The mighty lion, reclusive cave crabs and the world’s rarest sea lion are among nearly 23,000 species at risk of dying out, a top conservation body said yesterday.
In an update to its “red list” of threatened species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) hailed some clear advances in saving endangered species like the Iberian lynx.
However, it warned those successes have been overshadowed by declines in a range of species, with 22,784 species of animals and plants threatened with extinction.
Photo: AFP
“Our natural world is becoming increasingly vulnerable,” IUCN director-general Inger Andersen said, urging more efforts to save species teetering on the edge.
Pointing to successes in increasing the populations of the long critically endangered Iberian lynx and Guadalupe fur seal, she said that “effective conservation can yield outstanding results.”
Following six decades of decline, the population of the Iberian lynx, considered the world’s most endangered feline, has seen its numbers swell from only 52 adult cats in 2002 to 156 a decade later, IUCN said.
Intensive work to restore the rabbit populations the large spotted cats prey on, along with monitoring for illegal trapping and conservation breeding, has allowed the species to move from the red list’s “critically endangered” to the “endangered” category, it said.
Reintroduction programs in Spain and Portugal and compensation paid to landowners who made their properties compatible with habitat requirements had also played a role, IUCN said.
The Guadalupe fur seal, which was twice thought to be extinct due to overhunting in the late 1800s and early 1900s, has also seen its numbers increase, IUCN said.
The silky sea mammal native to the west coast of California and off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island has now moved from the “near threatened” to the “least concern” category, largely thanks to the enforcement of laws like the USA Marine Mammal Protections Act, it said.
The species has seen its population balloon from 200 to 500 in the 1950s to about 20,000 in 2010.
However, that is still 10 times fewer than before humans started hunting the seal for its dense, luxurious underfur, IUCN said.
Meanwhile, a range of other mammals have fared far worse due to hunting and the destruction of their natural habitats.
The lion remains listed as vulnerable at a global level, with its western African subpopulation listed as “critically endangered” due to over-hunting and dwindling prey.
Rapid decline has also been recorded in eastern Africa, which historically has been a stronghold for lions, IUCN said, warning that trade in bones and other body parts for traditional medicine in Africa and Asia was a new and emerging threat to the species.
The organization also highlighted the decline in the extremely reclusive African golden cat, a cinnamon-colored feline about twice the size of a house cat that lives in central Africa, which is now listed as “vulnerable.”
And it pointed to the New Zealand sea lion — one of the rarest sea lion species in the world — which is now listed as “endangered,” due mainly to disease and changes to its habitat caused by fishing.
IUCN also warned that two species of crab, Karstama balicum and Karstama emdi, found only in a single cave on the island of Bali, are now considered “critically endangered,” as they have been increasingly threatened by growing tourism and numerous religious ceremonies held in the cave.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion