Yellowstone National Park Essay

National parks are a celebration of life and, growing up, my family joined this celebration at many different locations. Our road trips took us to Glacier National Park, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and new locations continued to appear as red dots on the map as the years went on. Every national park proclaims its history on placards distributed throughout their territory, and the history of the animals that have barely survived mankind has always fascinated me the most. As I have grown older, current events have drawn more of my attention, and it has become painfully clear that the disastrous actions people have committed in the past continue to harm animals today. By studying animal science, I will learn how to protect animals from
African elephants, for example, face detrimental overhunting, and attempts to prevent poaching have failed. However, some poachers remove elephant tusks without killing the elephants, thus allowing for quick action to save the elephants’ lives. Yellowstone National Park’s bison population faced the same issue years ago when settlers hunted them to the brink of extinction, but the park managed to prevent disaster through a breeding program. Today, the American prairies are home to more than 160 thousand bison. In pursuing animal science and veterinary medicine, I can take part in such life-saving and species-saving
Zoos around the world have breeding programs similar to that of Yellowstone for endangered animals, which can only succeed with veterinarians there to make sure everything goes well. The recent removal of the giant panda from the endangered species list is another example of zoo efforts succeeding, despite having much less space to make the animals comfortable than national parks. Knowledge of animal science in addition to veterinary medicine would afford me the expertise to know the best living conditions under which such miracles