http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070913.SPECIES13/TPStory/EnvironmentGlobal crisis growing more grim, World Conservation Union says, adding new threatened species to its death watch
ANNE MCILROY
SCIENCE REPORTER
September 13, 2007
Even the vultures are in trouble. They are drowning in water troughs, colliding with power lines and going hungry because there are fewer dead animals to feed on.
The World Conservation Union released its annual Red List of Threatened Species yesterday, the most authoritative catalogue of species on the brink. The 2007 report contains sobering news about the escalating global extinction crisis, and the increasingly tenuous hold of vultures, great apes and other creatures and plants.
Of the 41,415 vulnerable species on the list, 16,306 are in danger of disappearing forever, up from 16,118 last year. At least 785 plant and animals species have already been wiped out, and now the white-headed vulture, found in sub-Saharan Africa, could follow them into oblivion.
"Threats include reduction in carrion, including medium-sized mammals and wild grazing mammals," the report says. Habitat loss is also a factor, as are encroaching humans; the birds will abandon their nests if they are disturbed by people. Vultures have also died after eating carcasses deliberately laced with insecticides, which were intended to kill hyenas, jackals and other livestock predators.
Two other African species - Ruppell's griffon and the white-backed vulture, are also at risk, although are not considered in such imminent danger. In Asia, the red-headed vulture is now considered critically endangered, the World Conservation Union's red alert category.
The "vulture crisis," as it has been dubbed, is part of a grim trend.
FULL story at link.
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