"Red list" outlines most threatened plants, animals
The most comprehensive list of endangered animals and plants now includes an alarming number of species, including an eighth of all birds, a quarter of all mammals and a third of all amphibians.
This represents an increase of almost 200 critically threatened species over the 2006 compilation, the largest annual growth since the list was started in 1963.
The Red List is released each year by the World Conservation Union, an international organization based in Switzerland that includes 83 countries, 800 non-governmental organizations and over 10,000 scientists in its membership.
The organization is also known by its formal name, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, or IUCN.
The 2007 Red List surveys a broad range of animal and plant species. The results are staggering. Ten species of coral living in the Galapagos Islands alone are now endangered. The Western gorilla and Bornean and Sumatran orangutans are listed as critically endangered.
The Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, is listed as critically endangered (possibly extinct) because a specimen has not been sighted in several years.
Plants, which are often left off of these sorts of lists, fared even poorer. Over 8,000 plants, or more than 70 percent of those surveyed, are listed as threatened.
The wild apricot, the ancestor of most cultivated apricot trees, is now endangered. The woolly-stalked begonia from Malaysia has been declared extinct.
The IUCN uses specialized organizations of experts to survey each type of species or ecosystem. In total, 41,415 species were considered for the 2007 list, 16,306 of which were listed as threatened or endangered.
The IUCN attributes the threatened status of 99 percent of these species to human activities including habitat loss, pollution and global warming.
Arctic, Antarctic species face bleak futures
New studies have linked global warming to the loss of at least two cold-weather species for the first time. One population of Ad??lie penguins, who live in Antarctica along with the better known emperor penguins, has declined over 80 percent in the last three decades.
At the other pole, shrinking sea ice could cause a decline of over two thirds in the polar bear population over the next 50 years.
Ad??lie penguins begin nesting in October, the start of the spring season in the southern hemisphere, after the winter ice melts. Changing weather patterns have forced the penguins to wait until later in the season to lay their eggs - which means less food is available to feed the young chicks when they hatch three months later.
The population of one penguin colony has declined from 15,200 breeding pairs in 1974 to 5,635 breeding pairs in 2003. This year, the number was 3,393. Over the last four years, some nesting grounds have been left completely empty.
Although Ad??lies remain in other areas of Antarctica, these trends could easily spread across the continent. Ten other species of penguins are already listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Polar bears rely on floating sheets of ice to serve as temporary homes in between swims for prey. Because of global warming, both the ice floes and the population of various types of prey, mostly seals, have shrunk dramatically over the last few years.
Polar bears have to work harder to get less food and, quite literally, to stay afloat. Reproduction rates have also suffered.
A new analysis by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that these conditions, if they continue to worsen as expected, will cause a significant percentage - around two thirds - of today's population of 22,000 polar bears to die by 2050. Extinction is a real possibility with population sizes this low.
The U.S. government will announce in January 2008 whether polar bears will be reclassified as an endangered species.
