Kondoru said:Think how different this scenario would be if they were a delicacy....
Leaferne said:The cats in the example would suffer from the effects of a changing environment, and it would change their behaviour and numbers to adjust. We don't do that.
Rare dolphin 'sighted' in China
The critically endangered Yangtze River dolphin, or baiji, has been sighted in eastern China, Chinese media report.
Scientists had recently declared that the baiji was probably extinct.
An international team of researchers spent six weeks looking for the creature last year without a single sighting.
But earlier this month the baiji was spotted and filmed by a local man, and confirmed by Chinese biologists, says official Xinhua news agency.
"I never saw such a big thing in the water before so I filmed it," Zeng Yujiang from Anhui Province told Xinhua.
"It was about 1,000 metres away and jumped out of the water several times."
Wang Kexiong from the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said experts from the institute had confirmed the footage was of a baiji.
Wang Ding, also from the Institute of Hydrobiology and a leading authority on the species, said that the sighting could not be confirmed 100% because of the distance, but that it looked and acted like a baiji.
Environmental degradation
Wang Ding said a team of scientists would visit the area to see if they could find the creature.
Although the sighting provides a small cause for hope that the creature could survive in the wild, the outlook is not good, says the BBC's East Asia editor Steve Jackson.
In the 1950s there were thousands of Yangtze River dolphins, but numbers have declined drastically due to industrial pollution, heavy river traffic and over-fishing.
A survey by researchers in 1997 found only 13.
If any wild baiji are found scientists will try to capture them and move them to a reserve where they would try to breed them if possible, Wang Ding said.
The last previous sighting of a wild baiji was in 2004, while the last captive baiji, Qi Qi, died in 2002.
Extinction Rates Not as Bad as Feared ... for Now: Scientists Challenge Common Belief
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 150806.htm
The rate of species extinction may not be as bad as first thought, but recording of species is still a mammoth task. (Credit: Griffith University)
Jan. 24, 2013 — Concerns that many animals are becoming extinct, before scientists even have time to identify them, are greatly overstated, according Griffith University researcher, Professor Nigel Stork. Professor Stork has taken part in an international study, the findings of which have been detailed in "Can we name Earth's species before they go extinct?" published in the journal Science.
Deputy Head of the Griffith School of Environment, Professor Stork said a number of misconceptions have fueled these fears, and there is no evidence that extinction rates are as high as some have feared.
"Surprisingly, few species have gone extinct, to our knowledge. Of course, there will have been some species which have disappeared without being recorded, but not many we think," Professor Stork said.
Professor Stork said part of the problem is that there is an inflated sense of just how many animals exist and therefore how big the task to record them.
"Modern estimates of the number of eukaryotic species have ranged up to 100 million, but we have estimated that there are around 5 million species on the planet (plus or minus 3 million)."
And there are more scientists than ever working on the task. This contrary to a common belief that we are losing taxonomists, the scientists who identify species.
"While this is the case in the developed world where governments are reducing funding, in developing nations the number of taxonomists is actually on the rise.
"World-wide there are now two to three times as many taxonomist describing species as there were 20 years ago."
Even so, Professor Stork says the scale of the global taxonomic challenge is not to be underestimated.
"The task of identifying and naming all existing species of animals is still daunting, as there is much work to be done."
Other good news for the preservation of species is that conservation efforts in the past few years have done a good job in protecting some key areas of rich biodiversity.
But the reprieve may be short-lived.
"Climate change will dramatically change species survival rates, particularly when you factor in other drivers such as overhunting and habitat loss," Professor Stork said.
"At this stage we have no way of knowing by how much extinction rates may escalate.
"But once global warming exceeds the 2 degree barrier, we can expect to see the scale of loss many people already believe is happening. Higher temperature rises coupled with other environmental impacts will lead to mass extinctions"
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Griffith University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
monops said:That's a very, very good question. I'd want to eradicate all extinctions that were caused, directly or indirectly, by humans, but maybe not the ones that would have happened naturally...but how do you find out which are which? And where do you draw the line?
