According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, amphibians are the most threatened group of animals on Earth: currently around 30 percent of the world’s amphibians are listed as threatened with extinction. However this percentage doesn’t include those species about which too little is known to evaluate (26 percent). Amphibians face many threats but […]
Tag: conservation
Over 700 species added to the threatened categories on the IUCN Red List (photos)
In another sign of the global biodiversity crisis, the IUCN Red List has added 715 species to its threatened categories of Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered in this year’s update. Some of these species were evaluated by the IUCN Red List for the first time while others saw their conditions deteriorate, such as the the […]
Saving the Raja of India’s grasslands: new efforts to conserve the Critically Endangered Great Indian Bustard
The Great Indian Bustard, one of India’s iconic birds, once ranged across most of the Indian subcontinent. Due to a variety of factors, however, the Great Indian Bustard is also now India’s rarest bird and faces imminent extinction. The following is an interview with Ramki Sreenivasan, co-founder of Conservation India, a group that recently petitioned […]
Bloodsucking flies help scientists identify rare, hard-to-find mammals
Last year scientists released a study that is likely to revolutionize how conservationists track elusive species. Researchers extracted the recently sucked blood of terrestrial leeches in Vietnam’s remote Annamite Mountains and looked at the DNA of what they’d been feeding on: remarkably researchers were able to identify a number of endangered and rarely-seen mammals. In […]
The neglected giraffe: world’s tallest animal in need of conservation assistance
Just two year’s before his assassination, Julius Caesar brought to Rome one of the world’s most astonishing living creatures: a giraffe. The animal was among Caesar’s spoils from his campaign in Egypt and according to the Roman writer, Dio, the giraffe, which was arguably the first to ever touch European soil, was paraded in the […]
Iceland’s fin whales are endangered. Stop this bloody cull
Last night, Hvalur 8 and 9, two whaling vessels owned by millionaire entrepreneur Kristjan Loftsson, left Reykjavik harbour in Iceland, bound on a north-westerly course for the open Atlantic. Hvalur 8 was last logged at 64 degrees latitude, 23 degrees longitude before it went out of range of commercially available data. Together with its sister […]
Fishing ban proposed near Rockall after rare scientific finds
Fishing is expected to be banned near the Atlantic islet of Rockall after a rare methane gas vent in the seabed and two new shellfish species were discovered by British scientists. The methane, which leaks through a so-called “cold seep” vent in the ocean floor, was found last year by scientists working with the government […]
Why endangered species need conservation champions
Without heroic conservationists many of today’s most beloved species would be extinct: think of pandas, tigers, and elephants. By single-mindly focused on saving a particular species, these conservation champions bring much-needed research, publicity, and, most importantly, targeted actions to keep an imperiled animal from the brink. Through their own exuberance, these heroes also gather others […]