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Future looks bleak for many species

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

Globe and Mail Update

October 6, 2008 at 8:11 AM EDT

TORONTO — The most exhaustive study ever undertaken on the future of
mammals, the broad family of animals to which humans also belong, has
found that more than a third of all marine species and a quarter of
those living on land are at risk of extinction.

The study, appearing in the current issue of the journal Science and
conducted by more than 1,700 experts from 130 countries, concluded that
humans are the biggest threat to other mammals. Wild habitat loss and
hunting “are by far the main threats,” it said, although many marine
species are also being affected by pollution and accidental mortality
through ship collisions and entanglement in nets.

“Our results paint a bleak picture of the global status of mammals
worldwide,” the study said.

The research indicated that the larger the size of mammal, the more
likely it is to face threats to its survival. Even many of the animals
not at risk of outright extinction are also in decline, with population
levels falling for half of all mammal species.
A family of elephants stand under a tree in Samburu game reserve of
northern Kenya. The African elephant's future is again at stake – it has
moved from vulnerable to near threatened on the IUCN Red List. Antony
Njuguna/Reuters
Enlarge Image

A family of elephants stand under a tree in Samburu game reserve of
northern Kenya. The African elephant's future is again at stake – it has
moved from vulnerable to near threatened on the IUCN Red List. (Antony
Njuguna/Reuters)
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* IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Popup

The Globe and Mail

The findings suggest that without strong conservation action, big iconic
animals such as polar bears, great apes and hippos will soon be rare or
not existent, at least in the wild, while mammals will be dominated by
such small creatures as rodents and bats, which seem to be doing very well.

The research is considered the most comprehensive ever undertaken of the
5,487 different species of mammalian, which are found in almost every
region and ecosystem of the world. Although the biologists who did the
assessment, led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature,
didn't have enough information to determine the outlook for every
species, of those for which adequate data were available, 1,139 faced
the possibility of extinction.

Of those at risk, the plight of 188 was so dire that researchers deemed
them “critically endangered,” with a high probability that they won't be
able to survive much longer. Chief among these is the Baiji, a rare
freshwater dolphin that lives only in China's Yangtze River and is
considered possibly extinct.

The study said that without conservation measures, the “status of
mammals will likely deteriorate further in the near future.”

The bigger animals seem to be more at risk because they tend to have
lower population densities, reproduce more slowly because they live
longer, and more likely to be hunted.