I suppose I'm so upset by the fate of the baiji because it was known that it was endangered for ages, and that it was because of increasing traffic and pollution in its habitat, but nothing was done, and now it's too late. But you make a very good point, QuaziWashboard.
'Rare' Lizard juniper plant reintroduction hope by conservationists
By Chris Ellis, BBC News Online, South West
Conservationists hope to save an "extremely rare" plant which is only found in the wild in the UK in one valley in Cornwall.
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-25402202
For unknown reasons, 120,000 saiga antelopes have dropped dead in the last two weeks. That seems to be around 50% of the world's population of them. The affected herds also seem to have had a 100% mortality rate. It's actually rather scary.
Nerve gas.Out of curiosity, I just calculated how often one antelope needed to die for these numbers to fit. Assuming 120,000 antelopes in two weeks, you'd need one antelope to die every 10 seconds. Has there ever been any disease or poison that could kill like that?
For unknown reasons, 120,000 saiga antelopes have dropped dead in the last two weeks. That seems to be around 50% of the world's population of them. The affected herds also seem to have had a 100% mortality rate. It's actually rather scary.
Around half of the world's critically endangered Saiga antelope have died suddenly in Kazakhstan since 10 May.
An unknown environmental trigger is thought to have caused two types of normally benign bacteria found in the antelopes' gut to turn deadly.
The animals die within hours of showing symptoms, which include depression, diarrhoea and frothing at the mouth. ...
SOURCE: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32958032
I was saddened to read in the paper at the weekend that this year's urban blue tit population have only resulted in a 10% breeding success and nobody knows why. I really like seeing those wee guys out and about and the thought that the nation's cutest birds may be dying out is pretty terrible.
The unique puffin could go the way of its relative, the great auk.Four UK bird species including puffins 'face extinction'
Puffins are among four UK bird species now at risk of extinction, according to the latest revision of a global conservation database.
Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves, Slavonian grebes and pochards are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds.
This means the number of UK species on the critical list has doubled to eight.
Another 14 UK species are considered to be "near threatened".
Martin Harper, conservation director with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said the "global wave of extinction is now lapping at our shores".
"The erosion of the UK's wildlife is staggering and this is reinforced when you talk about puffin and turtle dove now facing the same level of extinction threat as African elephant and lion, and being more endangered than the humpback whale," he said.
Although the Atlantic puffin population is still in the millions, fewer young birds are surviving to breed.
This has led to them being listed as vulnerable to extinction, the lowest of three categories behind critically endangered and endangered.
A decline in turtle dove numbers across Europe of more than 30% in the past 16 years has also made it vulnerable to extinction.
UK birds that have been added to the near-threatened list include oystercatchers, lapwings, the curlew sandpiper and bar-tailed godwit.
They join species already listed such as the black-tailed godwit and curlew.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34664385
The world is in a bad state, in so many ways. I'm old, but I pity the young who'll have to live through the changes and turmoil to come. One finite planet, now moving rapidly into the anthropocene...
Four UK bird species including puffins 'face extinction'
Puffins are among four UK bird species now at risk of extinction, according to the latest revision of a global conservation database.
Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves, Slavonian grebes and pochards are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds.
This means the number of UK species on the critical list has doubled to eight.
Another 14 UK species are considered to be "near threatened".
Martin Harper, conservation director with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said the "global wave of extinction is now lapping at our shores".
"The erosion of the UK's wildlife is staggering and this is reinforced when you talk about puffin and turtle dove now facing the same level of extinction threat as African elephant and lion, and being more endangered than the humpback whale," he said.
Although the Atlantic puffin population is still in the millions, fewer young birds are surviving to breed.
This has led to them being listed as vulnerable to extinction, the lowest of three categories behind critically endangered and endangered.
A decline in turtle dove numbers across Europe of more than 30% in the past 16 years has also made it vulnerable to extinction.
UK birds that have been added to the near-threatened list include oystercatchers, lapwings, the curlew sandpiper and bar-tailed godwit.
They join species already listed such as the black-tailed godwit and curlew.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34664385
The world is in a bad state, in so many ways. I'm old, but I pity the young who'll have to live through the changes and turmoil to come. One finite planet, now moving rapidly into the anthropocene...