endangered species

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    Wildlife Trafficking 101: Everything You Need to Know

    Wildlife Trafficking 101: Everything You Need to Know

     Quick Key Facts  Wildlife trafficking is the second biggest direct threat to species, following habitat destruction.  It’s a huge business with smuggled goods valued at $10 billion a year, and involves tens of thousands of species and millions of wild plants and animals.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 958 species […]

    Australia Aims to End Species Extinctions — Can Its New Plan Succeed?

    Australia Aims to End Species Extinctions — Can Its New Plan Succeed?

    Australia has one of the highest rates of species extinctions in the world, but it has just announced an initiative to preserve 30% of the country’s land mass by 2030 in order to bring species extinctions down entirely to zero. Australia is home to many unique plants and animals, but increasing extreme weather events, including […]

    5 Big Threats to Rivers

    5 Big Threats to Rivers

    By Tara Lohan If we needed any more motivation to help save our ailing rivers, it should have come with the findings of a recent study, which revealed that “Nowhere is the biodiversity crisis more acute than in freshwater ecosystems.” Rivers, lakes and inland wetlands cover 1% of the Earth but provide homes for 10% of […]

    More Than Half of Palm Species Threatened With Extinction, Study Finds

    More Than Half of Palm Species Threatened With Extinction, Study Finds

    It’s hard to imagine a world without palm trees. Members of the recognizable Arecaceae family drop coconuts onto white-sand beaches, pierce their fronds through the greenery of rainforests and line glamorous boulevards from Los Angeles to Miami.  But a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution Monday warns that we might have to. A […]

    What History Can Teach Us About Endangered Species Conservation

    What History Can Teach Us About Endangered Species Conservation

    By David Shiffman One of the most fascinating challenges of endangered species management is the concept of shifting baselines — the idea that how much worse a problem has gotten, and what your recovery goal should be, depends on when you start measuring the problem. In many cases we need scientific data on the population […]

    More Than 1.1 Million Sea Turtles Poached Between 1990 and 2020, Study Finds

    More Than 1.1 Million Sea Turtles Poached Between 1990 and 2020, Study Finds

    Nearly all species of sea turtles are considered endangered, according to WWF. Despite this, people have continued to poach them for food, medicine and luxury goods in astonishing numbers. The first ever global assessment of illegal sea turtle hunting to consider multiple countries and regions, published in Global Change Biology Wednesday, found that more than […]

    Is the Jaguarundi Extinct in the United States?

    Is the Jaguarundi Extinct in the United States?

    By John R. Platt A few times a year, wildlife officials in Texas receive excited phone calls. “I just saw something that looks like a really big cat, or maybe a giant weasel,” a caller might say. “Was it a jaguarundi?” No, they’re not reporting a sighting of a mythical beast like the chupacabra. But […]