Climate Change and Wildlife

The debate over climate change has hit all the platforms of modern day media. While searching the literature on origin and evolution of this planet and variety of life forms on it, and applying logic onto it, one thing is very clear: Climate change is not as ruthless as people think. When we comprehend and interpret, the origin and evolution of climatic conditions and of life on earth, it can be said that the evolution of climatic conditions during the course of time has made the life of different species possible on earth. So, we can say that, if there were no changes in climatic conditions of earth, life would not have been possible on earth. In this sense we can take climate change in a positive manner.

However, at the same time, we must blame the processes that have hasten the climate change. The changes that we expect after 50 or 60 years or more are with us today only. So, we can conclude that climate change is not bad, but the rate at which it occurs poses threat to the survival of humans and other species on earth. Therefore, the processes and their origin is to be blamed.

The changing climate has such ramifications that adversely affect the survival of humans and wildlife on earth. On one hand, there is declining rainfall and on the other, it leads to frequent floods by increasing temperature which result in melting of our snow-capped mountains and glaciers. This in turn results in economic loss to humans.

The rapid rate of climate changes has adversely affected both human and non-human creatures on the planet. When we focus on wildlife, rapid rate of climate change, by changing the patterns of rainfall, has led to the decline in the food production. Therefore, the intake energy of an organism declines. So, the energy that was to be spent on different activities by an organism will eventually decline. Every organism tends to prioritise its various activities.

An organism goes for resource partitioning and trade-off between different activities in order to maintain its position in the ecosystem. Firstly, its focus is to maintain its basic physiological processes in the body, before proceeding for its growth and development; and reproductive activities. So, when there is scarcity of food, due to rapid climate change, there will be scarcity of energy in physiology, growth, development and reproduction. This will lead to low energy in reproduction that will ultimately result in the low population of any particular species. The unstable population of wild species leads to unhealthy and imbalanced ecosystem, thereby disturbing the whole ecosystem and ecological processes of nature.

The rapid climate change, has not only declined the population of different wild species but has also led to change in the movement patterns of animals. The recent spoting of Kashmiri Markhor (Capra falconeri) along road side in human habitation at District Baramulla was an eye opener. The animals basically move out of their habitat due to shortage of resources including food and shelter, and the ramifications of this rapid climate change output is in front of us.

The lifting of children by leopard in different villages and the attack on livestock and human resources by Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus), Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) and Porcupine (Hystrix indica) has surfaced from past few years, which indeed is one of the effects of climate change. This leads to human-wildlife conflict, affecting both humans and wildlife drastically. So, we conclude that climate change is directly or indirectly affecting both human and non-human beings on the planet. Therefore, the need of the hour is to ponder over the impact of our daily activities on our environment and thus on climate. For our better tomorrow the activities that hasten the process of climate change need to be contained.

Dr. Hameem Mushtaq, Teaching Faculty, Department of Zoology, Central University of Kashmir