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Pangolin poaching

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Poaching is sending the shy, elusive pangolin to its doom

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The small animals, whose scales are coveted for use in Chinese medicine, are now among the world's most trafficked mammals.

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Animal testing

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Description

Around 50-100 million vertebrate animals are used in experiments annually.

Subjects

Animal testing, science, medicine, animal welfare, animal rights, ethics

Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This approach can be contrasted with field studies in which animals are observed in their natural environments or habitats. Experimental research with animals is usually conducted in universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, defense establishments, and commercial facilities that provide animal-testing services to the industry. The focus of animal testing varies on a continuum from pure research, focusing on developing fundamental knowledge of an organism, to applied research, which may focus on answering some questions of great practical importance, such as finding a cure for a disease. Examples of applied research include testing disease treatments, breeding, defense research, and toxicology, including cosmetics testing. In education, animal testing is sometimes a component of biology or psychology courses. The practice is regulated to varying degrees in different countries.

It was estimated in 2010 that the annual use of vertebrate animals-from zebrafish to non-human primates-ranges from tens to over 100 million. In the European Union, vertebrate species represent 93% of animals used in research, and 11.5 million animals were used there in 2011. By one estimate, the number of mice and rats used in the United States alone in 2001 was 80 million. In 2013, it was reported that mammals (mice and rats), fish, amphibians, and reptiles together accounted for over 85% of research animals. In 2022, a law was passed in the United States that eliminated the FDA requirement that all drugs be tested on animals.

Animal testing is regulated differently in different countries: in some cases it is strictly controlled while others have more relaxed regulations. There are ongoing debates about the ethics and necessity of animal testing. Proponents argue that it has led to significant advancements in medicine and other fields while opponents raise concerns about cruelty towards animals and question its effectiveness.

There are efforts underway to find alternatives to animal testing such as computer simulation models, organs-on-chips technology that mimics human organs for lab tests, microdosing techniques which involve administering small doses of test compounds to volunteers instead of animals for safety tests or drug screenings; positron emission tomography (PET) scans which allow scanning of the human brain without harming humans; comparative epidemiological studies among human populations; simulators and computer programs for teaching purposes; among others.

Animal testing can be inaccurate because experiments on animals do not always correctly mimic human body responses.

The terms animal testing, animal experimentation, animal research, testing, and vivisection have similar denotations but different connotations. Literally, "vivisection" means "live sectioning" of an animal, and historically referred only to experiments that involved the dissection of live animals. The term is occasionally used to refer pejoratively to any experiment using living animals; for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica defines "vivisection" as: "Operation on a living animal for experimental rather than healing purposes; more broadly, all experimentation on live animals", although dictionaries point out that the broader definition is "used only by people who are opposed to such work". The word has a negative connotation, implying torture, suffering, and death. The word "vivisection" is preferred by those opposed to this research, whereas scientists typically use the term "animal experimentation".

The following text excludes as much as possible practices related to in vivo veterinary surgery, which is left to the discussion of vivisection.

An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump, from 1768, by Joseph Wright

The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the 2nd and 4th centuries BCE. Aristotle and Erasistratus were among the first to perform experiments on living animals. Galen, a 2nd-century Roman physician, performed post-mortem dissections of pigs and goats. Avenzoar, a 12th-century Arabic physician in Moorish Spain introduced an experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.

Animals have repeatedly been used throughout the history of biomedical research. In 1831, the founders of the Dublin Zoo were members of the medical profession who were interested in studying animals while they were alive and when they were dead. In the 1880s, Louis Pasteur convincingly showed the germ theory of medicine by inducing anthrax in sheep. In the 1880s, Robert Koch infected mice and guinea pigs with anthrax and tuberculosis. In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov famously used dogs to describe classical conditioning. In World War I, German agents infected sheep bound for Russia with anthrax, and inoculated mules and horses of the French cavalry with the equine glanders disease. Between 1917 and 1918, the Germans infected mules in Argentina bound for American forces, resulting in the death of 200 mules. Insulin was first isolated from dogs in 1922, and later revolutionized the treatment of diabetes. On 3 November 1957, a Soviet dog, Laika, became the first of many animals to orbit the Earth. In the 1970s, antibiotic treatments and vaccines for leprosy were developed using armadillos, then given to humans. The ability of humans to change the genetics of animals took an enormous step forward in 1974 when Rudolf Jaenisch could produce the first transgenic mammal, by integrating DNA from simians into the genome of mice. This genetic research progressed rapidly and, in 1996, Dolly the sheep was born, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.

