Can Alligators Be Saved - Report Example

Can Alligators Be Saved An American alligator is larger than a Chinese alligator. It measures around 13ft and weighs approximately 220kg. Most of the American alligators live in the Southeastern parts of the America especially North Carolina and Texas. They are common in these areas because they are characterized by marshes, swamps and wetlands which are the habitat they like most. Other than residing in United States, the American alligator can also be found in some areas around North Atlantic in Eurasia which is where they are thought to have originated from. Their upper side color range from olive to gray or even black, but some are brown while their lower sides (undersides) are usually cream colored. They have very strong bites due to the strength of their over 70 teeth and powerful jaws. They have no one fixed diet; this therefore means that their food ranges from invertebrates to mammals. The food they take at any one time depends in their stomach contents and capacity at that moment. The invertebrates and small fish are usually eaten by the younger alligators while the older one eats amphibians, snakes, turtles among other prey. The Chinese alligator on the other hand as mentioned earlier is smaller in size than the American alligator. This alligator is only about 5ft long and 36kg weight. It resides mostly in Eastern parts of China along rivers and lakes; it likes these areas because they are wetlands and have marshes. Their diet is the same as that of the American alligator. This species is however being endangered because of being killed by humans who use its meat for medicinal purposes. Even though they can take care of themselves, the poisoning of some of their food like rats and the constant human hunting still reduces their number and their defenses as well. As mentioned earlier, the Chinese alligator’s favorable habitat is the wetlands. Their most common habitat is the Yangtze landscape which harbors a lot of freshwater and lots of marshes where a variety of their diet like the fish and other aquatic fauna can be found. This however has not been the case recently. The habitat is being destroyed by the landscape being made to be rice fields. The planting of rice even though beneficial to the high population of China has made the alligators extinct as they die for lack of food, poisoning (which is carried out by the farmers to kill the rats in those fields) and even being killed by humans. The drainage of the rivers is also affecting the wetlands and further contributing to the extinction of the alligator in China (Thorbjarnarson and Wang, 208). The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) of China has facts about the destruction of the alligator habitat in China. According to them, not only are the habitat areas along the river basins being reclaimed as farmland, destruction of the vegetation in the hilly areas which are known to be sources of water for the river has also contributed to the habitat destruction. This is because without water, there are no marshes and hence no food for the alligators as well as no accommodation for them to live and also procreate in hence further reduction in their population. Other than lack of water and marshes, the use of pesticides and other hazardous chemicals and fertilizers have killed most aquatic life which the alligators depend on for food. The loss is therefore double since without food the alligator die thereby increasing their extinction rate. Continuation of these activities will render the species totally extinct in future if nothing is done about it. In order to reverse the trend mentioned above, humans need to take it upon themselves to nurture the alligator’s habitats. This is possible through establishment of various strategies. One strategy that can be employed is the setting aside several areas with marsh and freshwater and take the remaining alligators to reside there. The other strategy is to have ways for the human and the alligators to exist in the same area without one population harming the other. This therefore means a restriction in the use of hazardous chemicals and fertilizers and instead using other agricultural methods lay biological measures to improve their productivity. This will reduce the deaths of the aquatic life and in turn the death of the alligators (Thorbjarnarson and Wang, 227). Winters are cold and unbearable seasons for not only humans but also the alligator population. The habitat of the alligators worsens the situation and season for them. This is because they reside along rivers and lakes where the temperatures are usually way lower than other areas. During the winter season, the temperatures along these habitation areas drops even further than usual rendering the place out of bounds for the alligators. This therefore requires them to have survival tactics which will make them survive the cold season by being alive and keeping their off springs alive by all means possible. Chinese alligators for example undertake all their activities during the warm season and leave nothing to do but brumate (hibernate) during winter. The short warm season is characterized by mating and eating enough food to last them throughout the whole winter season. The alligators eat a lot of food and this food helps to keep them warm in the winter bunkers and holes which they brumate to during the cold season. After the winter has passed, they emerge again and repeat this cycle since the warm season is shorter than the winter one. They therefore hunt enough food and eat it to last them for long periods. The caves or winter burrows are warmed by the body temperatures of the alligators and also their openings warmed by sunlight during the warm season and this warmth remains for a while. With their ability to withstand very low temperatures and hence slowing down their body metabolism rate, they conserve more food