Declining number of monkeys, apes and other primates

A report by the world’s foremost primate authorities, the International Primatological Society, presented the state of primates around the world. They found that of the world’s 63A breakdown showed the following numbers and percentages of primates fell into the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List classification for species as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered:
• Africa: 63 species and subspecies (37% of all African primates)
• Asia: 120 species and subspecies (71% of all African primates)
• Madagascar: 41 species and subspecies (43% of all Malagasy primates)
• Neotropics: 79 species and subspecies (40% of all Neotropical primates)
© Conservation International, 2008
Causes included habitat destruction, the hunting of primates for food and an illegal wildlife trade.
It’s also important to note that within the various species of apes are sub-species. For example, mountain gorillas are a species of gorilla, and mountain gorilla numbers are incredibly low, approximately 720, according to the International Gorilla Conservation Program.
Gorillas have often been stereotypes as aggressive, yet they are almost the opposite, and as this following award-winning video shows, there is much in their gentle and peaceful nature that humans can relate to.
Gorillas… 98.6% Human, Explore.org, June 2009
4 kinds of primates almost 50 percent are in danger of going extinct

Declining amphibian populations

The Golden Toad of Monteverde, Costa Rica was among the first casualties of amphibian declines. Formerly abundant, it was last seen in 1989
Amphibians are particularly sensitive to changes in the environment. Amphibians have been described as a marker species or the equivalent of “canaries of the coal mines” meaning they provide an important signal to the health of biodiversity; when they are stressed and struggling, biodiversity may be under pressure. When they are doing well, biodiversity is probably healthy.
Unfortunately, as has been feared for many years now, amphibian species are declining at an alarming rate.
As described further on this site’s biodiversity section, causes for such an alarming rate of decline is not entirely natural.

Declining number of penguins

A concern about crashing numbers of a particular species of penguin in recent years, the rockhoppers, shows that there may be numerous complicated factors causing this, and it is not always easy to know for sure. In the Falkland Islands alone, the species numbers have dropped from 600,000 to 420,000 in just 6 years, and down from 1.5 million in 1932. But from all their habitats millions have recently vanished.
Scientists are struggling to wonder whether it is starvation due to overfishing, climate change, a combination, or some other factors affecting this species.

Declining number of polar bears

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature lists toxic pollution, oil exploration, and hunting, as well as climate change, as the threats polar bears face.
Polar bears are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic on pack ice, along or near coasts, and on islands:
The situation has become dire enough for the Bush Administration in the US to propose to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
This itself is an interesting turn of events as the Bush Administration has typically been reluctant to acknowledge concerns about climate change, and a lot of lobbying by environmental groups has led to this proposal.
Earlier in 2006, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) had already put the polar bear on their Red List of Threatened Species.

Near Extinction of Vultures

The BMA noted that in the 1980s, these birds were the most abundant large birds of prey in the world. However, in the last 12 years, the population had crashed by 97%.
In a country where these birds actually provide a useful service by scavenging rotting carcasses, this is seen as a big problem.
How did this happen?
• The anti-inflammatory, diclofenac, (similar to ibuprofen), was used by cattle farmers as a popular cure-all to treat a variety of diseases.
• Vultures feeding on carcasses of cows treated with the drug died of kidney failure as it were a poison for the vultures.
• The use of this medication was “careless and casual.”
Why the careless and casual nature of this medicine use? The article opined that there was only one answer: “ferocious marketing by Big Pharma to help ensure its products were used by the widest possible consumer spectrum.”
(“Big Pharma” refers to the huge multinational pharmaceutical companies that have a lot of influence around the world on various global health issues. This site’s section on pharmaceutical corporations and medical research discusses more about this industry.)