Toxicology testing became important in the 20th century. In the 19th century, laws regulating drugs were more relaxed. For example, in the US, the government could only ban a drug after they had prosecuted a company for selling products that harmed customers. However, in response to the Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster of 1937 in which the eponymous drug killed over 100 users, the US Congress passed laws that required safety testing of drugs on animals before they could be marketed. Other countries enacted similar legislation. In the 1960s, in reaction to the Thalidomide tragedy, further laws were passed requiring safety testing on pregnant animals before a drug can be sold.

Claude Bernard, regarded as the "prince of vivisectors",[42] argued that experiments on animals are "entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man".[43]

As the experimentation on animals increased, especially the practice of vivisection, so did criticism and controversy. In 1655, the advocate of Galenic physiology Edmund O'Meara said that "the miserable torture of vivisection places the body in an unnatural state". O'Meara and others argued pain could affect animal physiology during vivisection, rendering results unreliable. There were also objections ethically, contending that the benefit to humans did not justify the harm to animals. Early objections to animal testing also came from another angle-many people believed animals were inferior to humans and so different that results from animals could not be applied to humans.

On the other side of the debate, those in favor of animal testing held that experiments on animals were necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge. Claude Bernard-who is sometimes known as the "prince of vivisectors" and the father of physiology, and whose wife, Marie Françoise Martin, founded the first anti-vivisection society in France in 1883-famously wrote in 1865 that "the science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen". Arguing that "experiments on animals [. . .] are entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man [. . . T]he effects of these substances are the same on man as on animals, save for differences in degree", Bernard established animal experimentation as part of the standard scientific method.

In 1896, the physiologist and physician Dr. Walter B. Cannon said "The antivivisectionists are the second of the two types Theodore Roosevelt described when he said, 'Common sense without conscience may lead to crime, but conscience without common sense may lead to folly, which is the handmaiden of crime.'" These divisions between pro- and anti-animal testing groups first came to public attention during the Brown Dog affair in the early 1900s, when hundreds of medical students clashed with anti-vivisectionists and police over a memorial to a vivisected dog.

One of Pavlov's dogs with a saliva-catch container and tube surgically implanted in his muzzle, Pavlov Museum, 2005

In 1822, the first animal protection law was enacted in the British parliament, followed by the Cruelty to Animals Act (1876), the first law specifically aimed at regulating animal testing. The legislation was promoted by Charles Darwin, who wrote to Ray Lankester in March 1871: "You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for proper investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall not sleep to-night." In response to the lobbying by anti-vivisectionists, several organizations were set up in Britain to defend animal research: The Physiological Society was formed in 1876 to give physiologists "mutual benefit and protection", the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research was formed in 1882 and focused on policy-making, and the Research Defence Society (now Understanding Animal Research) was formed in 1908 "to make known the facts as to experiments on animals in this country; the immense importance to the welfare of mankind of such experiments and the great saving of human life and health directly attributable to them".

Real progress in thinking about animal rights build on the "theory of justice" (1971) by the philosopher John Rawls and work on ethics by philosopher Peter Singer.

Nationwide ban on all cosmetic testing on animals

Partial ban on cosmetic testing on animals ¹

Ban on the sale of cosmetics tested on animals

No ban on any cosmetic testing on animals

Unknown

¹ some methods of testing are excluded from the ban or the laws vary within the country

The regulations that apply to animals in laboratories vary across species. In the U.S., under the Animal Welfare Act and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide), published by the National Academy of Sciences, any procedure can be performed on an animal if it can be successfully argued that it is scientifically justified. Researchers are required to consult with the institution's veterinarian and its Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which every research facility is obliged to maintain. The IACUC must ensure that alternatives, including non-animal alternatives, have been considered, that the experiments are not unnecessarily duplicative, and that pain relief is given unless it would interfere with the study. The IACUCs regulate all vertebrates in testing at institutions receiving federal funds in the USA. Although the Animal Welfare Act does not include purpose-bred rodents and birds, these species are equally regulated under Public Health Service policies that govern the IACUCs. The Public Health Service policy oversees the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC conducts infectious disease research on nonhuman primates, rabbits, mice, and other animals, while FDA requirements cover use of animals in pharmaceutical research. Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations are enforced by the USDA, whereas Public Health Service regulations are enforced by OLAW and in many cases by AAALAC.

