Ten Endangered Species in Asia
As the largest, most populated and fastest growing continent on Earth,
Asia may be the region of the world where the most animal species face
extinction due to conflicts with humans. The rapid development of land
for use by humans all over Asia poses a serious threat to many animal
species, and many Asian governments do too little too late to protect
their own environments.
There are some areas of improved awareness about the
risks of overly rapid expansion, and the protection of many iconic
species – like Tigers and Giants Pandas – may benefit from focused
conservation efforts. But many other animals are also threatened, and
they don’t always get the attention they need to ensure their continued
survival.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
is an international organization whose mission is to encourage and
assist countries around the world with maintaining their natural
diversity of plant and animal species.
In cooperation with
governments, scientists and non-governmental organizations around the
world, the IUCN works to maintain the complex biodiversity that
maintains the balance of the planetary ecosystem. Every creature has a
place in the great machine that is the ecosystem, and the unnatural loss
of any species can have significant consequences on the rest of the
biosphere.
The List Of Endangered Species
In their efforts to maintain biodiversity around the globe, the IUCN
maintains a “red list” of species and classifies the threat levels for
each one, ranging from “Least Concerned” to “Extinct”. All of the
animals listed on this page are listed either as “Endangered” or
“Critically Endangered”, the final classification before “Extinct”.
Snow Leopard
Latin Name: Panthera uncia
Location(s): Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
Description: Unlike their larger cousin, the tiger, Snow Leopards are offered little
protection in their native habitats. The Snow Leopard’s native habitat
is closely tied to grazing grounds of its preferred prey, which is also
the same land that farmers wish to use for their livestock. This leads
to a reduction in prey animals due to competition with livestock, which
leads the leopards to turn to the livestock for food. The taking of
livestock often leads to retribution killing by farmers.
The Snow
Leopard is also intentionally hunted for it fur, as well as for other
body parts that are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a substitute
for much more rare tiger parts, including bones, claws meat and sexual
organs. Poaching of live animals for use in circuses and zoos is also
depleting the wild populations.
Over the past decade, much of the
Snow Leopard’s native range in the Near East has been an area of major
military conflict. Damage to the habitat from military action and the
demands of displaced peoples for local resources have had a significant
impact on the animals’ habitat.
Photo from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/macjewell/ / CC BY 2.0
Javan Rhinoceros
Latin Name: Rhinoceros sondaicus
Location(s): Indonesia and Viet Nam
Extinct in Bangladesh,
Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand
Description: Once the most widespread Asian rhinoceros, the Javan Rhino was hunted to
near extinction in the 19th and 20th Centuries and currently exists in
just two isolated areas. There are now less than 100 wild Javan Rhinos –
about 40 to 60 on the western tip of the island of Java, and another
smaller group in Cat Tien National Park in Viet Nam. The Viet Nam
population is believed to contain as few as six animals, and no breeding
has been observed in recent years. It’s possible that all of the
animals who currently survive are too old to breed, and they may all be
the same sex.
There are currently no Javan Rhinos in captivity,
and historically there have only ever been 22 in zoos, the last one
having died in and Australian zoo nearly 100 years ago. Failed attempts
to captively breed Sumatran Rhinos failed miserably in the late 20th
century, and that expensive experiment is unlikely to make a Javan Rhino
breeding program viable. The species will most likely never recover and
they will soon be extinct.
Public domain image from WikiMedia
Green Turtle
Latin Name: Chelonia mydas
Location(s): Tropical and subtropical beaches worldwide
Description: Like all sea turtles, the Green Turtle is a migratory animal that roams
the oceans of the world. The female turtles use soft sandy beaches to
lay their eggs in more than 80 countries around the world, and the Green
Turtle is believed to inhabit the coastal regions of at least 140
countries.
The single greatest threat to all sea turtles,
including the Green Turtle, is intentional human harvesting of their
eggs from beach-side nesting areas. They are also often caught by
fisherman, both accidentally and intentionally, and then killed for
their meat. Human beachfront development often encroaches on nesting
sites, and the lights from beach-side communities can fatally disorient
newly hatched turtle, drawing them away from the ocean.
Turtle
egg harvesting has been banned in many countries, but it remains legal
in several others despite large reductions in population. The threats to
Green Turtles are not reversible and if they aren’t ended in the near
future the Green Turtle faces certain extinction.
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/philippeguillaume/ / CC BY 2.0
Lar Gibbon
Latin Name: Hylobates lar
Location(s): Indonesian Sumatra, Laos, Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand
Possibly extinct in China
Description: Once plentiful in Southeast Asia, many gibbon species are currently endangered, including the Lar Gibbon. Even though the threat caused by deforestation is on the decline, these animals are still over-hunted for their meat. They are also captured in large numbers for the pet trade, even in protected areas.
Gibbons are unlike other apes in that they act as seed carriers for the fruits they eat. They swallow most of the seeds in their diet, and several fruits that gibbons eat are dependent on the the digestive process to both remove the outer cover of the seeds and to disperse them through the environment. Without the gibbons, many of these fruit species could also be endangered.
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/individuo/ / CC BY 2.0
Chinese Pangolin
Latin Name: Manis pentadactyla
Location(s): Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Hong Kong, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Taiwan, Thailand and Viet Nam
Description: Populations of all Asian Pangolins
have suffered extreme losses in the recent past, and these losses are
expected to continue over the coming years. They are hunted throughout
Asia for export to China, mostly for medicinal purposes but also for
their meat and skins. The pangolins
were once hunted for subsistence use, but the exploding demand and high
price for the animals has spurred illegal commercial hunting. Pangolins
can fetch more than $95 U.S. per kilogram in the open market, so even
in protected areas they are being relentlessly hunted.
The particular
subspecies Manis pentadactyla is especially threatened, since
it is the easiest to catch. Unlike other tree-dwelling pangolins,
Manis pentadactyla lives in clearly distinguishable
underground burrows that are easily spotted and dug up to capture the
animals.
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/verdammelt/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Red Headed Vulture
Latin Name: Sarcogyps calvus
Location(s): Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Lao
People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Viet Nam; Vagrant in Pakistan and Singapore
Possibly extinct in Malaysia
Description: Once widely disbursed and abundant through Asia, in recent decades the
wild population of Red-Headed Vultures (also known as the Indian Black
or Pondicherry
Vulture) have experienced a rapid decline in range and population. The
current wild population is estimated at less than 10,000 individuals
throughout Asia, with just a few hundred in Southeast Asia and the rest
mostly in India. Like other carrion eaters, vultures are vital to the
ecosystem for disposing of dead animals, and their loss has a profound
effect on the biosphere. In India, members of the Parsi faith also
relied on the birds for the disposal of human remains, as burying or
burning the bodies was seen as polluting the natural elements.
As
recently as the 1980s there were millions of vultures all over India,
but the population suffered precipitous losses and the few remaining
birds are mostly found in sanctuaries. The main cause for the rapid
decline in Indian vulture populations seems to be the use of a
pharmaceutical called diclofenac, which was used
to prevent colic in cattle. The drug turned out to be lethal to vultures
who consumed the flesh of dead cows, which are considered sacred in
that country are so are left out in the open when the die. After diclofenac was
banned, its replacement drug also turned out to be fatal to vultures,
and the remaining populations may not be viable for the species’
continued existence.
In addition to the deadly drugs used to
treat cattle, the overall decline in wild grazing animals in Asia has
lead to a drop in the available number of dead animal carcasses for the
birds to feed on.
