Extinction: Where Will It Stop?

The 2009 edition of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species was released yesterday, and the news wasn’t good: out of 47,677 assessed species, 17,291 (36 percent) are threatened with extinction.

These include 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates. The breakdown of the endangered species’ status on the new IUCN list is as follows:

• Extinct: 809
• Extinct in the Wild: 66
• Critically Endangered: 3,325 (of these, 257 species are listed as “possibly extinct”)
• Endangered: 4,891
• Vulnerable (to extinction): 9,075
• Near Threatened: 3,650

Last year’s list assessed 44,838 species; information on more than 2,800 additional species has been added in 2009. This includes more than 1,300 previously unassessed dragonflies and damselflies, of which the IUCN recently completed a major new study.

Amphibians seem to be facing the greatest threat, with 1,895 of 6,285 assessed species in danger of extinction. One amphibian species, the Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis), has been moved from the IUCN’s critically endangered list and is considered extinct in the wild. This toad was only found in the Kihamsi Falls area of Tanzania and its population has crashed from a high of about 17,000 in recent years. Conservationists suggest that this is as a result of a dam being constructed upstream from the toad’s habitat, which resulted in a 90% reduction in the flow of water.

“These results are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, manager of the IUCN Red List Unit, in a prepared statement. “There are many more millions [of species] out there which could be under serious threat.”

For further information, visit www.iucn.org

posted by Kathy & Sophie