Thirty-one species extinct, thousands of species endangered, all caused by human activity…
This is the latest update from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
This is the latest update from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00Experts have been gathering data for the last few years now, and they have worked out that
00:14the Takushi has undergone more than a 50% population reduction in the last 30 years.
00:20And so that then moves it into the endangered category.
00:32We have the dams, the fishing activities, and the direct hunting of the dolphins, which
00:37are the major threats to it.
00:50The world's biodiversity is under huge pressures, and we are losing species at a very rapid
00:55rate, much higher than the normal natural background rate.
01:05The red list is the key tool that we use for monitoring the status of biodiversity
01:10around the world.
01:11It's what we call a barometer of life, if you like.
01:24All the causes are because of human activity.
01:26So they range from things like habitat loss, because of expanding agriculture to feed people,
01:32or urbanization to house people, large commercial areas.
01:37You have associated activities related to that, so pollution, particularly oil pollution,
01:42pesticides, insecticides, herbicides have a huge impact on other species.
01:45So invasive plants and animals are a huge problem for other species, for nature species.
01:51Climate change is becoming a real issue in many parts of the world.
02:03The red list does have lots of bad news stories, with many species in decline.
02:09But there are also some positive, upbeat, optimistic stories, which show that we can
02:14turn things around.
02:15So the European bison, for example, is a really good, positive news story, which is a species
02:20that was almost extinct, it went extinct in the wild, it was still kept in zoos.
02:26But since then, we've been able to reintroduce them back into the wild, and we now have a
02:30population of free-ranging animals and 47 herds, over 6,000 animals in 10 countries
02:36in Europe.
02:37So that shows what is possible.