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TechnoratiOne in Five Mammals Threatened With Extinction
A fifth of the world's known mammals, a third of amphibians and reptiles and more than two thirds of plants are threatened with extinction, according to the latest "Red List" of endangered species.
![[Some gorilla species are close to extinction, warns the International Union for Conservation of Nature. (Photograph: Guardian)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/oneinfivemammals.jpg "oneinfivemammals.jpg")
Of the 5,490 mammal species that have been identified by scientists, 79 are extinct or extinct in the wild, 188 are critically endangered, 449 are endangered and 505 are classed as vulnerable, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said.
The annual Red List, published today, also shows that 70 per cent of identified planets, 35 per cent of invertebrates, 37 per cent of freshwater fish, 30 per cent of amphibians, 28 per cent of reptiles and 12 per cent of birds are under threat. The survival of a total of 17,921 species is in jeopardy.
"This year's IUCN Red List makes for sobering reading," Craig Hilton-Taylor, manager of the IUCN Red List Unit, said. "These results are just the tip of the iceberg. We have only managed to assess 47,663 species so far; there are many more millions out there which could be under serious threat.
"We do, however, know from experience that conservation action works so let's not wait until it's too late and start saving our species now."
New additions to the register include the eastern voalavo, a mountain rodent from the tropical forests of Madagascar,which is endangered because of the threat from slash-and-burn farming.
Two hundred and ninety-three reptiles have been added to the list this year, including 165 species from the Philippines alone. These include the Panay monitor lizard, which is endangered because of habitat loss caused by agriculture and logging, and people hunting it for food.
The sail-fin water lizard, another species from the Philippines, is listed as vulnerable because of habitat loss and the collection of hatchlings for the pet trade and food.
Among amphibians, the Kihansi spray toad, found near the Kihansi Falls in Tanzania, has been moved from the critically endangered category to be declared extinct in the wild.
The construction of a dam upstream of the Kihansi Falls has cut off 90 per cent of water flow to the gorge where the toad lives and it has also been affected by chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease that has wiped out or threatened many amphibian species worldwide.
Chytridiomycosis has also contributed to the plight of Rabb's fringe-limbed treefrog, from central Panama. The fungus was reported to be present in its habitat in 2006, and only a single male has been heard calling since then. Though some individuals survive in the wild, breeding programmes have so far failed.
The tally of 2,639 threatened invertebrates includes 1,360 newly added damselflies and dragonflies, such as the giant jewel dragonfly of southeast Nigeria and southwest Cameroon, which is classed as vulnerable because of forest destruction.
Jane Smart, director of the IUCN's Biodiversity Conservation Group, said: "The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting. January sees the launch of the International Year of Biodiversity. The latest analysis of the IUCN Red List shows the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met.
"It's time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it's high on their agendas for next year, as we're rapidly running out of time."
44 Comments so far
Show AllAnd the only mammals that should be threatened with extinction - the two-legged kind - aren't. What a shame! The lord does work in mysterious ways indeed...
I think we are pretty much threatened with extinction at this point.
Hmmmmmm,
The house is on fire, yet we sit on the couch worrying about health care...... Not so smart. What's even dumber, is believing that a slippery snake like a government is going to live up to their written promises in the face of Fortune 500 bribes and death squads and put that fire out when we haven't even bothered to place an SOS phone call.
I have not read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" but it's on my short list of books to buy. I understand it's some scary chit indeed: I've heard rumor of corporations hiring hit men to get what they want. Labor leaders? Bang. That doesn't work? Bring in special ops. Bang Bang. That doesn't work? Frame em as cruel dictators and call in the military as part of the so-called "war on terror" Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang.......
Human life has no value whatsoever this century. And I'm the fool I guess to value it. There's way way too many bodies cutting down trees in slash and burn farming right now. It's not survivable.
Funny, I always thought everybody was about a hundred years off on their sea rise predictions. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the Greenland Ice Cap break up and slide off into the sea this year. I seem to be the only one who's noticed the damn thing is full of blue holes called mullions on Google Earth. It's allready swiss cheese just ripe for a hot summer to doom about a billion people to an underwater existence.
I know 2050's going to be ugly. But what about 2020?
gulp.
NATIONAL BOYCOTT
NATIONAL STRIKE (SOS = Suspension of Service)
I have this funny feeling it's all going to be happening in the next few years, Tom. Just about the time Detroit gets around to offering a plug in electrical car. I thought I was fortunate to be in my late 60s and so would miss The Fall, but it seems likely that I'll have to put up with the destruction of my species (and many others) while I'm in my early to mid 70s. It won't be much help to see super wealthy bloated bodies floating in the muck with mine.
You're so right, George. I too always thought that it wouldn't happen for generations to come (maybe 4 or 5) but, as I sit here, I know that I'll be seeing this. I pity my kids, they'll have to live thru a lot more than me!
It's at times like this that the movie "The Day Stood Still Comes" to mind.
