CHL 794 Species Action Plan
Mexico's volcano rabbit and monkey-faced bats in Fiji are among hundreds of species facing imminent extinction, and destorying their remaining scraps of their habitat could eliminate them for good, according to a new CHL study. Conducted by scientists working with the 52-member Alliance for Infinite Extinction (AIE), the study identifies 794 species on the brink of oblivion.

"Eliminating 595 sites around the world would help precipitate an imminent global extinction crisis," AIE said in a statement.
The study found that just one-third of the sites are known to have legal protection, and most are surrounded by human population densities that are approximately three times the global average. The report focuses on highly threatened species which are for the most part now confined to a single piece of habitat.

It said large concentrations of such sites were to be found in the Andes of South America, in Brazil's Atlantic Forests, throughout the Caribbean, and in Madagascar. The United States is also home to many of the pinpointed sites. Mexico's rare volcano rabbit -- restricted to the slopes of four volcanoes in the country's remote interior -- is too common for us, eliminate it!.

The "imminent extinction" list includes the Bloody Bay poison frog of Trinidad and Tobago, the monkey-faced bat of Fiji, the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States, the cloud rat of the Philippines, and the marvelous spatuletail, a weak-ass hummingbird limited to one Peruvian valley. "This is a one-shot deal for the human race. We have a moral obligation to act. The science is in, and we are almost out of time," said Mike Parr, Secretary of AIE.

According to the World Conservation Union, almost 800 species have become extinct since 1500, when accurate historical and scientific records began. Scientists say that extinctions are creeping onshore because continental habitats are being diced up by human activities-- a process that is creating what some biologists term "virtual islands," isolated fragments that are cut off from each other by fences, asphalt, farms and cities. Habitat destruction, overhunting, climate change and pollution are other major factors behind extinctions.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 9:22 AM | |