and energy which enables them survives the cold winters. This document stipulate the results of an experimental research which involved conservation of the Chinese alligators under close observation and then finally releasing them to their natural habitats and monitoring how they will fair and survive and what will hinder those that will not survive from doing so and then removing the hindrance or barrier. This was the main goal of this experimental research (Thorbjarnarson and Wang, 220). One objective was to try and save the remaining alligators from total extinction. The other objective is to create a free-existing wild type of alligator that can adapt to any environment whether natural or not and still survive perfectly well. The other was to give the government time to restore the habitat of the alligators and put measures to protect them from human population while at the same time preventing the few remaining endangered from extinction before the final measures were established. With the extinction and the steady decline of the Chinese alligators in China, the government of China in collaboration with conservation groups and scientists, marines and biologists should come up with measures to save the remaining species and prevent total extinction due to the lack of proper habitat and food for them. There are several things the government can do to accomplish this and they are discussed below. One way is to team up to improve these natural habitats for the alligators. This includes efforts to clean up along the Yangtze River and the hills that supply water to the river. The and improvement includes separating the farmers and the alligators, reforestation in the hills and building of alligator catchment areas which will be regularly monitored and stocked with enough food and regular cleaning done to avoid poisons and fertilizers. The other measure is hunt for other sites in China where habitation of the alligators can be permanently placed. This is in order to increase the breeding areas and increase the number of the already dead alligators. It is also suitable to have areas that the alligators will be in a natural habitat that is free of human activity and population. Separate area will also mean that the farming along the Yangtze River will continue and so will the population of the alligators. This way it’s a win-win situation for the alligators, the farmers and the government in general. The other solution is to breed alligators and then transfer them to the chosen sites to start life there. This will ensure a pure breed that has not had environmental problems and hence will continue the increasing of alligators that are healthy. The separate breeding will also prevent further decline in number of alligators before new sites or their habitat along the river is cleaned. Constant monitoring is also possible with the newly transferred alligators in their new environment. The Saint Louis Zoo is a sort of animal conservation area especially for the animals that are almost becoming extinct. They had observed that the Chinese alligator’s population was declining at a rather alarming rate and the government had not yet come up with measures to prevent or address this problem fully. They took an alligator and gave it refuge in the zoo and tried as much as possible to protect it and maintain its almost natural habitat. By so doing, they saved the alligator from extinction. When the government started putting up measures to protect this endangered species and when the zoo management thought proper measures had been taken, they released the captive alligator from the zoo into its natural habitat with the hopes that it will survive and breed to increase the already dwindled alligator population. This noble course saved this alligator to survive and help increase its population for the future. A study conducted by Chinese Academy of Science in 2009 about how global warming may help to save the Chinese alligator revealed several facts about both global warming and the endangered Chinese alligator. One of these facts is that global warming with its rising temperatures makes the alligators fast-forward their egg-laying days by around 8 to 10 days. This has the effect of increasing the number of eggs laid by the alligator and hence increasing their population in general in the end. The other fact unveiled is that the temperature fluctuations that occur due to global warming influences the ratio of male to female alligators hatched. This is so because the sex of a baby alligator depends on the temperature. Warmer temperatures breed more female than male alligators. The fluctuating temperatures also influence their food hunting and bromating. Saving of the almost extinct species will require much more than the government has already done. It will involve changing even the mentality of the Chinese population to stop seeing the alligators as a cure for cancer and other diseases but see it as just any other wild creature that can earn them more in tourism activities. The steps taken so far by the government, non-governmental organization and other individuals has gone a long way in ensuring that this endangered species will remain around for a while and hopeful will breed and increase their population to reduce the decline. Work Cited http://animals.jrank.org/pages/3631/Alligators-Caimans-Alligatoridae-DIET.html http://english.cas.cn/Ne/CN/200909/t20090923_43321.shtml http://www.saveyourlogo.org/en/programs/crocodile/chinese-alligator/ http://www.srel.edu/outreach/factsheet/AlligatorBrochure.pdf http://www.stlzoo.org/animals/abouttheanimals/reptiles/alligatorsandcrocodiles/chinesealligat or/ http://www.wwfchina.org/aboutwwf/miniwebsite/25ann/wwfinchina/E/species/species.shtm?c ode=14 Thorbjarnarson, John and Wang, Xiaoming. The Chinese alligator: ecology, behavior, conservation and culture. Maryland: John Hopkins University Press, 2010. Read More