According to the 2014 U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report-which looked at the oversight of animal use during a three-year period-"some Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees ...did not adequately approve, monitor, or report on experimental procedures on animals". The OIG found that "as a result, animals are not always receiving basic humane care and treatment and, in some cases, pain and distress are not minimized during and after experimental procedures". According to the report, within a three-year period, nearly half of all American laboratories with regulated species were cited for AWA violations relating to improper IACUC oversight. The USDA OIG made similar findings in a 2005 report. With only a broad number of 120 inspectors, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees more than 12,000 facilities involved in research, exhibition, breeding, or dealing of animals. Others have criticized the composition of IACUCs, asserting that the committees are predominantly made up of animal researchers and university representatives who may be biased against animal welfare concerns.

Larry Carbone, a laboratory animal veterinarian, writes that, in his experience, IACUCs take their work very seriously regardless of the species involved, though the use of non-human primates always raises what he calls a "red flag of special concern". A study published in Science magazine in July 2001 confirmed the low reliability of IACUC reviews of animal experiments. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the three-year study found that animal-use committees that do not know the specifics of the university and personnel do not make the same approval decisions as those made by animal-use committees that do know the university and personnel. Specifically, blinded committees more often ask for more information rather than approving studies.

Scientists in India are protesting a recent guideline issued by the University Grants Commission to ban the use of live animals in universities and laboratories.

Accurate global figures for animal testing are difficult to obtain; it has been estimated that 100 million vertebrates are experimented on around the world every year, 10-11 million of them in the EU. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports that global annual estimates range from 50 to 100 million animals. None of the figures include invertebrates such as shrimp and fruit flies.

The USDA/APHIS has published the 2016 animal research statistics. Overall, the number of animals (covered by the Animal Welfare Act) used in research in the US rose 6.9% from 767,622 (2015) to 820,812 (2016). This includes both public and private institutions. By comparing with EU data, where all vertebrate species are counted, Speaking of Research estimated that around 12 million vertebrates were used in research in the US in 2016. A 2015 article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, argued that the use of animals in the US has dramatically increased in recent years. Researchers found this increase is largely the result of an increased reliance on genetically modified mice in animal studies.

In 1995, researchers at Tufts University Center for Animals and Public Policy estimated that 14-21 million animals were used in American laboratories in 1992, a reduction from a high of 50 million used in 1970. In 1986, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment reported that estimates of the animals used in the U.S. range from 10 million to upwards of 100 million each year, and that their own best estimate was at least 17 million to 22 million. In 2016, the Department of Agriculture listed 60,979 dogs, 18,898 cats, 71,188 non-human primates, 183,237 guinea pigs, 102,633 hamsters, 139,391 rabbits, 83,059 farm animals, and 161,467 other mammals, a total of 820,812, a figure that includes all mammals except purpose-bred mice and rats. The use of dogs and cats in research in the U.S. decreased from 1973 to 2016 from 195,157 to 60,979, and from 66,165 to 18,898, respectively.

In the UK, Home Office figures show that 3.79 million procedures were carried out in 2017. 2,960 procedures used non-human primates, down over 50% since 1988. A "procedure" refers here to an experiment that might last minutes, several months, or years. Most animals are used in only one procedure: animals are frequently euthanized after the experiment; however death is the endpoint of some procedures. The procedures conducted on animals in the UK in 2017 were categorised as -

43% (1.61 million) were assessed as sub-threshold

4% (0.14 million) were assessed as non-recovery

36% (1.35 million) were assessed as mild

15% (0.55 million) were assessed as moderate

4% (0.14 million) were assessed as severe

A 'severe' procedure would be, for instance, any test where death is the end-point or fatalities are expected, whereas a 'mild' procedure would be something like a blood test or an MRI scan.

