A comprehensive, international survey released today, showed that half of all 5,487 mammal populations are declining.
Just today, data from a global survey was revealed at a meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Barcelona, Spain. 1,700 researchers took part in the survey and named habitat loss and hunting as the major causes of the current, mass extinction.
Jan Schipper, who led the team, said: “Mammals are declining faster than we thought — one in four species is threatened with extinction worldwide.”
He said that land animals in Asia have been the hardest hit, where almost 80% of the primates are at risk. Other mammals at risk across the globe include the blue whale, the bumblebee bat, the Caspian seal and the Tasmanian Devil.
Scientists currently have data for 4,651 species of mammals. According to this study, 1,139 of these species face the threat of extinction.
“Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions,” said Julia Marton-Lefevre, director general of the IUCN, which compiles the “Red List” of threatened species.
A recently updated “Red List” showed that, out of a total of 44,838 species, 16,928, or 38 percent, were threatened. Among animals facing the gravest risks are amphibians, such as frogs and toads.
The report, revealed during an Oct 5-14 IUCN congress, was not all bad news. The study showed that five percent of species are recovering due to conservation efforts. The European bison, and the black-footed ferret, (found in North America) are two species on the rebound.
Source: Reuters
Image: Image from Wikimedia Commons
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Meg Hamill
Meg Hamill has been working in the environmental non-profit field in Northern California for the past six years. She currently works as a naturalist for LandPaths (in partnership with the Open Space District) in Santa Rosa California. She teaches poetry in the public school through California Poets in the Schools (CPITS) and has traveled extensively throughout South and Central America, picking up Spanish along the way. In 1999 she completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Meg holds an MFA in Creative Writing and has published two books of political/environmental poetry. Read more, buy books and e-mail Meg at www.meghamill.com.
4 Responses to One in Four Mammals at Risk of Extinction
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[...] To many ancient peoples, humankind was not apart from nature, but a part of nature. And while we have come to view ourselves otherwise, let us not forget that, in the end, extinction of fauna includes us. [...]
[...] the feces of elephants. Sedodoma said that this year alone, the park has recorded over 70 deaths of wildlife, all related to feeding from the garbage [...]
[...] around the world. One third of amphibian populations on Planet Earth are threatened with extinction. A new study finds that atrazine, the second most widely used farm pesticide in the country, is [...]
I’m actually stunned that it’s only half. So many are perilously close to being gone forever. I can’t help but wonder, which ones will be gone when my great-grandchildren are my age.