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/schizoform/ / CC BY 2.0
Tiger
Latin Name: Panthera tigris
Location(s): Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China , India, Indonesian Sumatra, Laos, Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand and Viet Nam
Possibly extinct in North Korea
Extinct in Afghanistan, Indonesia (Bali and Jawa), Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Singapore, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Description: Multiple tiger subspecies once freely roamed throughout Asia, from
Turkey in the west to the Russian coastline in the east. Over the last
100 years tigers have disappeared from 93% of their historic range. The
current wild population of all tigers is endangered, with several
subspecies considered critically endangered. The entire worldwide wild
population is estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 individuals.
Because
they are predators that rely mainly on small mammals like pigs and deer
for the bulk of their diets, tigers require a large amount of space to
and a strong prey population to survive. Deforestation for farming and
commercial development fragment the territory and reduce the number of
prey animals, and so directly cause a reduction in the tiger population.
Many tigers are killed by farmers to protect their communities as well
as their livestock, and the tiger parts from those kills often end up on
the black market.
Until very recently it appeared that the tiger
would be hunted to extinction for the illegal fur trade and for use in
Traditional Chinese Medicine, even though most of the supposed medicinal
properties in various tiger parts are either psychosomatic or easily
treated with less expensive and destructive alternatives. Even though
trade in tiger parts has been banned in every part of the world, a
strong illegal trade still exists in Asia, especially in China, Viet Nam
and Malaysia. Attempts in China to “farm” tigers through captive
breeding have been attempted, but the very existence of tiger farms only
serves to maintain demand for tiger parts, which in turn fuels illegal
trade in other countries.
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/7326810@N08/ / CC BY 2.0
Bactrian Camel
Latin Name: Camelus ferus
Location(s): China and Mongolia
Extinct in Kazakhstan
Description: Once prolific across the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and northwest China,
the wild Bactrian
Camel population had been reduced to less than 1,000 animals by 2004.
Droughts in the Gobi have reduced the amount of water resources for the
camels, and predation by wild wolves has increased at the same time.
Each year, about 20 Bactrian
Camels are intentionally killed by miners and hunters when they migrate
out of protected areas across the Mongolian border into China.
There
are just over a dozen Bactrian
Camels in captivity in Mongolia and China – not enough to successfully
breed the animals in captivity. If the wild population continues to
decline at current rates the species will soon become extinct.
Photo from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iotae/ / CC BY 2.0
Russian Sturgeon
Latin Name: Acipenser gueldenstaedtii
Location(s): Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iran, Islamic Republic of,
Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine
Extinct in Austria, Croatia, Hungary
Description: The Russian Sturgeon was once prolific throughout the Caspian ans Black
Seas, as well as many of their tributaries. Due to over fishing and dam
construction in the last 100 years, the wild population has been
diminished by 90% of its historic levels. The Russian Sturgeon is now
only rarely seen in the Black Sea basin, and spawning grounds have been
diminished sharply.
Illegal fishing for caviar is expected to
continue to reduce the population over time – the only hope for the
survival of the species is from captive breeding in fisheries and
man-made stocking of formerly rich habitats.
Public domain photo from WikiMedia
Giant Panda
Latin Name: Ailuropoda melanoleuca
Location(s): China
Description: Once ranging throughout China, the current wild population of Giant
Pandas is estimated to be just 1,000 to 2,000 animals. Giant Pandas are
completely dependent upon bamboo forests, and in the past they were able
to roam from area to area to locate sufficient amounts of food. The
combination of deforestation for farming and the breakup of their native
range by roads and construction have reduced the Panda population down
to smaller numbers.
In the past, poaching was the greatest threat
to the Giant Panda, but that threat has been nearly eliminated in
recent years. China has imposed stricter protection measures for the Panda’s
natural habitat, but there is no concrete proof that their population is
going to be able to recover in the wild. One such effort is the
“Grain-to-Green” campaign, wherein the government pays farmers to
replant trees instead of crops in areas where Pandas might be able to
thrive. Whether the Pandas will actual resettle these areas is not yet
known.
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/clurr/ / CC BY 2.0
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