​Shenandoah National Park 

Environmental Changes:

Shenandoah National Park's environment has been fairly stable for the past couple of years, but now many new changes have occured. Such as climate change which has ridden Shendandoah National Park and has put its habitats and living organisms in danger. Environmental change can occur for a vast amount of reasons and its effects could be drastic.

 

 

Climate change has mainly affected the Shenandoah Salamander, which is now in danger of becoming extinct due to the rising temperatures. The salamander lives only in the national park and cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The salamander lives high up in the mountains and the increase in temperature which could lead to an increase in temperature is putting it in great danger. These changes could prevent it from obtaining food, which would in return affect the growth of the salamander. 

 

Another drastic example of environmental change in Shenandoah is that of the increasing amount of forest fires occuring the area. At times forest fires can be beneficial to an area because they get rid of all of the dead vegetation in order to make room for the growth of new vegetation. An abundance of forest fires can create the opposite effect though, excessive fires would kill thriving vegetation which would ruin the overall biome. The trees that would be affected in this situation are the habitats of many animals living in the forest, and their lives would be destroyed because of the loss of their homes. This could cause the animals to emigrate out of the area in order to find a new home to compensate for the loss of their old home. In the end this would create an unbalanced food chain. The predators would die out due to starvation, and the prey would grow immensly until it became hazardous to all of the organisms surrounding it. It is important that amount of forest fires does not increase in Shenandoah because it could ruin the entire ecosysyme.

 

 

Environmental changes are normal and occur all over the world, but when they occur to quickly it could mean disaster. If the climate keeps changing many animals may not be able to survive in the environment which may cause them to leave the area or to become extinct. The same thing happens with forest fires, but the vegetation is more greatly affected in this situation than the previous.