World Animal Day 2021: Conservation efforts bring animals back from extinction in wild

World Animal Day 2021 (October 4) is perhaps a good time to reflect that thousands of species of birds and animals have gone extinct till now. The rate of extinction is such that even now, several species go extinct literally every day. This not only is bad for the environment but one day may even hurt mankind due to severely disturbed balance of nature. Serious efforts are needed to stop the worrying trend.

Fortunately, scientists are doing what they can to bring these animals back into the wild. Even when some species went extinct in the wild, scientists used translocation and captive breeding to make these species roam the wilds again.

However, this is easier said than done and a whole lot of precautions, research and data gathering is required before a species is successfully reintroduced in wild.

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It's not just a matter of breeding an animal in captivity and then simply releasing it in wild. Reintroduction into the wild takes place in phases due to variety of reasons.

Foremost is the consideration that reintroduction should not disturb balance of the wild ecosystem the animal went extinct from. Once an animal goes extinct from its wild habitat, the ecosystem changes in order to adapt to the absence. New food chains may gradually develop and reintroduction of the animal may disturb the delicate balance again. Conservationists need to take into account threat to and from the animal that is being reintroduced.

However, all the conservation efforts over decades are gradually paying off. A study conducted in 2020 says that conservation action between 1993 and 2020 saved up to 48 species of birds and mammals from extinction.

Examples of some of these animals are Eurasian lynx, Tasmanian devil, Przewalski's horse, Red wolves and Eurasian beaver