scrAPES #16- Rare turtle, thought extinct, reintroduced into wild

scrAPES #16-  Rare turtle, thought extinct, reintroduced into wild
Pubished: April 13, 2015
By: Michael Casey

     A rare turtle called the Myanmar roofed turtle thought to be extinct in 2001. But suddenly Platt and U Win Ko found a single shell from a recently killed turtle at a village along the Dokhtawady River. This new finding brought the Myanmar's turtles back to life and are no longer in risk of extinction. A program started called the Turtle Surveillance Alliance which they hatched and began breeding the Myanmar turtles. Thanks to the program the Myanmar turtles are no longer extinct and there is about more than 600 turtles.

     The reason why I chose this article was because seeing an animal in the urge of extinction is not a pleasant thing to experience. The whole ecosystem needs turtles because what would happen to animals that eat the Myanmar turtles. Each year there is lots of different types of species that go extinct. Insects, bugs, animals, even plants can go extinct and the only way to stop it is by helping the species.

     This article is important to environmental science because if an animal goes extinct then it will cause a major effect to the ecosystem. The food web will now be affected because some animals rely on turtles to get their energy and to live. Thankfully to the Turtle Surveillance Alliance they saved the Myanmar turtles and there population has increased.