What do these animals have in common?
African Elephant, African Wild Dog, Amazon River Dolphin, Amur Leopard, Arctic Fox, Arctic Wolf, Asian Elephant, Black Rhino, Black Spider Monkey, Black-footed Ferret, Blue Whale, Bonobo, Bornean Elephant, Bornean Orangutan, Chimpanzee, Continental Tiger, Cross River Gorilla, Dugong, Eastern Lowland Gorilla, Fin Whale, Ganges River Dolphin, Giant Panda, Great White Shark, Greater One-Horned Rhino, Greater Sage-Grouse, Green Turtle, Hawksbill Turtle, Hector's Dolphin, Hippopotamus, Humphead Wrasse, Indian Elephant, Indus River Dolphin, Irrawaddy Dolphin, Jaguar, Javan Rhino, Leatherback Turtle, Loggerhead Turtle, Marine Iguana, Monarch Butterfly, Mountain Gorilla, Mountain Plover, Narwhal, North Atlantic Right Whale, Olive Ridley Turtle, Orangutan, Pacific Salmon, Pangolin, Penguin (Southern rockhopper penguin, Macaroni penguin, Northern rockhopper penguin, Fiordland penguin, Snares penguin, Erect-crested penguin, Yellow-eyed penguin, African penguin, Humboldt penguin, Magellanic penguin, Galapagos penguin), Poison Dart Frog, Polar Bear, Red Panda, Rhino, Saola, Savanna Elephant, Sea Turtle, Seals and Sea Lions (Hawaiian monk seal, Mediterranean monk seal, Galápagos fur seal, Australian sea lion, New Zealand sea lion, Caspian seal, and Galápagos sea lion), Sei Whale, Shark, Sloth, Snow Leopard, Southern rockhopper penguin, Sri Lankan Elephant, Sumatran Elephant, Sumatran Orangutan, Sumatran Rhino, Sunda Tiger, Vaquita, Western Lowland Gorilla, Whale Shark, Yangtze Finless Porpoise.
Answer: all are threatened with extinction. They are among the more than 32,000 threatened species , including 41% of Amphibians, 26% of mammals, and 14% of birds. Many of these animals feed on insects and plants, of which one million species are also threatened.
Many more species will be getting on the extinction express by the end of the century. That’s because habitat loss and deterioration “suggests that around 9 per cent of the world’s estimated 5.9 million terrestrial species – more than 500,000 species – have insufficient habitat for long-term survival, and are committed to extinction, many within decades, unless their habitats are restored “ (Diaz et al, 2019). As for water-dwellers: nearly one-in-three freshwater species around the world are now threatened with extinction, per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (accessed 10/3/20. The Living Planet reports that aquatic species have declined rapidly since 1970, with reductions of 84% for freshwater species and 35% for marine species.
That’s the picture. What to do? Here are some ideas - click on the links for details:
Managing Habitats to Save Endangered Species (link)
Conventional versus Organic Agriculture: A False Choice (link)
Bird Conservation: What Works on Farms? (link)
Helping Farmers Prevent the Insect Apocalypse (link)
Sustainable Intensive Farming: The Only Way to Go (link)
Saving Endangered Species through Better Farming (link)
More Cattle on Less Land, Humanely and Sustainably. Here’s How. (link)
Save the Teeny Dinosaurs by Providing Them with Food and Shelter... in Our Own Backyards! (link)
I just thought of another approach to saving species: develop a “habitat credit” system for farmers, similar to how companies already use carbon credits. Per Investopedia, carbon credits are tradable certificates or permits representing the right to emit a ton of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas. Companies get a set number of credits, which decline over time. They can sell any excess to another company. Companies are thus incentivized to reduce emissions so they can make money selling their excess credits. Under a habitat credit systems, farmers could buy and sell credits for the right to use land for crops and livestock. As with the carbon credit system, they could sell excess habitat credits to other farmers. Farmers would accumulate tradable habitat credits by engaging in sustainable practices that increase biodiversity on their land, such as minimal tillage, precision use of insecticides and fertilizers, cover crops, and leaving more of their land uncultivated.
References:
Directory of Threatened Species/ World Wildlife Fund
IPBES (2019): Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. S. Díaz, J. Settele, E. S. Brondízio E.S., H. T. Ngo, M. Guèze, J. Agard, A. Arneth, P. Balvanera, K. A. Brauman, S. H. M. Butchart, K. M. A. Chan, L. A. Garibaldi, K. Ichii, J. Liu, S. M. Subramanian, G. F. Midgley, P. Miloslavich, Z. Molnár, D. Obura, A. Pfaff, S. Polasky, A. Purvis, J. Razzaque, B. Reyers, R. Roy Chowdhury, Y. J. Shin, I. J. Visseren-Hamakers, K. J. Willis, and C. N. Zayas (eds.). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. 56 pages. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3553579
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – accessed 10/3/20
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_near_threatened_birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinniped