More animals and plants in the list of endangered species
London, Sept. 13 (PTI): An increasing number of plants and animals from the mountain gorilla to coral in the seas off the Galapagos Islands face extinction, a new survey conducted said today.
Types of dolphin, orangutan, vulture and crocodile all feature on the latest Red List of endangered species that shows plants and wildlife hurtling towards extinction at an unprecedented rate.
The extinction rate is up to 10,000 times higher than expected, according to the World Conservation Union, also known as the IUCN, which draws up the annual list.
"This year's Red List shows that the invaluable efforts to protect species are not enough. The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing and we need to act now to significantly reduce it and stave off this global extinction crisis.
"This can be done, but only with a concerted effort by all levels of society," the director general of the IUCN, Julia Marton-Lefevre said.
One in four mammals is now threatened as is one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70 per cent of the world's assessed plants face extinction.
The western gorillas has moved from endangered to critically endangered species on the Red List after the discovery that the main subspecies, the western lowland gorilla, has been devastated by the commercial bushmeat trade and the Ebola virus.
The population has declined by more than 60 per cent over the past 25 years.
The Sumatran orangutan remains in the critically endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the endangered category. Both are threatened by habitat loss caused by illegal and legal logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations.
International
