‘The Book of Extinct Creatures,’ An Excerpt

Climate Change

Different places in the world experience different weather! Rainforests are wet and hot. Deserts are hot and dry. We call this a climate—a pattern of weather in a particular place.

Plants and animals possess qualities that help them survive their native climates. So when the climate changes (from things like carbon dioxide emissions), entire ecosystems fall out of balance.

Poaching

In the wild, sometimes animals are hunted illegally. Money can be a motivator. People know that the ivory of an elephant’s tusk, for example, is considered extremely valuable in certain parts of the world.

Other people want to own exotic pets, so they’ll poach them from their homes in the wild. But when large numbers of a species are captured or killed, there is the risk of extinction.

Loss of Habitat

This is when an animal
loses its home. Loss of habitat can happen when things including deforestation and climate change occur. It can also result from humans building new homes or roads or factories. In the process, sometimes an animal’s ecological environment can be polluted.

When their home is no longer habitable, the animal has three options: adapt, migrate to a new ecosystem, or die out.

Deforestation

Have you ever stood inside a forest? Maybe it seems quiet at first. Like there isn’t much happening. But the trees you’re staring at are hard at work absorbing the carbon dioxide we exhale and harmful gases in the atmosphere. They’re also home to 80 percent of earth’s plants and animals. Deforestation is when these trees are torn down. Wildfires and overgrazing can cause this to happen. But many times, humans will deforest to make room for something other than the forest (think: farms and mines).

Loss of Biodiversity

There are hundreds, or sometimes hundreds of thousands of species living in one space. Were you to look outside of the window, you might see a deer. But that deer you’re seeing is only one of many different types of deer that might live nearby. There are variations of deer that are all interacting with the world around them. So when certain species become extinct, all of the different species that used to interact with that particular organism are affected.