Beware! Evolutionary Traps

Evolutionary traps, sometimes called ecological traps, created inadvertently by changes to the environment that humans make, plague the animal world. Animals are trapped because these changes happen too fast for their evolution to keep up with. These human made traps are everywhere and affect mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. When lured into an evolutionary trap many animals reach an evolutionary dead end. Sea turtle hatchlings mistake the lights of beachside hotels for the horizon and crawl away from the sea to die and others that do make it to the sea mistake small pieces of plastic for food and die full but starved. The sea turtle population hasn't crashed completely yet but may be on a collision course yet because of other things that humans do, like leaving the light on. The other big thing humans do is introducing invasive species to unfamiliar environments with disastrous results, think pythons in the Everglades. Lastly, like the animals that humans catch in these evolutionary traps, we often find ourselves caught in traps of our own making. Fast food, gambling, and drugs are just some traps (created by humans) that have hijacked behaviors that evolved to aid human survival. So be mindful and look out for evolutionary traps!