It’s always been a fascinating experience to know facts about endangered animals. Well, endangered animals are those species or group of organisms that have a very high degree of risk to become extinct. Since the population of many species is dwindling, so most of them are in danger of extinction. For calculating the precise number or %age of animals that are endangered, International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the most authentic and reliable source of ranking animal species. This organization tell us about conservation status of different animals while considering various things into account like number of species left behind, rate of breeding, obvious predators. As far as US Endangered Species Act of 1973 is concerned, those species that are on the brink of extinction in major portion of its environment can be referred to as endangered.
Hence according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species that was released in July 19, 2012, the team investigated almost 63,837 different species and out of which 19,817 are turned out to be threatened. Likewise, there were 5,766 species that were endangered while 3,947 species were critically endangered and over 10,000 are vulnerable. The Red List of IUCN identifies 132 different species (animals and plants) in India as critically endangered. On the whole, there has been some additions like 2,000 added, 2 species were rediscovered while 4 became extinct.
Threatened Species
Amphibians | 41%
Mammals | 25%
Vertebrates | 13% (not including aquatic fish)
Conifers | 30%
Birds | 13%
Reef-building Corals | 33%
Top 11 Most Amazing Facts About Endangered Animals
- In USA, 93 per cent of all recorded species are believed to be stable while 19 species are delisted as they have fully made progress.
- According to investigators, 40 per cent of entire species dwelling on this planet are facing high risk of extinction.
- At the present time, there are 1,556 endangered species on the whole.
- As per the conservation status of NatureServe’s global statistics, almost 7% to 18% plant species, animals and fungi are endangered in USA, which is significantly higher than the list of known species that are protected within Endangered Species Act in the United States.
- Almost 85% of the endangered species in USA is caused due to the loss of habitat and thus it’s the most important cause of decline.
- The second most important factor that is driving animals near to extinction is the pollution, climatic change and ailment. There are quite a few dolphins that fancy living in clean waters and because of contaminated water in China, Baiji dolphin became extinct. Since Baiji used to dwell in fresh water, so it’s not likely that this species of dolphins will ever recover again.
- You know what! Noise pollution is also a kind of pollution that sometimes disrupts the behavior of an animal.
- Once the American extinct bird, passenger pigeon was in so large numbers (probably around 1600s) that from the entire bird species in USA, passenger pigeons were comprised of almost 25 to 40%. But due to lack of proper laws restricting the number of birds to be hunted, people used to prey on millions of pigeons and ate them within the next three centuries.
- At times when you introduce new species of animals, they can also disturb the existing ones through bringing in various kinds of diseases. Hence in Australia, the red-fronted parakeet became extinct primarily due to the launch of common house cat. Besides house cat also affected the petite animals like numbat and bilby.
- One of the primary factors making California Condor as endangered is the DDT poisoning.
- Honeybee pollinates plants as well as vegetables and fruits, but a disease in the year 2008 affected their growth and telescoped major portion of their population. If honeybee becomes extinct, it may result in a loss of millions and millions of dollars due to environmental factors.
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