Declining Number of Rhinos

Rhinos are critically endangered

Although almost all species of rhinos have been recognized as critically endangered for many years, the conservation organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) notes that rhino poaching worldwide is poised to hit a 15-year-high driven by Asian demand for horns.
As with the killing of sharks just for their fins, whereby the body is discarded once the fin is cut off the shark, rhinos are often killed just for the horns. In some Asian countries it is wrongly believed the horns have medicinal value.
The IUCN is finding some 3 rhinos a month are being killed. In some places that number is even higher. In Africa, the total rhino population is estimated to be around 18,000 and in India/Nepal only 2,400.

Declining Number of Lions

And another iconic animal, the lion, is also dwindling in numbers. The BBC reports (October 2003) that fewer than 20,000 lions now survive in Africa, compared to 200,000 in the early 1980s.
Sport or trophy hunting was cited as a major cause, whereby males, older or younger, were often targeted. Another reason was the population pressures that have meant encroachment onto lands closer to lions.
Tourism has not really benefited the people of such communities, and so they do not see the benefit in preserving them.

Declining Number of Tigers

Take for example the continued declining numbers of tigers, the largest of the big cats.
The population of tigers is believed to have declined by 95 percent in the last century.
Tigers continue to face challenges imposed by poaching, retributive killings and habitat loss.
Tiger bone is also in high demand for traditional medicines in China and some other parts of the world, often based on mistaken beliefs, or weak evidence for their effectiveness.

IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the world’s oldest environmental organization, working around the world.
Periodically, they produce the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species to highlight species that are extinct or extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.
Their data suggests that the global tiger population has declined to an estimated range from 3,402-5,140 tigers, revised down from estimates of 5,000 to 7,000 made a few years earlier. The Bali, Caspian, and Javan tigers are already classified as extinct (in the 1940s, 1970s, and 1980s, respectively).
Interactive map of tiger issues around the world from WWF, accessed February 2010
Noting the above declines, the BBC released a collection of videos on tigers and other species. They also noticed that tigers have disappeared from over 90% of their historic range over the past century. They add that recent estimates suggest less than 1,000 scattered over India and fewer than 40 are left in China.
Year of the Tiger, BBC, accessed February 13, 2010 (video might not be available outside UK, but link also has other information)
It’s not just tigers either. Rare leopards, deer and other animals are also being illegally traded and many other animals are dwindling in numbers, some of which are mentioned below.

Interdependent marine ecosystem

An example from the seas (originally mentioned here years ago but removed because the link to the story no longer worked), was described by National Geographic Wild in a program called, A Life Among Whales (broadcast June 14, 2008).
It noted how a few decades ago, some fishermen campaigned for killing whales because they were threatening the fish supply and thus jobs.
A chain of events eventually came full circle and led to a loss of jobs:
• The massive reduction in the local whale population meant killer whales in the region (usually preying on younger whales) moved to other animals such as seals;
• As seal numbers declined, the killer whales targeted otters;
• As otter numbers were decimated, the urchins and other targets of otters flourished;
• These decimated the kelp forests where many fish larvae grew in relative protection;
• The exposed fish larvae were easy pickings for a variety of sea life;
• Fishermen’s livelihoods were destroyed.

Interdependency vs. Human Intervention
But nature can often be surprisingly resilient, often without the need for human interventions. For example, a documentary aired on the BBCdescribed two national parks in Africa where elephant populations had grown quite large within those artificial boundaries. The usual way to deal with this was to cull the population to try and keep the ecosystem in balance. Without this, elephants were stripping vegetation bare, affecting other animals, too.
A scientist pleaded with park management not to cull and let nature take its course. Being against prevailing thought, they would not agree. In the end they agreed to let one park have its elephants culled, while the other would be left alone.
A few years later, they found the park with the culled population had remained in poor condition. The park where things were left alone has naturally regenerated; the large elephant populations eventually reduced in number as they undermined their own resource base. The natural pace at which this happened allowed vegetation to grow back. Other wildlife grew in numbers and the ecosystem was generally back in balance.

