A loss of habitat is one of the main reasons animals are going extinct. Both natural and human activity is causing this. Development for housing, industry, and agriculture reduces the habitat of native organisms. Some of these can effect native species directly. For example, in the Amazon rainforest of South America, developers have cleared hundreds of maybe thousands of acres. The clearings are used for cattle ranches, logging, and urban uses.

Development can also endanger species indirectly. Some species, such as fig trees of the rainforest, may provide habitats for other species, plants and animals. As trees are are destroyed, species that depend on the tree habitat may also become endangered. Tree crowns provide habitat in the canopy, top layer, of the rainforest. Plants such as vines, fungi such as mushrooms, and insects such as butterflies live in the rainforest canopy. Along with hundreds of tropical birds and mammals such as monkeys. As trees are cut down, this habitat is lost for the animals, and these species are left with less room to live and reproduce.

There are so many more things that I could write about in this paper. There are so many things that people are doing to cause this extinction, but I’m going to leave it at the rainforest. Cutting down the rainforest doesn’t just affect the animals it affects us to. When the rainforest is chopped down we lose three fourths of our oxygen supply. When that happens the temperature rises, we don’t get the oxygen we need, and there is no future for anything. Thank you for reading and I hope that this message gets to you, because if we don’t do something now there will be nothing to do anything for in the future.