Humans+may+be+scaring+narwals+to+death

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 * Humans may be scaring narwals to death by Kate Baggaley**
 * Popular Science Magazine**
 * 8 December 2017**

**Summary:**
====In this article Kate Baggaley outlines the recent and tragic experiences narwals have been facing. Up until now, narwals have lived secluded in the arctic regions of the world. The ice in these regions is started to melt, which is causing the narwals to come in contact with humans (keep in mind that they never faced this kind of interaction before). Terrie Williams and her colleagues from University of California rescued 9 distressed narwals and recorded their behaviors after they were released with a small device. Narwals all have a certain "dive reflex", which slows the heart rate of the narwal as they escape from killer whales. This is a problem, because when narwals are escaping from fishing nets, they are not contact with humans and they swim as fast as possible. As they swim at their maximum potential and their heart rate continues to go down; they deprive their brain of oxygen for 15-20 seconds.====

**What it has to do with APES:**
====This article is very relevant to what we were talking about in APES a few weeks ago. When we read about endangered species in the Miller textbook, it talked about a lot of animals which are endangered or are becoming endangered. Unfortunately, narwals are one of those animals. Due to increased contact and interactions with humans, narwals have not developed an effective fight or flight response to this stimuli. For this reason their populations have been declining.====

**My Opinion:**
====In my opinion, we need to educate the general public on the effects of human contact with these narwals. Many people know about narwals due to their obscure and interesting appearance, but they do not know the impending dangers they have been facing recently. If the public, especially fishermen and natural resource explorers, because these are the people that will explore the area after the sea ice melted where the narwals live. These mystical creatures are very valuable to the biodiversity of the region and with the rate at which declines are occurring, the narwals will soon be critically endangered and eventually become extinct.====

When Congress passed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, it recognized that our rich natural heritage is of "esthetic, ecological, educational, recreational, and scientific value to our Nation and its people." It further expressed concern that many of our nation's native plants and animals were in danger of becoming extinct. This applies to these narwals as humans are the main cause of their decline.
 * The** **Environmental Law:**



//Sources:// https://www.fws.gov/endangered/laws-policies/ https://www.popsci.com/narwhal-escape-maneuvers-human-scared-death