Endangered Species

On the verge of extinction
A quarter of all mammals face some extinction risk. All the creatures we share the Earth with are important in some way, however unprepossessing or insignificant they may appear. They and we are all part of the web of life. From the dawn of time, extinction has usually progressed at what scientists call a natural or background rate. Today the tempo is far faster. Many scientists believe this is the sixth great wave - the sixth mass extinction to affect life on Earth. In 2003 the World Conservation Union's Red List said more than 12,000 species (out of 40,000 assessed) faced some extinction risk, including:

• one bird in eight
• 13% of the world's flowering plants
• a quarter of all mammals.

That gives you a ballpark figure. Science has described 1.75 million species, some experts estimate that there may be 13 or 14 million in the world in total - but until they are catalogued, nobody knows

World-wide, the largest number of documented extinctions (28 between 1600 and 1899 and 23 this century) has occurred on islands of Oceania which now have more threatened species (110) than any other region. Dahl (1984) estimates that there are roughly 7 times more endangered bird species per capita in the South Pacific than in the Caribbean, 50 times more than South America, and a hundred times more than in North America or Africa.
http://www.unescap.org/mced2000/pacific/background/biodiv.htm

Five mass extinctions
Cretaceous (About 65 million years ago)
Triassic (About 208 million years ago)
Permian (About 245 million years ago)
Devonian (About 360 million years ago)
Ordovician (About 438 million years ago)

Our pillage of the natural world has been likened to burning down the medieval libraries of Europe, before we had even bothered to catalogue their contents. Many species keep us alive, purifying water, fixing nitrogen, recycling nutrients and waste, and pollinating crops. Plants and bacteria carry out photosynthesis, which produces the oxygen we breathe. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas given off by human activities.

Pandas and microbes
Some years ago, when the global annual gross product was about $18 trillion, US researchers calculated the value of the goods and services provided by the Earth to the world economy: $33 trillion. Tropical cone snails contain toxins which show promise for treating some forms of cancer and heart irregularities. One toxin may be a thousand times more potent than morphine for pain relief. But millions of cone snails are now killed annually for their shells, and their habitats are under pressure.

That is the argument for utility. But the creatures we can see, and those we can use directly, are just the start of the story. Lord May, president of the Royal Society (the UK's national academy of sciences), has said: "Most conservation effort goes into birds and mammals - creatures like the panda, a dim, dead-end animal that was probably on the way out anyway. "Yet arguably it's the little things that run the world, things like soil microbes. They're the least-known species of all." And we continue to tug at the loose threads of the web of life, thinking we can split it into its separate parts. 71% of UK butterfly species are reported to be declining Brazil nuts are a lucrative harvest in the Amazon. But an experiment to produce them in plantations failed, because the trees bear a good crop in the forest, but are barren in isolation.

We are not removing individual species from the Amazon: we are destroying the entire forest. US researchers estimate that by 2020 less than 5% of it will remain in pristine condition. Within 15 years, about a fifth of central Africa's forests will have gone, by one estimate. And the forests of Indonesia are in headlong retreat.

Tiger : Reasons for the Endangered Status
The Bengal tiger is endangered because it is poached for its body parts to cater to an illegal market. Another reason is habitat loss due to depletion of forest cover interference of humans and encrochment of forest land by people causing fragmentation. At the turn of the century, there were almost reportedly 40,000 tigers in India, but now only around 4,000 remain in the wild.

Endangered Species : NGOs Interventions

WPSI : Interactions between Ladakh Urial & Livestock
The Ladakh urial (Ovis vignei vignei) is a highly endangered animal, found only in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir State. By the 1960s and 1970s, hunting for trophies and meat had reduced its numbers to a few hundred. It was then given an upgraded protection level by law. Strict enforcement and increasing conservation awareness levels led to a decrease in hunting and the urial population now seems to have increased to about 1000 - 1500 in Ladakh.
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WPSI : Interactions between Snow Leopard Prey Species & Livestock
The highly endangered snow leopard (Uncia uncia) lives in the extremely dry and cold Trans-Himalayan region of northern India and feeds principally on wild sheep and goats.
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WPSI : Human-Leopard Conflict in the Pune District
The western Indian state of Maharashtra reported a population of 513 leopards (Panthera pardus fusca) in 2001 and in recent times has seen an escalation in man leopard conflicts in various parts of the state. The highest intensity of conflict (livestock and human depredations, leopard trappings) has been reported from the Junnar Forest Division (JFD), situated in the northwest corner of the Pune district. Fifty-one people were attacked between 2001 and 2003 in the JFD while the Maharashtra Forest Department trapped 103 leopards in the same period.
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WPSI : Human- animal conflict
India’s rising population, coupled with unsustainable development, is continuously putting a burden on the country’s natural resources and wildlife. Forests are becoming more and more fragmented, wildlife corridors are fast disappearing and villages, fields and cities are increasingly encroaching into practically every natural eco-system.
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WPSI : Otter Conservation
Otters are considered the “ambassadors of the wetlands”. Their presence is the best indicator of the health of the wetland’s ecosystem. However, rampant poaching and habitat destruction threaten the future of otters in India.
In India, wetlands are classified as “wasteland” and drained for conversion to agricultural or urban use. Loss of habitat, pollution and heavy fishing pressure have exterminated otters from most areas. In other areas they have been completely wiped out due to poaching. As a result, most otter populations are now confined to protected areas.
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BNHS : Conservation of the endangered Hispid Hare