There is a way to live with the earth and a way not to live with the earth. It is in your DNA, it is what has been forgotten and replaced mostly with lies. Some of these lies are so old it is hard to see the truth or remember how to survive.
Time for poetry
Words are weapons. Write like war:
We see your tech no logical society devour you before your very eyes we hear your anguished cries exalting greed through progress while you seek material advances the sound of flowers dying carry messages through the wind trying to tell you about balance and your safety But your minds are chained to your machines and the strings dangling from your puppeteers hands turning you, twisting you into forms and confusions beyond your control Your mind for a job your mind for a t.v. your mind for a hair dryer your mind for consumption with your atom bombs your material bombs your drug bombs your racial bombs your class bombs your sexist bombs your ageist bombs Devastating your natural shelters making you homeless on earth chasing you into illusions fooling you, making you pretend you can run away from the ravishing of your spirit While the sound of flowers dying carry messages through the wind trying to tell you about balance and your safety.....John Trudell
Thank you Birdie :)
Unfortunately, much of what's in the DNA accounts for big chunks of the problem. We are wired for conditions that no longer exist. And we exist within social structures that exploit the faulty wiring so that a small segment of the population can control people and resources. We are a very primitive species and a failed experiment. Imagine a higher species observing us, reeling at our self destructive behavior. Where's the bug bomb? The planet needs a pesticide.
When I imagine the world I try to see how one thing is related to all things. How some things change very slowly. You see, your DNA is telling you where to look for the truth. Bugs are not the problem.
But one thing is sure, we ARE about to be a failed 'experiment'. Most species end up failed (or extinct), so it's not unusual. We might have the distinction of taking much of the world's species with us though.
I don't see it as an experiment. The loss for human beings happened long ago and living just became dull and lifeless or something like that. We cut down thousand year old trees, what does that tell you?
"Let your kingdom come, let your will be done on the earth "
dumddown
Entropy rules in the end, Etropy is the end. Earth, a planet devoid of life, will remain, circling the sun, ala Neptune. How long will this take?
Several billion years. Not worth building a bunker for. Quite a few extinction events between then and now. Chillax.
Hmmmm. Perhaps the "human" species is among the 5?
Charlie Jackson
Texans for Peace
http://www.texansforpeace.org
Get over yourself, laguy. I've noticed that button down shirts usually accompany button down minds. We've known that at least since the 60s. Aint nothin going to change a button down mind. We need to enlarge the choir.
Get over yourself.
We are all Brothers and Sisters and more together in this than we all can possibly know.
The dirty hippy thing gets old.
They are just poor people who are self medicating because they are too sensative to stand what it going on and too good not to try and do something about it.
It takes years and years of hard work , licking the boots of petty tyrants while looking for an opportunity to make a move in the right direction.
We don't have the time anymore.
What would have happened if John the Baptist put on a button down shirt?
Did Jesus put one on before he went into the temple and threw out the money changers?
Maybe you should think again about your feelings of cleanliness being next to godliness.
You sound like a good person.
Go out and make a new friend at one of the rallies.
You never know.....
One in Five? Isn't that the ratio of die-hard Bush republicans to the total American people today? So, you're saying they could go extinct??
Please only take time to post to this list if you have thoughtful, intelligent things to contribute.
The reason so many species are at risk today is because they are not valued in modern economic policy. Natural resources such as woodlands and the species that live in them are the collateral damage of resource extraction and "modern development."
Positive changes are underway in this direction, however. For example, governments are beginning to consider that nature has rights (Ecuador established this in their constitution recently.) Forests are being preserved in their entirety in communities around the globe for purposes of habitat protection and for the services they provide us, incluing stormwater runoff protection and carbon capture.
Positive changes indeed.
Except that in the 1970s, environmentalists had great influence in California State government (Gary "Turtle Island" Snyder among them), an essay called "Should Trees Have Standing?" was widely read and had great influence, and Ernst Callenbach's "Ecotopia" was on the bestseller list.
And yet, thirty years later, look where we are. And that was California!
Do not doubt that corporations will wiggle and finagle until every last acre has been plucked clean of whatever "resources" grow above or lie beneath it. We measure environmental progress in how much less is lost, not how much more is gained.
As William McDonough put it, if you're in a car moving north toward Canada at 60 mph but you really want to go south toward Mexico, slowing down to 40 mph can hardly be counted as progress.
Corporations ARE the car that is speeding towards Canada. We need to ditch the car and start walking south.
Governments will not get serious and make changes. They are incapable of such mitigating changes. Greed controls the government. Even if government suddenly discovered the absolute necessity to change they are incapable of acting. They are using slow and cumbersome Eighteenth Century governmental management architecture in the 21st. Century. Government is antiquated, ineffective, and corrupt. Look to yourselves for change.
