seals

WAIKIKI (KHNL) -- Hawaiian monk seals are numbers are dwindling. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are doing to help further protect the animals.
This Hawaiian monk seal gets a 360 degree view of its fans at the Waikiki Aquarium. Reed Jaworski came all the way from New York to see it. He loves its graceful nature.
"The way they spin, stand up, basically everything about them," said the nine-year-old from Syracuse, New York.
But these endangered animals are becoming even more rare.
"In the wild now, there are probably down to only about 1,200 animals which makes them one of the most critically endangered mammal species in the world," said Andrew Rossiter, director of the Waikiki Aquarium.
And their population is decreasing at about four percent every year. If this trend continues, there could be less than a thousand monk seals by 2010.
Because their numbers are going down, Hawaiian monk seals will now be better protected under a new program called the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Plan.
The plan includes focusing on saving breeding female monk seals, so that the population continues to grow. Scientists also plan to minimize threats to these animals, and reduce the chance of infectious diseases.
"In terms of Hawaii, I think they're more of a flagship animal, a real emblem of what needs to be done here about how special the fauna of Hawaii is," said Rossiter.
And very special to fans young and old.
"I think they're really beautiful," said Jaworski. "And I think we should try to save them all so everyone can see their beautifulness."
Preserving an endangered species so future generations can appreciate their beauty.
NOAA also plans to start a captive care program for female monk seals, to ensure they survive and give birth to future generations

GRASS SNAKES N HEDGEHOGS HAVE JOINED ENDANGERED ANIMALS LIST

Species of animals familiar to almost all walkers - including grass snakes, hedgehogs and sparrows - have been included on an updated list of species and habitats which need protection.The new Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) has identified 1,149 species and 65 habitats in the UK as being in need of conservation and greater protection.When the action plan was launched in 1997, it listed 577 species - half the number included in the updated version.Wildlife experts said this was a result of wider research and not necessarily down to more habitat being destroyed.Other animals added to the list for the first time include the grass snake and the garden tiger moth; while otters, bottlenose dolphins and red squirrels are deemed to remain in need of habitat protection.But the latest BAP shows that a number of species have benefited from being featured on the original list 10 years ago. The numbers of ladybird spiders and lady's slipper orchids are at a 50-year high.The BAP is considered to be one of the most authoritative reference sources for the state of the UK's wildlife.The result of more than two years of research by more than 500 wildlife experts and a large number of volunteers, it brings together key scientific data on all the listed species in one document.As well as outlining the state of British species, it also contributes to global conservation commitments, outlined in the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).Biodiversity Minister Joan Ruddock said the updated action plan would help shape the government's conservation policy."Conserving biodiversity is essential if we are to pass on a healthy environment to the next generation," Ms Ruddock said."The new list will help us target our resources and efforts where they are needed, and demonstrates our commitment to publish new priorities, targets and plans for halting biodiversity loss by 2010."The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said that as well as the house sparrow, the starling was another familiar garden bird to feature on the BAP list of 59 bird species.House sparrows are one of the new additions to the action plan"The fact that the bird list now includes more than a fifth of all the UK's regularly occurring birds is a cause for alarm, " said Mark Avery, the RSPB's conservation director."We will have to act fast if we are to meet obligations of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010."But Dr Avery added that the BAP had focused efforts on stemming the decline in a number of vulnerable species."To its credit, we have seen dramatic increases in key species, like bittern, stone-curlew, corncrake, nightjar, cirl bunting and woodlark."A separate study, also published on Tuesday, also highlighted the decline in the UK's hedgehog population.The study by the University of London for the People's Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society listed tidier gardens and urbanisation as key factors affecting the fall in the number of the small mammals.Nigel Bourne, chairman of the Wildlife and Countryside Link's biodiversity working group, welcomed the updated list and called it a "major boost"."The list will focus efforts on the real, shared conservation priorities in the UK."The conservation charities that make up Link... look forward to continuing to work in partnership with the government," Dr Bourne added."Together we can turn the list into targeted action to deliver the conservation of our very special habitats and species."

BALD EAGLE

• 
  The scientific name for the Bald Eagle is Haliaeetus leucocephalus. It has a white head and tail feathers.
  Size: 28-38"
  Weight: 6.5-14 poundsneck, a large orange and yellow beak, and dark brown plumage, with white
  Wingspan: up to 8.25 feet
  The Bald Eagle lives in most habitats (forests, near rivers and oceans). Its diet is fish, small birds, and carrion. (Carrion is a dead animal body.)
  It is the most famous carnivorous bird, probably because it is the symbol of the United States of America. Bald Eagles can live to be 30 years old, and they mate for life. Their nest is up to 13 feet tall.
  On the Fish & Wildlife Service website, we found the following explanation about why Bald Eagles have become scarce:
  "The greatest threat to the bald eagle's existence arose from the widespread use of DDT and other pesticides after World War II. DDT was sprayed on croplands throughout the country and its residues washed into lakes and streams. There, they were absorbed by aquatic plants and small animals that were eaten by fish. The contaminated fish, in turn, were consumed by bald eagles.The chemical interfered with the bald eagle's ability to develop strong shells for its eggs. As a result, bald eagles and many other bird species began laying eggs with shells so thin they often broke during incubation or otherwise failed to hatch. Their reproduction disrupted, bald eagle populations plummeted. As the dangers of DDT became known, in large part due to Rachel Carson's famous book Silent Spring, this chemical was banned for most uses in the U.S. in 1972."

