Temperate+Deciduous+Conservation

Miah S. & Emma K.

When you think fun in the great outdoors, what do you think? Maybe camping? Th at’s what lots of people think, some not quite as responsible as others. Unfortunately, many a careless camper has caused a forest fire. Lots of people think that its ok to not put out their campfire before they go to sleep, or that it doesn’t matter if they just drop their cigarette on the ground without putting it out. They probably thought differently when they woke up to a forest fire raging around them! Not only do forest fires put people camping and living in surrounding areas in danger, they destroy deciduous forests and creatures that live inside of them. It will take many, many years for things in the fire-ravaged forest to go back to normal.

Thankfully, people also help to restore the forest after a fire. They plant shrubs and tree saplings. They help injured animals. They campaign against people who are careless and start forest fires. They teach people about how to put out their campfires, and when its better to just not build a fire at all. In the words of Smokey the Bear, “Only you can prevent a fire.”

 Its good to try new things, right? Well, whoever thought that bringing snakeheads, //Channa striata,// into the USA was a good new thing to try was sadly mistaken. This fish, brought to the United States from China, has become an invasive species and has been banned, if its live, in thirteen states. Why? Well, the fish is capable of surviving in just about any type of water, including water with a layer of ice on top! This allows the fish to survive for a very long time. Also, this fish is ravenous. If a person buys a seven-dollar snakehead, it will eventually be eating eight dollars of goldfish per day. The cost of food is why many people release their pet snakeheads into the wild, which is a very bad idea. Because the fish eats so much, it will eat and eat and eat until it has devoured the majority of the other fish in its habitat. This is bad for the other animals in an ecosystem. In temperate deciduous forest, fish-eating animals (bears, eagles, etc.) will run out of food. If they die, it disrupts the balance in an area. Oh, and after a snakehead runs out of fish in an area, what do you think it does? It crawls to a new aquatic habitat! That’s right; snakeheads have a primitive lung system that allows them to be out of water for up to four days, more if they’re in the mud. This means that snakeheads can spread easily. And in one year, a female snakehead can lay up to **//seventy-five thousand//** eggs! This fish, brought here by people looking for something new, is slowly destroying not only lake and river biomes, but also the forests around them.

Fortunately, people are doing something about this. Like I said before, live snakeheads are banned in thirteen states, and are not allowed to be released into the wild live in many others. In 2002, Fisheries Service personnel took steps to prevent this fish from spreading by killing the mass amount of snakeheads found in Crofton pond. This might sound cruel, but is it worse then stepping back and allowing non-native fish destroy whole ecosystems?

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