The Three Rs (3Rs) are guiding principles for more ethical use of animals in testing. These were first described by W.M.S. Russell and R.L. Burch in 1959. The 3Rs state:

1. Replacement which refers to the preferred use of non-animal methods over animal methods whenever it is possible to achieve the same scientific aims. These methods include computer modeling.

2. Reduction which refers to methods that enable researchers to obtain comparable levels of information from fewer animals, or to obtain more information from the same number of animals.

3. Refinement which refers to methods that alleviate or minimize potential pain, suffering or distress, and enhance animal welfare for the animals used. These methods include non-invasive techniques.

The 3Rs have a broader scope than simply encouraging alternatives to animal testing, but aim to improve animal welfare and scientific quality where the use of animals can not be avoided. These 3Rs are now implemented in many testing establishments worldwide and have been adopted by various pieces of legislation and regulations.

Despite the widespread acceptance of the 3Rs, many countries-including Canada, Australia, Israel, South Korea, and Germany-have reported rising experimental use of animals in recent years with increased use of mice and, in some cases, fish while reporting declines in the use of cats, dogs, primates, rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters. Along with other countries, China has also escalated its use of GM animals, resulting in an increase in overall animal use.[excessive citations ]

Fruit flies are an invertebrate commonly used in animal testing.

Although many more invertebrates than vertebrates are used in animal testing, these studies are largely unregulated by law. The most frequently used invertebrate species are Drosophila melanogaster, a fruit fly, and Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode worm. In the case of C. elegans, the worm's body is completely transparent and the precise lineage of all the organism's cells is known, while studies in the fly D. melanogaster can use an amazing array of genetic tools. These invertebrates offer some advantages over vertebrates in animal testing, including their short life cycle and the ease with which large numbers may be housed and studied. However, the lack of an adaptive immune system and their simple organs prevent worms from being used in several aspects of medical research such as vaccine development. Similarly, the fruit fly immune system differs greatly from that of humans, and diseases in insects can be different from diseases in vertebrates; however, fruit flies and waxworms can be useful in studies to identify novel virulence factors or pharmacologically active compounds.

Several invertebrate systems are considered acceptable alternatives to vertebrates in early-stage discovery screens. Because of similarities between the innate immune system of insects and mammals, insects can replace mammals in some types of studies. Drosophila melanogaster and the Galleria mellonella waxworm have been particularly important for analysis of virulence traits of mammalian pathogens. Waxworms and other insects have also proven valuable for the identification of pharmaceutical compounds with favorable bioavailability. The decision to adopt such models generally involves accepting a lower degree of biological similarity with mammals for significant gains in experimental throughput.

Enos, the third primate to orbit the Earth, before insertion into the Mercury-Atlas 5 capsule in 1961

This rat is being deprived of rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep using a single platform ("flower pot") technique. The water is within 1 cm of the small flower pot bottom platform where the rat sits. The rat is able to sleep but at the onset of REM sleep muscle tone is lost and the rat would either fall into the water only to clamber back to the pot to avoid drowning, or its nose would become submerged into the water shocking it back to an awakened state.

In the U.S., the numbers of rats and mice used is estimated to be from 11 million to between 20 and 100 million a year. Other rodents commonly used are guinea pigs, hamsters, and gerbils. Mice are the most commonly used vertebrate species because of their size, low cost, ease of handling, and fast reproduction rate. Mice are widely considered to be the best model of inherited human disease and share 95% of their genes with humans. With the advent of genetic engineering technology, genetically modified mice can be generated to order and can provide models for a range of human diseases. Rats are also widely used for physiology, toxicology and cancer research, but genetic manipulation is much harder in rats than in mice, which limits the use of these rodents in basic science.

Over 500,000 fish and 9,000 amphibians were used in the UK in 2016. The main species used is the zebrafish, Danio rerio, which are translucent during their embryonic stage, and the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. Over 20,000 rabbits were used for animal testing in the UK in 2004. Albino rabbits are used in eye irritancy tests ( Draize test) because rabbits have less tear flow than other animals, and the lack of eye pigment in albinos make the effects easier to visualize. The numbers of rabbits used for this purpose has fallen substantially over the past two decades. In 1996, there were 3,693 procedures on rabbits for eye irritation in the UK, and in 2017 this number was just 63. Rabbits are also frequently used for the production of polyclonal antibodies.