INDIAN ANIMALS WHY ARE THEY ENDANGERED

MAJESTIC Bengal tigers, wild dogs, sarus cranes, ancient turtles, and Asian elephants

• —these are just some of India’s animal species in danger of extinction. Consider the largest land mammal, the elephant.
  The elephant’s ivory tusks are very much in demand. Japan is one of the largest users of ivory, and there is similar demand in China, where ivory chopsticks are still popular. How has the demand for ivory had an especially adverse affect on the Asian elephant?
  Some time ago The Times of India explained: “Unlike African elephants, only males among the Asian pachyderms, and just a few of them, have tusks. So adult tuskers are the main targets. According to the official figures, about a hundred [males] are killed each year in India, leaving the male-female ratio skewed.” Such killings have threatened For Compact Mass of Hair
  Consider also the rhinoceros, the second-largest land mammal alive today. India and Nepal are the last areas of protection for the one-horned rhino. Yet, Pobitara Wildlife Sanctuary in the northeastern Indian state of Assam is only some 15 square miles [38 sq km] in size, a relatively small area to hold rhino. So the animals tend to wander into the agricultural lands nearby, where they may be shot or poisoned.
  Man has invented a clever way of felling a rhino. Above the Pobitara Sanctuary run two high-voltage cables. The poacher hooks a wire on these cables using a long bamboo pole, and the wire hangs down close to the ground. Wildlife biologist Vivek Menon explains what happened when a rhino came in contact with the wire: “As the massive bolt of electricity charged through its body, it wheezed twice and with an amazing hastiness crumpled . . . The huge beast lay on its side, dead in less than a second.”
  Sadly, the giant animal is killed for its relatively little horn, which weighs a mere two pounds! The enormous commercial value of the horn—a compact mass of hair much like human nails—has placed the rhino in great danger.
  For the Love of Shahtoosh Shawls
  The Tibetan antelope, or chiru, produces a type of wool called shahtoosh. It is so fine that a shawl made from it can be pulled through an index-finger ring. Such a shawl may cost up to $16,000, making it among the most expensive in the world. But what does this mean for the antelope that wears the wool?
  “One shahtoosh shawl meant at least [the] lives of five chirus,” says The Indian Express. About 20,000 chirus from the Tibetan plateau are said to be poached each year. This occurs even though the animal is supposed to be protected under various endangered species acts. Moreover, in 1979 a ban was placed on trade in shahtoosh wool. Yet, since then, the number of chirus has continued to diminish.
  For Skin and Bones
  The survival of tigers and other wild cats in India is also under threat. Elsewhere, some subspecies of tigers, such as the Caspian, the Java, and the Bali, are thought to be extinct already. At the beginning of the 20th century, about 40,000 tigers roamed India’s forests. Over the years their numbers have dwindled. This is because their habitat has progressively been destroyed and because they have been hunted for their skin and certain bones that are thought to have healing powers in Chinese medicine.
  Concerning the effect of the lack of proper habitat on tigers, the book The Secret Life of Tigers says: “Populations of tigers can only increase when the area of forests that they live in increases. When this does not happen, tigers control their own population by fatal disputes among themselves over food and territory.”
  How do other wild cats fare on Indian soil? At a zoo in Junagadh, Gujarat, a visitor came across an empty cage. The sign outside the cage had a picture of an Asiatic cheetah and a message written in Gujarati, which read: “The cheetah became extinct in India in the 1950’s.”
  What Does the Future Hold?
  The future for India’s endangered creatures does not appear bright. The evidence is overwhelming that humans have been selfishly ruining the earth, which has included the destruction of much of its magnificent wildlife. What will happen? The authoritative word of God, recorded in the Holy Bible, indicates that the time is near when the following prophecy will be fulfilled: “The nations became wrathful, and your [God’s] own wrath came, and the appointed time . . . to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.
  What will be the effect when the earth has been cleansed of all those who have despoiled it and its marvelous wildlife? What a wonderful time that will be! Humans will no longer endanger any animal species. This will take place under the rule of God’s Kingdom, for which Jesus Christ taught humans to pray

Conservation groups want lynx protected

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Conservation groups want federal wildlife officials to provide endangered species protections for the Canada lynx throughout its range in northern New Mexico.
The elusive, long-haired cats are federally threatened in several states in the West, but not in New Mexico.
They are even considered endangered by state officials in neighboring Colorado, where more than 200 lynx have been reintroduced since 1999.
Some of the cats have drifted south into New Mexico, and conservationists argue they should be protected here as well.
Today, the groups sent a petition seeking protections to the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A New Mexico attorney representing the groups, Matthew Bishop, says an invisible state border should not determine which lynx are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The Fish and Wildlife Service says it has not yet received the petition.

Earth's Worst Extinction a Prolonged Event

The rise of mollusks across the globe was a harbinger of doom roughly 250 million years ago, ushering in the most devastating mass extinction in Earth's history, research now reveals.This clammy conclusion suggests the disaster was long in coming, as opposed to the result of a more catastrophic extraterrestrial cause such as an asteroid impact, scientists added.The largest die-off in Earth's history was not the cataclysm that ended the Age of the Dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Instead, it was the so-called end-Permian mass extinction, which eliminated as much as 95 percent of the planet's species before even the earliest dinosaurs strode the planet.One supposed consequence of this mass extinction was the dominance of oysters, snails and other mollusks all over the world. Now scientists studying mollusks fossils find they started rising to prominence some 8 million years before the end-Permian."Our results aren't really consistent with a more catastrophic extraterrestrial cause, such as an asteroid impact—although they don't directly contradict the impact theory either," said researcher Matthew Clapham at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. Instead, these findings support theories suggesting the end-Permian was triggered by ocean changes long in the making, "the climax of a prolonged environmental crisis," Clapham said. The whole Permian period, stretching from about 300 million to 250 million years ago, saw gradual warming. This would have slowed down circulation in the ocean, eventually leading to very low levels of oxygen in the water. Massive volcanism near the end of the Permian might have wreaked even further havoc on the environment."Mollusks are better adapted to such stressful and changing environments, and so could have thrived," Clapham told LiveScience. "The abundance of mollusks we see are symptoms of the conditions that ultimately caused the extinction."The research involved gleaning more than 33,000 Permian fossils from blocks of limestone that researchers gathered from China, Greece, Thailand, Nevada and Texas over the course of four years. These blocks were then dunked in vats of hydrochloric acid. Although the acid dissolved the limestone, over millions of years the building blocks of the fossil shells were replaced one by one with silica. This silica resisted the acid and helped the fossils survive. "Most of the fossils were less than one centimeter in size, typically four to eight millimeters [roughly the size of an ant], so it was very delicate work to find them among all of the other detritus in the sample," Clapham recalled. He and his colleague David Bottjer at the University of Southern California detailed their findings online July 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

intresting facts about endangered species

Quick Facts about the Endangered Species Act
Year the endangered species act became law: 1973
Purpose of the endangered species act: "[t]o provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of [international] treaties and conventions.."
Approximate number of u.s. Species currently listed as Threatened or endangered under the endangered species act: 988 endangered, 276 threatened
Average number of years species have been listed: 15.5
Average length of time species recovery plans say it will take to recover listed species: 30 to 50 years
Number of listed species with recovery plans: 1,082
Number of listed species with designated critical habitat: 464
Approximate total acerage of designated critical Habitat in the united states: 43 million acres
Ratio by which species with designated critical Habitat are increasing in number according to analysis of us fish and wildlife service reports: 2 : 1
Approximate number of habitat conservation plans that have been approved: 405
Number of species that have been declared "recovered" and delisted under the endangered species act: 15
Percentage of species that have gone extinct while listed under the endangered species act: 0.58%
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TIGERS EXTINCT

WHY ARE TIGERS ALMOST EXTINCT
The tiger is an endangered species. It is estimated that there are about 4,000 - 6,000 wild tigers today, although some estimates are as high as 7,500. There are about 1,150 kept in captivity. Because of the decline of territory and poaching, tigers starve to death and show sharp declines in their populations. Severe loss of habitat due to the growth and spread of man amplify this by causing the tiger to have a smaller territory than normal.In the 20th century tigers were considered pests because they would prey on farmers stalks. Russia and China offered a bounty as compensation for their destruction, so tigers were shot or poisoned carelessly. Hunting tigers became very popular in the 1900's, especially with the Indian upper class and British officers. In Russia, the soldiers would hunt tigers as part of training to increase courage in battle.This needless killing has created habits that are still rearing their ugly heads today. Even though it is now illegal to hunt any tiger, they are still being slaughtered by poachers. This is the pre-eminent threat to the Siberian tiger; any animal for that matter. They still hunt these beautiful cats primarily for their coats, bones, and other body parts. The bones and other body parts are used in traditional oriental medicines. Since the USSR collapsed, poaching of tigers and of their prey has caused sharp declines in the Siberian tiger population.Resent research has shown that even though the selling or trading of any products made from tigers is illegal the business is booming. The purchasing of these products will soon wipe out the species. Investigations have found out that the illegal selling of animal products is 1.7 billion dollar a year business. A tiger skin can sell for as much as $10,000, its bones are sold as medicine and its eyes as good luck charms. This is WRONG! The saddest thing is that we are all a part of it. Think of this: If we didn't put a market out there for this stuff, then the poachers wouldn't have any place to sell it.The governments of the world are not going to be able to stop this insane slaughtering of animals by themselves, we all must help.
SO PLEASE JOIN HANDS TO SAVE TIGERS