Conservation efforts and public outcry rescued the bald eagle from extinction.
Killing endangered animals puts species at risk for extinction and has the potential to trigger environmental disasters. In their 2005 publication "Why Save Endangered Species?," the U.S. Forest Service reported that human activity causes most contemporary animal extinctions, from industrialization that destroys habitats to exterminating species through excessive hunting. Time magazine reported on their website in October 2009 that global warming caused by humans could cause mass extinctions, noting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found a three to five degree temperature increase worldwide could threaten 30 percent of Earth's species.
Criminal Penalties
Under Section 11 of America's Endangered Species Act, anyone who kills an endangered animal is subject to fines and prison time. These provisions also apply to people who traffic in animal products garnered from killing endangered species. Poachers who kill endangered animals in Africa face harsh sentencing, and in some nations such as South Africa, military personnel patrol wildlife preserves, ready to use lethal force against poachers.
Domino Effects
Ecosystems maintain a fragile balance, with inter-dependencies between all the species within a habitat. When people kill endangered animals, they remove a predator or prey animal that's necessary to maintain this balance. The U.S. Forest Service notes that while it's impossible to gauge the damage an animal's extinction will cause its ecosystem before the actual event, it typically triggers a chain reaction threatening the habitat's other species. Keystone species are plants and animals whose presence in an ecosystem is vital for the system's survival, and killing animals within a keystone species can irrevocably harm or destroy their habitat.
Environmental Indicators
Killing endangered animals can cause fluctuations in the population of species that warn humans of environmental hazards. In December 1990, the University of Florida's IFAS Extension published a report by Frank J. Mazzotti of the university's wildlife ecology and conservation department, in which Mazzotti cited the decline of bald eagles as an example, noting that this event warned humans of DDT's toxicity. After DDT was banned in 1972, scientists discovered that it was a potentially lethal carcinogen.
Ethical Considerations
Many people believe that other species have an inherent right to survive and that Earth's wildlife doesn't exist for humanity to indiscriminately exploit. Once an endangered animal becomes extinct, there's no way to replace it. While cloning extinct animals may be possible, it's extremely problematic. Cloned animals often die days after being brought to term. Spanish scientists cloned an extinct Pyrenean ibex only to have it die shortly after birth. It's also not always possible to find a close enough genetic relative of an extinct animal to implant a cloned embryo.
Increased Extinction Risk
Killing endangered animals reduces the available mating population, which leads to inbreeding and the resultant loss of the species' genetic diversity, an event making extinction more likely. Small populations of endangered animals are particularly vulnerable to drastic habitat changes and disease outbreaks, which also increases their risk for extinction.
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