Cats are most commonly used in neurological research. In 2016, 18,898 cats were used in the United States alone, around a third of which were used in experiments which have the potential to cause "pain and/or distress" though only 0.1% of cat experiments involved potential pain which was not relieved by anesthetics/analgesics. In the UK, just 198 procedures were carried out on cats in 2017. The number has been around 200 for most of the last decade.

Beagles are commonly used for animal testing.

Dogs are widely used in biomedical research, testing, and education-particularly beagles, because they are gentle and easy to handle, and to allow for comparisons with historical data from beagles (a Reduction technique). They are used as models for human and veterinary diseases in cardiology, endocrinology, and bone and joint studies, research that tends to be highly invasive, according to the Humane Society of the United States. The most common use of dogs is in the safety assessment of new medicines for human or veterinary use as a second species following testing in rodents, in accordance with the regulations set out in the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use. One of the most significant advancements in medical science involves the use of dogs in developing the answers to insulin production in the body for diabetics and the role of the pancreas in this process. They found that the pancreas was responsible for producing insulin in the body and that removal of the pancreas, resulted in the development of diabetes in the dog. After re-injecting the pancreatic extract (insulin), the blood glucose levels were significantly lowered. The advancements made in this research involving the use of dogs has resulted in a definite improvement in the quality of life for both humans and animals.[citation needed ]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Welfare Report shows that 60,979 dogs were used in USDA-registered facilities in 2016. In the UK, according to the UK Home Office, there were 3,847 procedures on dogs in 2017. Of the other large EU users of dogs, Germany conducted 3,976 procedures on dogs in 2016 and France conducted 4,204 procedures in 2016. In both cases this represents under 0.2% of the total number of procedures conducted on animals in the respective countries.

Zebrafish are commonly used for the basic study and development of various cancers. Used to explore the immune system and genetic strains. They are low in cost, small size, fast reproduction rate, and able to observe cancer cells in real time. Humans and zebrafish share neoplasm similarities which is why they are used for research. The National Library of Medicine shows many examples of the types of cancer zebrafish are used in. The use of zebrafish have allowed them to find differences between MYC-driven pre-B vs T-ALL and be exploited to discover novel pre-B ALL therapies on acute lymphocytic leukemia.

The National Library of Medicine also explains how a neoplasm is difficult to diagnose at an early stage. Understanding the molecular mechanism of digestive tract tumorigenesis and searching for new treatments is the current research. Zebrafish and humans share similar gastric cancer cells in the gastric cancer xenotransplantation model. This allowed researchers to find that Triphala could inhibit the growth and metastasis of gastric cancer cells. Since zebrafish liver cancer genes are related with humans they have become widely used in liver cancer search, as will as many other cancers.

Zebrafish are a freshwaterfish and belong to the minnow family. They are commonly used for cancer research.

Non-human primates (NHPs) are used in toxicology tests, studies of AIDS and hepatitis, studies of neurology, behavior and cognition, reproduction, genetics, and xenotransplantation. They are caught in the wild or purpose-bred. In the United States and China, most primates are domestically purpose-bred, whereas in Europe the majority are imported purpose-bred. The European Commission reported that in 2011, 6,012 monkeys were experimented on in European laboratories. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there were 71,188 monkeys in U.S. laboratories in 2016. 23,465 monkeys were imported into the U.S. in 2014 including 929 who were caught in the wild. Most of the NHPs used in experiments are macaques; but marmosets, spider monkeys, and squirrel monkeys are also used, and baboons and chimpanzees are used in the US. As of 2015, there are approximately 730 chimpanzees in U.S. laboratories.

In a survey in 2003, it was found that 89% of singly-housed primates exhibited self-injurious or abnormal stereotypyical behaviors including pacing, rocking, hair pulling, and biting among others.