Biodiversity providing lessons for scientists in engineering

For a number of years now, scientists have been looking more and more at nature to see how various species work, produce, consume resources, trying to mimic the amazing feats that millions of years of evolution has produced.
As just one small example, some spiders can produce their silk with a higher tensile strength than many alloys of steel even though it is made of proteins. So biologists are looking at these processes in more depth to see if they can reproduce or enhance such capabilities.


More important than human use or biological interest



Many people may support environmental causes to help preserve the “beauty” of Nature. However, that is in a strange way, not really a justifiable excuse as it is a subjective, human or anthropomorphasized view.
For many decades, various environmentalists, biologists and other scientists, have viewed the entire earth as a massive living organism or system due to the interdependent nature of all species within it. Some cultures have recognized this kind of inter-relationship for a very long time. Some have termed this Gaia.While there are disagreements and differences on how thisworks, it suggests that ecological balance and biodiversity are crucial for all of earth, not just humans.
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Putting an economic value on biodiversity
It was noted earlier that ecosystems provide many services to us, for free.

Although some dislike the thought of trying to put an economic value on biodiversity (some things are just priceless), there have been attempts to do so in order for people to understand the magnitude of the issue: how important the environment is to humanity and what costs and benefits there can be in doing (or not doing) something.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is an organization — backed by the UN and various European governments — attempting to compile, build and make a compelling economics case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.
In a recent report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers 2009, TEEB provided the following example of sectors dependent on genetic resources:


Table: Example of market sectors dependent on genetic resources
Sector Size of Market Comment
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers 2009

Pharmaceutical US$ 640 bn. (2006) 25-50% derived from genetic resources
Biotechnology US$ 70 bn. (2006) from public companies alone Many products derived from genetic resources (enzymes, microorganisms)
Agricultural seeds US$ 30 bn. (2006) All derived from genetic resources
Personal care, Botanical and food & Beverage industries US$ 22 bn. (2006) for herbal supplements
US$ 12 bn. (2006) for personal care
US$ 31 bn. (2006) for food products Some products derived from genetic resources. Represents ‘natural’ component of the market.

Think of some of the effects this could have

• Some industrial meat production, which is very harmful for the environment, may become more expensive
o For example, as mentioned in the previous link, if water used by the meat industry in the United States were not subsidized by taxpayers, common hamburger meat would cost $35 a pound.
o Instead of regulation to change people’s habits, markets would automatically reflect these true costs; consumers can then make better informed choices about what to consume, e.g. by reducing their meat consumption or demand more ecologically sustainable alternatives at reasonable cost.
o A reduction in meat production could protect forests or help reduce clearance of forests for cattle ranches, which would have a knock-on benefit for climate change concerns.
o Appropriate investment in renewable energy could threaten the fossil fuel industry though they are trying to adapt to that (perhaps slowly, and after initial resistance). But at the same time, governments that are able to use renewable sources are less likely to find themselves spending so many resources in geopolitical areas (e.g. politics, military, terrorist response to Western presence in Middle East, etc) to protect or secure access to fossil fuels.
o “Cradle to cradle” type of design — where products are designed to be produced and recycled or disposed of more sustainably — could considerably reduce costs for producers and consumers alike, and possibly reduce stress on associated ecosystems.
o Land that is used to produce unhealthy or marginally nutritious items (e.g. tobacco, sugar, possibly tea and coffee) could be used for more useful or healthier alternatives, possibly even helping address obesity and other issues. (For example, while factoring in environmental costs could make healthy produce more expensive too, expanding production of healthier foods could help contain costs rises to some extent.)
o How much would such accounting save? It is hard to know, but there is a lot of waste in the existing system. In the mid-1990s, the Institute for Economic Democracy calculated that as much as half the American economy constituted of wasted labor, wealth and resources (book: World’s Wasted Wealth, II — see sample chapter).
o Naturally, those who benefit from the current system may be hostile to such changes, especially if it may mean they might lose out.