How swamps and swamp animals are being destroyed

Written on June 11, 2021, age 7.

Alligator with its mouth open, showing its teeth.
Photo by Balaji Malliswamy on Unsplash

Facts about animals that live in swamps and are being destroyed.

Humans are destroying swamps and with it the swamp animals. The animals include alligators, crocodiles, and many others.

Alligators

“As an alligator’s teeth are worn down, they are replaced. An alligator can go through 3,000 teeth in a lifetime.”1 An alligator’s teeth are big and sharp, good for hunting. They eat fish, snakes, turtles, small mammals, and birds.

“Both males and females have an ‘armored’ body with a muscular, flat tail. The skin on their back is armored with embedded bony plates called osteoderms or scutes. They have four short legs; the front legs have five toes while the back legs have only four toes.”2

Crocodiles

Crocodiles are “large, ponderous, amphibious animals of lizard-like appearance.”3 The crocodiles are carnivorous. These big, scaly predators eat fish, small frogs, lizards, crustaceans, and small mammals. 

Great Blue Herons

The Great Blue Heron has a “subtle blue-gray plumage [and] often stands motionless as it scans for prey or wades belly deep with long, deliberate steps…Great Blue Herons can strike like lightning to grab a fish…and [have] long legs trailing out behind.”4 These tall feathery birds are carnivorous. 

Copperheads

“Copperheads are fairly large – 24 – 40 in…and [have] elliptical pupils (cat eyes)…The head is solid brown.”5 Copperheads are very poisonous, using the poison during hunting.

Trees in swamp, Lake Martin, Lafayette, Lousiana
Lake Martin, Lafayette, Lousiana. Photo by Mathieu Cheze on Unsplash

How swamps are being destroyed.

Now we are moving on to how swamps are being destroyed. Swamps are being destroyed by humans. Trash pollution and global warming are 2 of the causes of the swamps that are being destroyed.

Tire laying in a swamp.
Photo by Cole Freeman on Unsplash

There are billions of pieces of plastic floating in swamps that begin their watery journeys in ditches and creeks that wash them down into the ocean. The coastal marshes are being polluted. We live in a disposable civilization. Oil spills and oil drills can affect swamps.

Oil rig in the ocean.
Image by Keri Jackson from Pixabay

Oil drilling affects many habitats and animals including swamps. Swamps are amazing places that are many animals’ homes. We need to protect them. Thank you for reading this post. I hope you learned a lot about swamps and I hope you protect them.

 

Additional Resources:

Page, “Swamp,” National Geographic Encyclopedia Entry, accessed June 11, 2021.

Page, “Swamps,” NatureWorks, New Hampshire PBS, accessed June 11, 2021.

Page, “Swamps,” ScienceDirect, accessed June 11, 2021.

Footnotes:

  1. Page, American Alligator, Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, accessed June 2, 2021.
  2. Page, American Alligator, Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, accessed June 2, 2021.
  3. Page, Crocodile, Britannica.com, accessed June 2, 2021.
  4. Page, All About Birds: Great Blue Heron, The Cornell Lab, Cornell University, accessed June 2, 2021.
  5. Page, Species Profile: Copperhead, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, accessed June 2, 2021.