9 Top Threatened Species
The Red List of Threatened Species kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature has been updated, and although all of the news isnt bad, for the most part its pretty grim. TheIUCN Red List was founded in 1963 and is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the globalconservation status ofbiological species.
Despite the action of conservation programs, 25 percent of mammals are at risk of extinction.
The IUCN Red List is critical as an indicator of the health of biodiversity, in identifying conservation needs and informing necessary changes in policy and legislation to drive conservation forward, saysJean-Christophe Vi, Deputy Director of IUCNs Global Species Programme. The world is full of marvelous species that are rapidly moving towards becoming things of myth and legend if conservation efforts are not more successfully implementedif we do not act now, future generations may not know what a Chinese Water Fir or a Bizarre-nosed Chameleon look like.
Following are some of the 2011 notable updates to the list.
Black Rhino
Good bye black rhino, its heartbreaking to see you go. The reassessments of several rhino species show that the subspecies of the black rhino in western Africathe western black rhinois officially extinct. Great job, us.
In other rhino news, the subspecies of the white rhino in central Africathe northern white rhinois currently nearing extinction and has been listed as possibly extinct in the wild. The Javan rhino is also teetering, as the subspecies rhinoceros sondaicus annasmiticus is probably extinct, following the poaching of what is thought to be the last animal in Vietnam in 2010. Although this is not the end of the Javan rhino, it does reduce the species to a single, minuscule, decreasing population on Java.
One of conservations success stories is (Ceratotherium simum simum), a subspecies of the African ! southern white rhino, which has soared in number from less than 100 individuals to 20,000 since the end of the 19th century.
Photograph: Dr Richard Emslie/IUCN
