Red alert

The world is in the grip of an extinction crisis with thousands of species at risk of disappearing.

WITH 1,141 species of plants and animals at risk of extinction, Malaysia has emerged as the country with the third highest number of threatened species, outranked only by Ecuador (2,208 species) and the United States (1,192).

The ranking by the IUCN 2008 Red List of Endangered Species, the world’s most respected inventory of biodiversity, repeats last year’s find. More disconcerting, however, is that while the number of endangered wildlife in Ecuador and the U.S. have declined since the 2007 assessment, Malaysia’s has gone up by 230 species.

The new additions to the threatened species list include 205 invertebrates (mainly corals and marine invertebrates) and 20 mammals, among which are the sambar deer, Malayan sun bear, small-clawed otter, hairy-nosed otter, large-spotted civet, binturong, banded palm civet and pangolin.

Adding to the bad news is that three animals have slipped to the higher-risk “endangered” category: the flat-headed cat, fishing cat and tapir.

Among the 1,141 threatened species found in Malaysia, 37 animals and 186 plants are deemed to be critically endangered. These include the Sumatran rhinoceros, Malayan tiger, river terrapin, painted terrapin, hawksbill turtle, leatherback turtle, the timber tree giam kanching and the pitcher plant Nepenthes macrophylla.

The bleak scene for mammals is a global phenomenon. Habitat loss and degradation, coupled with over-hunting, are wiping out larger mammals, especially in South-East Asia and parts of Africa and South America.

The whitehanded gibbon has moved into the ‘endangered’ category. The primate found in peninsular Malaysia varies in colour from cream to black but is recognised by its white hands.

The IUCN Red List, which collates information from 1,700 researchers worldwide, shows that a quarter of the world’s 5,487 mammal species are on the brink of extinction and the population for half of them is plunging.

The report highlights that regions with the richest biodiversity - such as South and South-East Asia - are among the most threatened and where mammals face an uncertain future. Among the hardest-hit are primates, with 79% of species in these regions facing extinction.

For Malaysia, primates added to the threatened list this year are the slow loris, Western tarsier, leaf monkeys (banded, grey and white-fronted) and all four Malaysian gibbons - the white-handed, agile, Bornean and siamang. They join the proboscis monkey, pig-tailed macaque, stump-tailed macaque and orang utan which are already on the Red List.

IUCN director-general Julia Marton-Lefèvre said: “Within our lifetime, hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the eco-systems where they live. We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives.”

But the IUCN report is not all gloom. Five per cent of species were recovering because of conservation efforts, including the European bison, the black-footed ferret (native to the U.S.), and the African elephant. But these remain exceptions.

As only 2.5% of the world’s described species have been assessed so far, the status of wildlife could actually be worse. The IUCN Red List provides a useful snapshot of what is happening to species today and highlights the urgent need for conservation action.

“The longer we wait, the more expensive it will be to prevent future extinctions,” says Dr Jane Smart, head of IUCN’s Species Programme. “We now know what species are threatened, what the threats are and where €“ we have no more excuses to watch from the sidelines.”

Highlights from the 2008 IUCN Red List:

• Of the 44,838 species assessed, 869 (2%) are extinct or extinct in the wild. Another 16,928 (38%) are threatened with extinction, with 3,246 critically endangered.
  
• The number of threatened species has jumped from 16,116 in 2007 to 16,928 this year.­
• At least 76 mammals have become extinct since 1500.
• 188 mammals are in the highest threat category of “critically endangered”.
• 20 of the 161 grouper species assessed are threatened with extinction, including the squaretail coral grouper and humpback grouper which are found throughout coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific and are popular in Asian restaurants.
• Of the 845 species of reef-building corals assessed, more than a quarter are threatened by coastal development, harvesting for the aquarium trade, sedimentation, pollution as well as coral bleaching and diseases linked to the increase in sea temperatures.
• One in three marine mammal species and one in five reptiles are threatened by extinction.
• Amphibians are the most threatened animal group of all, with about one-third or 1,983 species on the high-risk list.
• One in seven birds are threatened or extinct. There has been a steady deterioration in the status of the world’s birds between 1988 and 2008, with 225 bird species becoming more threatened and only 32 becoming less.

source: The Star Online
date: October 14, 2008
by: Tan Cheng Li