Threatened Species Red List

 

More Animals Facing Extinction

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Having "a red-letter day" means a day that is pleasantly noteworthy. In banking it celebrates the last day of the financial year.

But, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature puts an animal on its Red List of Threatened Species that's a day of sadness. It signifies that the animal is approaching extinction.

At its December conference in Montreal, Canada, the IUCN added 700 new species facing extinction to the list, including a variety of sea life - the Dugong, a marine mammal related to the manatee, 44% of the world's abalone, and the Pillar Coral found throughout the Caribbean. 

 In all, the Red List currently totals 150,388 species at risk of extinction. 

 

Threats range from hunting, poaching, and accidental capture in fishing nets to commercial development and climate change. Pollution and loss of food sources, such as underwater sea grasses, are other threats. 

Dr. Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General, said that we need to make “profound changes to our economic system, or we risk losing the crucial benefits the oceans provide us with. He emphasized, “We simply cannot afford to fail.”

In the case of the abalone, the IUCN states, "The most immediate action people can take is to eat only farmed or sustainably sourced abalones." 

 

With hundreds of governmental and nonprofit organization members around the world, the IUCN is actively seeking to get everyone involved in saving at-risk species from extinction. There is little time left for the Vaquita, a tiny member of the porpoise family native to Baja California. The rarest of all marine mammals, there are estimated to be only 10 Vaquitas remaining. 

Whenever an animal or plant species disappears from the planet, it diminishes all of us, creating a space that is impossible to fill. That’s why it is so important to help preserve the environment and reduce our carbon footprints. 

Where did the Dodo go?

What will we do when the Dugong is gone?

The Barbary Lion, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

One-of-a-kind names and faces.

Now just empty spaces.

Note: When SurfWriter Girls first wrote about the Vaquitas in September 2017 there were close to 30 Vaquitas left in the ocean. So many have been lost since then. Here’s the story link on Vaquita. 

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

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