NATURE SECTION

Have you ever wanted to swim with a whale shark? How does it feel knowing that our kids would never see tigers in movies when you grew up with Shere Khan from Mogli? Life outside our cities is more depressing than what we tend to think, these animals might not be with us anymore in the future, they could go extinct. You will soon find why if you keep reading.

 

Let’s start up with a gorgeous animal, the snow leopard. This snow felines, in the scientific world, are known as Panthera Uncia. Personally I prefer to continue calling them snow leopards. They live in 12 countries, among them China, Nepal and India. Did you know that in all those places there are only 4.000 exemplars left? This is due to hunting and that we are destroying their habitat, also because of climate change. They are also losing their major prey, the Ungulata, a group of animals including species such as the zebras and rhinos. If these animals go extinct it would not only affect the ecosystem, it would also affect the way of living of the locals.

 

Another victim of humans are the last 400 Sumatran Tigers, or as scientists call them, Panthera Tigris Sumatrae. They live on Sumatra, the name giver of the animals, an Indonesian island. This is the only species of tigers left in the Sunda Islands. The Bali and Javan tigers used to live there too, before they went extinct. There are three different reasons for its extinction: hunt, destruction of their habitat and the decrease of their natural preys. These animals are being hunted for their bones which are very valued in asian medicine. Furthermore, humans reduce the natural home of the sumatran tigers by creating palm oil and acacia plantations. 

 

Now we move on to whale-sharks, although scientists prefer to call them Rhinocodon Typus. These amazing creatures are considered the biggest fish on Earth with a spectacular length of 12 meters, the equivalent of a school bus. This 20 ton animal has a very pacific temperament and swims calmly alone through the ocean. The nutrition of the whale-sharks consists mostly of plankton, algae, crustaceans and little fish. Whale-sharks are the so-called “filter feeders”, they eat by filtering their food. They open their mouths letting water and plankton in, then they push out the water through special filters in their gills, leaving the food in their body. Did you know that filter feeders are viewed as “ecosystem engineers''? That's because they contribute to the clarification of water. They are considered an endangered species because of human irresponsible tourism, litter, fishing and oil spills. Sadly, this has made their population reduce by 50% in the last 75 years. Which means that only 7000 to 12000 of these creatures wander the ocean nowadays.

 

Last but not least we will talk about koalas, the cutest animal in the article. These adorable creatures usually live around 13 to 18 years, they can measure up to 85 cm and weigh about 4-15 kg. Koalas inhabit the eucalyptus forests of southeastern and eastern Australia. The Phascolarctos cinereus (their scientific name) spend most of their lives sleeping, an average of 20 hours a day. They still manage to eat in between the 4 remaining hours since they need around 650 g of eucalyptus leaves every day. However, compared to their napping time it’s nutrition seems to be a very secondary part of their lives. They might love sleeping but humans are making it very difficult for them. Deforestation is a concerning issue for these animals and the reason they are going extinct. A fun fact about koalas is that although they might look like teddy bears, they are not bears. They are actually marsupials which means they carry their young in a pouch. 

 

In conclusion, the animals that are talked about here and many more are extremely important to our environment, ecosystems and even to the life of locals. The main reasons for their disappearance are hunting, deforestation and pollution. If we don't starttaking action now animals like the one's we mentioned won't ever be known by or our succesors. So please, extinct animals extinction!