Social media is no longer being dismissed by large corporations and not-for-profit organizations as a platform for spoilt youth and folks who have spare time for meaningless chatter. Instead, it is emerging as a technology that can help scientists, conservationists and governments in saving endangered species.
People are using social media networks to share images of rare birds, flowers and other animals, and this is helping researchers to discover where the most endangered species reside and what needs to be done in order to preserve them.
The rate at which species are vanishing from the planet earth is alarming. According to Do something Website, there are currently about 2, 054 species that are endangered worldwide and about 1,436 exist in the United States alone.
This means that species are disappearing at the rate of between 1,000 and 10,000 times faster because of the presence of human beings. To make matters worse, this rate is expected to increase dramatically over the coming years. Thus, a very large portion of species are in the blink of total extinction if nothing is done to reverse the trend.
It is for this reason that scientists have decided to implement a raft of measures to slow down the rate of extinction. Online social networks such as iNatural and eBird where people post pictures of animals and birds they spot are playing a very important role in saving endangered species. A combination of maps where species reside, databases and crowd sourced data is helping policy makers as well as scientists to understand the trends, status and the species under threat and to make the necessary steps. This is really beneficial to both the community and the scientists.
It has been proven that the main cause of extinction is caused by human introduction to where species live where competition for resources forces the species to vanish