The first transgenic primate was produced in 2001, with the development of a method that could introduce new genes into a rhesus macaque. This transgenic technology is now being applied in the search for a treatment for the genetic disorder Huntington's disease. Notable studies on non-human primates have been part of the polio vaccine development, and development of Deep Brain Stimulation, and their current heaviest non-toxicological use occurs in the monkey AIDS model, SIV. In 2008, a proposal to ban all primates experiments in the EU has sparked a vigorous debate.

Animals used by laboratories are largely supplied by specialist dealers. Sources differ for vertebrate and invertebrate animals. Most laboratories breed and raise flies and worms themselves, using strains and mutants supplied from a few main stock centers. For vertebrates, sources include breeders and dealers like Covance and Charles River Laboratories who supply purpose-bred and wild-caught animals; businesses that trade in wild animals such as Nafovanny; and dealers who supply animals sourced from pounds, auctions, and newspaper ads. Animal shelters also supply the laboratories directly. Large centers also exist to distribute strains of genetically modified animals; the International Knockout Mouse Consortium, for example, aims to provide knockout mice for every gene in the mouse genome.

A laboratory mouse cage. Mice are either bred commercially, or raised in the laboratory.

In the U.S., Class A breeders are licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to sell animals for research purposes, while Class B dealers are licensed to buy animals from "random sources" such as auctions, pound seizure, and newspaper ads. Some Class B dealers have been accused of kidnapping pets and illegally trapping strays, a practice known as bunching. It was in part out of public concern over the sale of pets to research facilities that the 1966 Laboratory Animal Welfare Act was ushered in-the Senate Committee on Commerce reported in 1966 that stolen pets had been retrieved from Veterans Administration facilities, the Mayo Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Harvard and Yale Medical Schools. The USDA recovered at least a dozen stolen pets during a raid on a Class B dealer in Arkansas in 2003.

Four states in the U.S.- Minnesota, Utah, Oklahoma, and Iowa -require their shelters to provide animals to research facilities. Fourteen states explicitly prohibit the practice, while the remainder either allow it or have no relevant legislation.

In the European Union, animal sources are governed by Council Directive 86/609/EEC, which requires lab animals to be specially bred, unless the animal has been lawfully imported and is not a wild animal or a stray. The latter requirement may also be exempted by special arrangement. In 2010 the Directive was revised with EU Directive 2010/63/EU. In the UK, most animals used in experiments are bred for the purpose under the 1988 Animal Protection Act, but wild-caught primates may be used if exceptional and specific justification can be established. The United States also allows the use of wild-caught primates; between 1995 and 1999, 1,580 wild baboons were imported into the U.S. Over half the primates imported between 1995 and 2000 were handled by Charles River Laboratories, or by Covance, which is the single largest importer of primates into the U.S.

Prior to dissection for educational purposes, chloroform was administered to this common sand frog to induce anesthesia and death.

The extent to which animal testing causes pain and suffering, and the capacity of animals to experience and comprehend them, is the subject of much debate.

According to the USDA, in 2016 501,560 animals (61%) (not including rats, mice, birds, or invertebrates) were used in procedures that did not include more than momentary pain or distress. 247,882 (31%) animals were used in procedures in which pain or distress was relieved by anesthesia, while 71,370 (9%) were used in studies that would cause pain or distress that would not be relieved.

Since 2014, in the UK, every research procedure was retrospectively assessed for severity. The five categories are "sub-threshold", "mild", "moderate", "severe" and "non-recovery", the latter being procedures in which an animal is anesthetized and subsequently killed without recovering consciousness. In 2017, 43% (1.61 million) were assessed as sub-threshold, 4% (0.14 million) were assessed as non-recovery, 36% (1.35 million) were assessed as mild, 15% (0.55 million) were assessed as moderate and 4% (0.14 million) were assessed as severe.

