Endangered Species

About 99.9 per cent of all animals that ever lived on earth are extinct. That means they don’t live on our planet any more. This is natural, but it isn’t good when it happens too fast. Humans are making the death of species of animals faster every year. Here are two endangered species:

The polar bear lives in the Arctic area. It sleeps in winter and goes hunting in spring. It usually hunts seals on the ice that covers the Arctic Ocean. However, because of man-made climate change, the ice melts sooner than the polar bear wakes up, so the polar bear can’t hunt seals. It has to swim long distances to find places to hunt. A lot of polar bears die of hunger every year.

There are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the wild. They live in only three countries in Central Africa. There are many reasons why these animals are in danger, but the main reason is humans. The most important reason is that mountain gorillas fall in traps that hunters put in the forest for other animals. Some people also steal baby mountain gorillas to sell them to zoos. Another reason is that humans are cutting down trees, and this makes the habitat of mountain gorillas smaller and smaller. Sometimes war and hunger causes some people to kill mountain gorillas for food. And finally, tourists usually bring illnesses with them and make these animals ill.