

There are thousands of thousands of living organisms in our environment, varying from animals to plants and to the smallest microorganisms. These living entities in their own group form balanced feeding enablement for the general ecosystem in the form of what is referred to as the food chain. A seem tragedy that is setting in is due to the extinction of these organisms in our environment as civilization and urbanization are increasing. These species of living organisms are becoming threatened and endangered. Threatened and endangered are two good terms that can be used to refer to and relate well with this kind of scenario. Threatened in the sense that a species or organism is either threatening another, or it's being threatened by another organism, which is making some species going into extinction. Endangered also refer to a risky living by organisms, and this phenomenon also leads to extinction. Extinction is actually a state of an organism being removed from existence due to harmful or fatal occurrence.

The most recently animal to go completely extinct is probably the Bramble Cay melomys. They resemble a big rat. They were listed as extinct in 2016. Many other animals have been listed as endangered more recently than 2016 but not extinct. Extinct means that there are no other animals of that species on Earth. They are not in the wild and they are not in captivity either. The last extinct animal to go on the extinction list took place in 2009 and it is Christmas Island pipistrelle. This is a type of bat. Many times these animals become extinct because their habitat is destroyed and they live in areas that have many different natural disasters occurring. Then they can’t survive in the area.

Reforestation could potentially have a lot to do with the repopulation of endangered species. When the forest begins to thrive again, animals start to have homes. This means that they have a chance to do well and repopulate. The Ziwuling Forest Area in China is a prime example of this theory after 20 years of reforestation efforts. Now, scientists are able to photograph plenty of rare species including golden pheasants, roe deer, and red foxes. This example had the help of the national government, scientists, and some of the local population in their efforts to rebuild the forest and help with repopulation. Reforestation only goes so far, though. If there are no efforts to prevent illegal hunting and poaching, bringing back the population could all be for naught.

There are many endangered animals today. This means that their species is dying fast within a certain period of time. This usually refers to hundreds of these animals getting killed for a number of reasons and this is taking place within about 10 years. The most endangered animal today is the amur leopard. With its spots on its fur, many people like to make fur coats and wraps from its fur. This causes poachers and hunters to avidly go after these animals and kill them to make money for their fur. Today, less than one hundred of these animals exist both in the wild and in captivity. People and animal rights groups have tried to save this animal ever since it was deemed endangered in 1996.

Bees are one of the most important resources in the world—in fact, it has been studied and shown that if bees go extinct, humans will die out in about 4 years after because nothing will be pollinating our food. This begs the question how this important species became endangered. Truth is, humans have been careless over a number of years. We've used pesticides that are harmful to these insects in order to keep other bugs from our food and have contributed greatly to climate change. These two factors are huge, but there are also parasites that can only reproduce in bee colonies as well as problems with disease in bee populations. Luckily, there have been recent movements to save the bees and people learning the art of beekeeping both for honey and helping these insects.

Conserved environments or sanctuaries were created so that they would protect certain species of animals and try to help repopulate them over time. However, not all conserved environments can protect these animals. It really depends upon why the animal went extinct. The black rhinos are extinct and there were several different sanctuaries for rhinos in the area. However, they became extinct because they may have been dying off faster than reproducing. In a conserved environment like a sanctuary, the rhinos would be together, but there would be more rhinos in the wild. Therefore, this way of helping them would stop poachers from killing then but may also cause them less likely to reproduce. However, sanctuaries should continue because this is probably a rare situation.

Yes, there are certain ways that a species of animals can be saved after they have reached functional extinction. However, in most cases they don’t succeed in getting out of extinction once they have been termed as functionally extinct. Usually, animals that are in smaller populations at the time of extinction are considered functionally extinct. However, there are ways in which these animals that are in medium or larger populations may either not reach functional extinction or they may be able to get out of being considered functionally extinct. Like any kind of extinction, these animals would have to be in a sanctuary for those animals where they could easily survive and easily live in a habitat that is close to their environment in the wild.

Sometimes, people may think that certain animals are extinct, but they aren’t. They may think this because these animals may have been on an extinct list. Another reason is because they group all of one species together and think that the whole group is extinct even though it is only one small species within that group. For instance, people realized recently that bees were put on the endangered list in the U.S., but it is only one small species of bees and not all of them. The giant Palouse earthworm was believed to have been extinct several decades ago, but they can be found in the northwestern parts of the United States. Another animal believed to be extinct but can be spotted in the wild include the terror skunk.