The idea that animals might not feel pain as human beings feel it traces back to the 17th-century French philosopher, René Descartes, who argued that animals do not experience pain and suffering because they lack consciousness. Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University, the principal author of two U.S. federal laws regulating pain relief for animals, writes that researchers remained unsure into the 1980s as to whether animals experience pain, and that veterinarians trained in the U.S. before 1989 were simply taught to ignore animal pain. In his interactions with scientists and other veterinarians, he was regularly asked to "prove" that animals are conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" grounds for claiming that they feel pain. Carbone writes that the view that animals feel pain differently is now a minority view. Academic reviews of the topic are more equivocal, noting that although the argument that animals have at least simple conscious thoughts and feelings has strong support, some critics continue to question how reliably animal mental states can be determined. However, some canine experts are stating that, while intelligence does differ animal to animal, dogs have the intelligence of a two to two-and-a-half-year old. This does support the idea that dogs, at the very least, have some form of consciousness. The ability of invertebrates to experience pain and suffering is less clear, however, legislation in several countries (e.g. U.K., New Zealand, Norway) protects some invertebrate species if they are being used in animal testing.

In the U.S., the defining text on animal welfare regulation in animal testing is the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. This defines the parameters that govern animal testing in the U.S. It states "The ability to experience and respond to pain is widespread in the animal kingdom...Pain is a stressor and, if not relieved, can lead to unacceptable levels of stress and distress in animals." The Guide states that the ability to recognize the symptoms of pain in different species is vital in efficiently applying pain relief and that it is essential for the people caring for and using animals to be entirely familiar with these symptoms. On the subject of analgesics used to relieve pain, the Guide states "The selection of the most appropriate analgesic or anesthetic should reflect professional judgment as to which best meets clinical and humane requirements without compromising the scientific aspects of the research protocol". Accordingly, all issues of animal pain and distress, and their potential treatment with analgesia and anesthesia, are required regulatory issues in receiving animal protocol approval. Currently, traumatic methods of marking laboratory animals are being replaced with non-invasive alternatives.

Regulations require that scientists use as few animals as possible, especially for terminal experiments. However, while policy makers consider suffering to be the central issue and see animal euthanasia as a way to reduce suffering, others, such as the RSPCA, argue that the lives of laboratory animals have intrinsic value. Regulations focus on whether particular methods cause pain and suffering, not whether their death is undesirable in itself. The animals are euthanized at the end of studies for sample collection or post-mortem examination; during studies if their pain or suffering falls into certain categories regarded as unacceptable, such as depression, infection that is unresponsive to treatment, or the failure of large animals to eat for five days; or when they are unsuitable for breeding or unwanted for some other reason.

Methods of euthanizing laboratory animals are chosen to induce rapid unconsciousness and death without pain or distress. The methods that are preferred are those published by councils of veterinarians. The animal can be made to inhale a gas, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, by being placed in a chamber, or by use of a face mask, with or without prior sedation or anesthesia. Sedatives or anesthetics such as barbiturates can be given intravenously, or inhalant anesthetics may be used. Amphibians and fish may be immersed in water containing an anesthetic such as tricaine. Physical methods are also used, with or without sedation or anesthesia depending on the method. Recommended methods include decapitation (beheading) for small rodents or rabbits. Cervical dislocation (breaking the neck or spine) may be used for birds, mice, rats, and rabbits depending on the size and weight of the animal. High-intensity microwave irradiation of the brain can preserve brain tissue and induce death in less than 1 second, but this is currently only used on rodents. Captive bolts may be used, typically on dogs, ruminants, horses, pigs and rabbits. It causes death by a concussion to the brain. Gunshot may be used, but only in cases where a penetrating captive bolt may not be used. Some physical methods are only acceptable after the animal is unconscious. Electrocution may be used for cattle, sheep, swine, foxes, and mink after the animals are unconscious, often by a prior electrical stun. Pithing (inserting a tool into the base of the brain) is usable on animals already unconscious. Slow or rapid freezing, or inducing air embolism are acceptable only with prior anesthesia to induce unconsciousness.

Basic or pure research investigates how organisms behave, develop, and function. Those opposed to animal testing object that pure research may have little or no practical purpose, but researchers argue that it forms the necessary basis for the development of applied research, rendering the distinction between pure and applied research-research that has a specific practical aim-unclear. Pure research uses larger numbers and a greater variety of animals than applied research. Fruit flies, nematode worms, mice and rats together account for the vast majority, though small numbers of other species are used, ranging from sea slugs through to armadillos. Examples of the types of animals and experiments used in basic research include:

Studies on embryogenesis and developmental biology. Mutants are created by adding transposons into their genomes, or specific genes are deleted by gene targeting. By studying the changes in development these changes produce, scientists aim to understand both how organisms normally develop, and what can go wrong in this process. These studies are particularly powerful since the basic controls of development, such as the homeobox genes, have similar functions in organisms as diverse as fruit flies and man.

