Today, the rate of extinction is occurring 1,000 to 10,000 times faster. Many animals are going extinct because of human activity. There are many reasons of how the human population has caused animals to go extinct. Many people overhunt animals that they don’t need, causing the animal population to dwindle down. Another reason is that people usually over harvesting. Over harvesting decreases the amount of species by eliminating more organisms than the ecosystem can reproduce. Since there are less organisms living in an area, there will be not as much biodiversity. Another example is fishing. Fishing is one of the examples of over harvesting that has decreased biodiversity. More examples could include the introduction of nonnative species, the spread of disease and habitat degradation or loss.

As more and more species go extinct, they are taken out of the food chain. Animals that ate the species have to find new sources of food since they can not eat the extinct animal. If they don’t find food they might starve. This can damage the populations of other plants or animals. For example if a predator goes extinct, the prey's population that the predador had for a source of food can proliferate, unbalancing local ecosystems. Each species that gets extinct provokes the loss of more species within its ecosystem. Humans need healthy ecosystems for our environment. Without clean, healthy forests we won’t have clean ecosystems. The same goes for the grasslands, rivers, oceans and other ecosystems. If we don’t change anything we wont have clean air, water, or land.

Many animals that we’ve heard in story books have been predicted by scientists to go extinct. Take the lion for example. The earliest fossils of an animal that resembled a lion were found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and are estimated to be up to 2 million years old. They have been on this earth for 2 million years. Many people have used them in storybooks as well as other animals like tigers and elephants. Scientists have estimated that the human impact on animals continues to grow its current rate, some of the world's most iconic animals like the elephants, rhinos, lions and tigers will go extinct.

There are ways you can help. You can support organizations that help these causes or you can take small actions for example eating less meat or recycling. Even you can make a difference. 

Here are some links of organizations to help animals

Ways to help:

https://defenders.org/blog/2022/05/how-we-can-help-endangered-species

Places to donate:

https://secure3.convio.net/sdzoo/site/Donation2;jsessionid=00000000.app30053a?idb=2077666264&df_id=15651&mfc_pref=T&15651.donation=form1&NONCE_TOKEN=35A802EFD1FB072F964E95A66DE78F7F&15651_donation=form1