Free Essay On Exotic Animals

Exotic or invasive animals are not native to a specific environment. They are accidentally or intentionally transported by humans to a certain area (Ontario, 2013). Since they are initially not part of the natural processes in the environment, they could cause damages to the natural ecology as well as human health. These animals could effect to the loss of natural or biological diversity since they are the main caused of ecological degradation and alteration (Ontario, 2013). The environment could resist the effects of exotic animals if the diversity is large enough to suppress its impact. Exotic animals could not easily spread in a diverse ecology since the competition for food is high.
One of the exotic or invasive animals that could cause ecological damages to the United States is the snakeheads. Snakeheads are freshwater fish which originally came from Asian and African freshwaters. They are predatory fish which has large mouth and shiny teeth to chew small to medium sized fish and other freshwater species. They are introduced intentionally in the freshwaters in US since they are a valuable food source (Ontario, 2013). They are considered invasive animals since they could cause alteration to ecology since they became the top predator to the environment due to the lack of natural enemies. They could damage the natural food chain in the certain environment since they could eat almost all types of freshwater species. They could not cause ecological damage to the Asian and African freshwaters due to the abundance of food to eat and the availability of natural enemies to eat them.
In the United States, possessing live snakeheads are illegal since they are considered invasive. However, there are no actions to eradicate this species to the invaded freshwaters in the United States. Prohibiting the intentional introduction of the invasive animals is the main action to prevent its ecological damage (Ontario, 2013).

Reference:

Ontario, B. (2013). Exotic species. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152708