Vocabulary Words

1. — illegal hunting or collecting.
5. - a slow-moving reptile, enclosed in a scaly or leathery domed shell into which it can retract its head and thick legs.
6. —too many individuals inhabiting an environment.
7. — taking care of our environment by wisely managing its resources.
8. — a unit of plants, animals, and nonliving components of an environment that interact.
10. breeding — carefully planned breeding of animals in a protective facility in order to increase the species’ total population.
11. species — a species of plant or animal of which numbers are decreasing at an alarming rate and is threatened with extinction by human- made or natural changes in the environment.
13. — harmful elements that alter an environment in a negative way, such as chemicals that poison water supplies, and trash that litters the ocean.
14. - a very large marine mammal with a streamlined hairless body, a horizontal tail fin, and a blowhole on top of the head for breathing.
16. — no longer existing.

1. — a group of plants or animals of the same species that live in the same area and have the opportunity to breed with each other.
2. — the genetic variability of living organisms on our planet.
3. —the buildup over time of harmful substances in animal and plant tissues.
4. — killing more animals than the species’ population can replace through natural breeding rates.
5. — likely to become endangered.
8. — a species currently represented by living creatures.
9. - a large gregarious waterbird with a long bill, an extensible throat pouch for scooping up fish, and mainly white or gray plumage.
12. — the place where a plant or animal lives.
13. - a genus of very large extinct flightless seabirds (family Alcidae) containing solely the great auk.
15. — a group of plants or animals that are genetically similar and so are able to reproduce with each other.