WHY DO ANIMALS BECOME ENDANGERED?
Overhunting
This has been the fate of most large animals, slow animals, and tasty animals when humans have migrated to a previously uninhabited area.
History abounds with stories of animals going extinct because of hunting and the consequent deaths of their predators if not by direct hunting as well, then by starvation because they no longer have a food source.
There are many historical accounts about how humans have over hunted and over-harvested species, leading to their endangerment, and often, extinction. One extinct species, the Passenger Pigeon, is a classic example of how humans overhunted a species, leading to the extinction of the entire species.
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Habitat Loss
This is one of the biggest reasons for the steep decline of species, both in the animal world and the plant world. Many species in our world today are becoming endangered due to a loss of their primary habitat.
Deforestation, agricultural spread, water extraction, mining, and human migration have either destroyed the only habitats the species can survive in or driven the species to a severely fragmented habitat, generally meaning simply a slower demise of the species.
​Pollution
Although biologists have been unable to isolate a single cause for the recent rapid decline in numbers and extinction of many species, it appears that much of it is due to pollution.
For example, the Peregrine Falcon almost became extinct in Canada when DDT was widely used prior to becoming banned in the U.S. and Canada in 1971.
In the Sierra Nevada, cell damage due to excessive ultraviolet-B radiation, too strong with the thinning of the ozone layer.
Human-Wildlife Conflict
Although this is not a new scenario — people and wildlife have coexisted for millennia — it is one that is becoming much more frequent, serious and widespread, and a global concern for conservation and development alike. HWC affects most large carnivores, as well as many other species groups including, but not limited to, elephants, pigs, deer, primates, sharks, seals, birds of prey, crocodiles, rhinos, otters. This lead to the extinction of many animal species