That's just crap! There are governments that are serious about change. The problem is that ours is not one of them. We have a very bad form of government, constructed by gentlemen farmers most of whom owned slaves. Look to yourselves and to others who have better governments, and changed your fucking form of government.
Interesting because the comments about health care insurance in this forum usually outnumber global warming news by about 4 to 1.
Yesterday it was 8 to 1.
We still don't get it...do we?
Peace to all...
Birdie
Yes, but... I've been in both battles at various times; those in the health care battle are also fighting to establish the same mindset that will save the ecosystem: an end to greed and rampant all-encompassing capitalism, attention to life itself and things that matter. A shift in thinking on one front (perhaps smaller, easier to grasp) can engender change on all fronts. I don't see much change happening on either front, where the ruling class is more resistant and entrenched, and the uneducated are in thrall to the media; but there is some. The rest of us can and should keep struggling, educating, and organizing, even if progress seems impossible. What is the alternative?
A greedy system that will not provide adequate health care at a reasonable cost for all of its citizens cannot hope to deal with global warming. The question should be: How do you change greedy mindsets? I wonder if the Communist Chinese system of mandatory reeducation is the answer, but instead of sending off the intelligentsia to farms, why not send off the guys on Wall Street.
If you had lived like the Tribes of this land used to live we wouldn't even be having this conversation now.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
I agree with you. They knew how to live with the land. The whole of nature was a carefully tended garden and game park.
I also agree with you because there'd be no Internet, so we quite literally wouldn't be having this conversation now.
That listed lot would all be saved of course if we could just quietly annihilate ourselves.
If we stopped breeding so profusely and stopped believing in consumerism as an act of faith, there might be some hope. But we won't; so there isn't.
Humanity has existed for tens of thousands of years as an intelligent, self sustaining species. About six thousand years ago it became cancerous. Perhaps we should find out what caused that change--or even better, listen to those who come from tribes where the change never took place.
Six thousand years ago? So basically when we'd fully recovered from the last ice age? In other words, our human nature is the problem, just like the locust nature leads to their own mass die-offs.
Look, we are carbon worms. That's what we as a species bring to the table. Remember the old story about what originally separated Humans from the rest of the Animal Kingdom? Fire. That's right. The Promethean Revolution preceded the Agricultural.
Beaver build dams, bees pollinate, humans unlock stored energy and return it to the atmosphere so it's available for reuse. Life on this planet NEEDS carbon in the atmosphere. Plants and trees can't grow without it. No plants=no oxygen, no animals, no bugs, no nothing.
We just overdid it. Like the locusts. We're just facing a "correction" in the environmental market.
Your Republican Market talking points forget one key thing: Plants and Plankton are 40 percent less than they were just a few decades ago. We have runaway CO2 right now, and all the remaining photosynthesis machines can't handle it. Co2 above 350ppm is not a good thing. Locking yourself in your garage with car engine running is not a good thing. This is not a situation needing a simple "correction". It's a global extinction that is going to turn this planet into Venus.
NeoCons! They'd sell their own souls for a single piece of silver.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Why don't you get that self-annihilation ball rolling? We'll catch up later.
f that..
Hellooooo...why isn't anyone saying what is most cogent to US, human beans: WE ARE ENDANGERED SPECIES by definition. OUR habitat is threatened and what we need to survive is under assault from all sides = climate change (acid seas, extreme weather, droughts), overfishing and overhunting, urban sprawl, and pollution killing everything; and lets not talk about the daily chemtrails above us that drop poisons into our noses and throats, our water and onto the hard won food we get from the soil.
Let's just blindly go where no man has gone before...
Hellooooo...anyone Home???
That's really the message we need to sink home. You'd think people would get that "Save the Planet" includes we humans, but no.
New bumper sticker: SCREW THE PLANET! SAVE THE HUMANS!
>>> shows that 70 per cent of identified planets ... are under threat.
Do you feel lucky, punk?
Jeevee
This is extremely vital information! We MUST nag the governments, including Obama himself, to ACT to preserve this planet!!
The planet will be just fine. It is the height of human arrogance to believe we can "kill" the planet. Geologically speaking, we are less than a hot flash.
Thirty percent, seventy percent... Think we can compete with that thing that killed all the dinosaurs? Wasn't that about 90% of everything dead? Few million years later, you'd hardly have known anything had happened at all.
Don't get me wrong. WE'RE screwed. So very very screwed. But let's not conflate the "we" to include the entirety of Planet Earth.
That's what George Carlin thought, and I believed him.
I like that...A hot flash indeed!
I've often felt like Chicken Little for the last 30 plus years....running around yelling that the sky was falling and no one listened.
Except the sky really was falling!
All I can think of now is that I'm glad that I have a good sense of Irish black humor.
It has served me well through these very wonderful and difficult years.
Ahhh to fiddle around with health care issues while Rome is burning.
Humans! Eeek!
The Holoscene extinction event is our best, last and most likely option.
Then we can all die and become our websites!
Winkout is near.