While continuing to look for authoritative information about How Many Species Are Endangered, I came across the website for the Center for Biological Diversity.
At first glance, I thought it was a website created by a group of biologists focusing on the issue of ‘conservation biology’ or ‘biological diversity’.
Wrong. Way wrong.
It turns out the website represents a group of seemingly very dedicated individuals (primarily lawyers and biologists) who have taken on the endangered species issue using the tool of law. And apparently with a great deal of success.
I plan to journal about both this organization, and laws that were created to protect endangered species in the future. Having written about environmental laws for years, the topic of laws protecting endangered species is a subject near and dear to my heart.
However, I don’t want to digress too far from the question of How Many Species Are Endangered, which is relevant to the Center for Biological Diversity’s website.
Nobody really knows how many species are in danger of becoming extinct. Noted conservation scientist David Wilcove estimates that there are 14,000 to 35,000 endangered species in the United States, which is 7 to 18 percent of U.S. flora and fauna. The IUCN has assessed roughly 3 percent of described species and identified 16,928 species worldwide as being threatened with extinction, or roughly 38 percent of those assessed.
No group of animals has a higher rate of endangerment than amphibians. Scientists estimate that a third or more of all the roughly 6,300 known species of amphibians are at risk of extinction.
Globally, BirdLife International estimates that 12 percent of known 9,865 bird species are now considered threatened, with 192 species, or 2 percent, facing an “extremely high risk” of extinction in the wild.
Across the globe, 1,851 species of fish — 21 percent of all fish species evaluated — were deemed at risk of extinction by the IUCN in 2010, including more than a third of sharks and rays.
Overall, the IUCN estimates that half the globe’s 5,491 known mammals are declining in population and a fifth are clearly at risk of disappearing forever with no less than 1,131 mammals across the globe classified as endangered, threatened, or vulnerable. In addition to primates, marine mammals — including several species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises — are among those mammals slipping most quickly toward extinction.
Of the more than 300,000 known species of plants, the IUCN has evaluated only 12,914 species, finding that about 68 percent of evaluated plant species are threatened with extinction.
Globally, 21 percent of the total evaluated reptiles in the world are deemed endangered or vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN.
This is very good information, but it still does not answer the question of How Many Species Are Endangered. However it does help start to shape the answer to that question.
So the search continues.
If you have the time, you might want to visit the website for Center for Biological Diversity and learn more about this organization. It would be well worth a look.
When it comes to saving endangered species, this group definately seems to be ‘the sharp end of the stick.’
And which species are they? And where are they located? And
why are they endangered?
All are good questions.
Unfortunately it is a question to which there is no
'definitive' answer. Because having an answer to this question requires knowing
how many species there are on Earth. We don't.
So how does one go about trying to understand, or get a
sense, how many species on Earth are endangered (and the which, where and why
that follows)?
Well there are estimates as to how many species are currently
‘known’, and at what rate new species are being ‘discovered.’
According to Dr. Tim Entwisle, Director, Conservation,
Living Collections and Estates, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who is quoted
on the IUCN website, “there are 380,000 species of plants named and
described, with about 2,000 being added to the list every year.”
He doesn't say what 'percentage' this may be of the total number of plants on Earth.
However, with regards to how many of these plant species might be
endangered species, Entwisle estimates ‘one in five’ of these 380,000 species are
likely to be under threat of extinction. He also says that is before the
impacts of climate change are factored in.
It’s not clear what studies Entwisle estimates come from
(though I do plan to explore this) but if his estimates were correct, this would
mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 76,000 of the ‘known’ species of plants were under
the threat of extinction.
And these are just the plant species.
But that estimate would apply to only what is known. Entwilse
also points to the issue of ‘what is not known’ by saying “for fungi and algae,
we still have little sense of what is out there and what we are losing."
And that is worth repeating, “We still have little sense
what is out there and what we are losing.”
And it seems, that is exactly what the IUCN is trying to
determine; what is out there, and what are we losing.
It's hard to get a sense of the task.
Of the 61,900 species (both plant and animal) the IUCN has reviewed, one would
assume these include some the 380,000 species of plants which have been named and
described (with an additional 2,000 being added each year).
So does this mean the IUCN still has to review an additional
318,100 species of plants just to get an accurate sense of how many plant species are actually
threatened with extinction?
And what about animal species?
How many animal species have been 'described'. And what percentage is this number of the possible total number of animal species on the Earth? And what percentage of these are considered threatened with extinction?
These are the questions that have to be answered to answer the question 'How Many Species Are Endangered'?
It is a complicated question and I am curious where the answer is.
The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature)
just released its’ update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It comes
with more bad news for threatened and endangered species, and some good. But
the reality is, the news is mostly bad.
The IUCN is considered to be the world’s oldest and largest
global environmental network with more than 1,000 government and NGO member
organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160
countries. And the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ is widely recognized as
the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the
conservation status of plant and animal species.
That is what makes their latest report so troubling. If any
organization knows what’s going on with the status of threatened and endangeredspecies, it would be the IUCN.
In summary, the IUCN Red List update says 25% of mammals are
at risk of extinction. And some subspecies
have been declared extinct such as the Western Black Rhino in central Africa. The news wasn’t much better for other sub-species of rhino such as
the Northern White rhino which according to the IUCN is ‘teetering’ on the edge
of extinction. The Javan rhino is making its’ ‘last stand’ as a single, tiny,
declining population on Java.
The IUCN report says “a lack of political support and will
power for conservation efforts in many rhino habitats, international organized
crime groups targeting rhinos and increasing illegal demand for rhino horns and
commercial poaching are the main threats faced by rhinos.”
There were many more facts and figures published by the IUCN
in their Red List update. In fact they say they now have more than 61,900
species under review.
Considering my goal for this next year is to ‘update’ the
information on the Bagheera, Endangered Earth and Tigers in Crisis websites, it
would certainly makes sense to spend some time understanding both depth of the IUCN
as an organization, and the scope of their Red List of Threatened Species.
So that is now where this exploration is heading. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information about endangered species go to www.Bagheera.com For more information about endangered tigers go to www.TigersInCrisis.com
I'm a huge fan of the BBC. Their reporting and programming is just about as good as it gets in journalism.
Last year, the BBC held an hour long discussion regarding Biodiversity in Crisis. Featured were Richard Black, the BBC's Environment Correspondent, who chaired the discussion with Jonathan Baillie, Conservation Programmes Director at the Zoological Society of London, and Jon Williams, a partner at Sustainability and Climate Change, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In this dicussion they assessed the staggering scale of biodiversity loss, how much it is costing society and how it might be tackled. And in paticular, how journalist might cover the issue.
I am posting a few clips that appeared on YouTube from the hour long discussion and also adding the link from the BBC's College of Journalism website which has the complete hour long discussion.
I am not sure if you have to be a member (subscriber) of the BBC's College of Journalism to view the complete video. I am a subscriber, so I can't test the link.
However, the hour long video is well worth the watch.
It's a bit overwhelming at times as the scope of the issue, and the challenges ahead, are laid out as clearly as they are by these participants.
But then I guess no one said saving endangered species and their habitat -from those things destroying them- was going to be easy!
And here are a couple shorter clips from the conference I found on YouTube. If I can find the full hour available for linking, I will post it at a later date.