Experiments into behavior, to understand how organisms detect and interact with each other and their environment, in which fruit flies, worms, mice, and rats are all widely used. Studies of brain function, such as memory and social behavior, often use rats and birds. For some species, behavioral research is combined with enrichment strategies for animals in captivity because it allows them to engage in a wider range of activities.

Breeding experiments to study and . Laboratory mice, flies, fish, and worms are inbred through many generations to create strains with defined characteristics. These provide animals of a known genetic background, an important tool for genetic analyses. Larger mammals are rarely bred specifically for such studies due to their slow rate of reproduction, though some scientists take advantage of inbred domesticated animals, such as dog or cattle breeds, for comparative purposes. Scientists studying how animals evolve use many animal species to see how variations in where and how an organism lives (their niche) produce adaptations in their physiology and morphology. As an example, sticklebacks are now being used to study how many and which types of mutations are selected to produce adaptations in animals' morphology during the evolution of new species.

Applied research aims to solve specific and practical problems. These may involve the use of animal models of diseases or conditions, which are often discovered or generated by pure research programmes. In turn, such applied studies may be an early stage in the drug discovery process. Examples include:

Genetic modification of animals to study disease. Transgenic animals have specific genes inserted, modified or removed, to mimic specific conditions such as single gene disorders, such as Huntington's disease. Other models mimic complex, multifactorial diseases with genetic components, such as diabetes, or even transgenic mice that carry the same mutations that occur during the development of cancer. These models allow investigations on how and why the disease develops, as well as providing ways to develop and test new treatments. The vast majority of these transgenic models of human disease are lines of mice, the mammalian species in which genetic modification is most efficient. Smaller numbers of other animals are also used, including rats, pigs, sheep, fish, birds, and amphibians.

Studies on models of naturally occurring disease and condition. Certain domestic and wild animals have a natural propensity or predisposition for certain conditions that are also found in humans. Cats are used as a model to develop immunodeficiency virus vaccines and to study leukemia because their natural predisposition to FIV and Feline leukemia virus. Certain breeds of dog experience narcolepsy making them the major model used to study the human condition. Armadillos and humans are among only a few animal species that naturally have leprosy; as the bacteria responsible for this disease cannot yet be grown in culture, armadillos are the primary source of bacilli used in leprosy vaccines.

Studies on induced animal models of human diseases. Here, an animal is treated so that it develops pathology and symptoms that resemble a human disease. Examples include restricting blood flow to the brain to induce stroke, or giving neurotoxins that cause damage similar to that seen in Parkinson's disease. Much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews. For example, although such models are now widely used to study Parkinson's disease, the British anti-vivisection interest group BUAV argues that these models only superficially resemble the disease symptoms, without the same time course or cellular pathology. In contrast, scientists assessing the usefulness of animal models of Parkinson's disease, as well as the medical research charity The Parkinson's Appeal, state that these models were invaluable and that they led to improved surgical treatments such as pallidotomy, new drug treatments such as levodopa, and later deep brain stimulation.

Animal testing has also included the use of placebo testing. In these cases animals are treated with a substance that produces no pharmacological effect, but is administered in order to determine any biological alterations due to the experience of a substance being administered, and the results are compared with those obtained with an active compound.

Xenotransplantation research involves transplanting tissues or organs from one species to another, as a way to overcome the shortage of human organs for use in organ transplants. Current research involves using primates as the recipients of organs from pigs that have been genetically modified to reduce the primates' immune response against the pig tissue. Although transplant rejection remains a problem, recent clinical trials that involved implanting pig insulin-secreting cells into diabetics did reduce these people's need for insulin.

Documents released to the news media by the animal rights organization Uncaged Campaigns showed that, between 1994 and 2000, wild baboons imported to the UK from Africa by Imutran Ltd, a subsidiary of Novartis Pharma AG, in conjunction with Cambridge University and Huntingdon Life Sciences, to be used in experiments that involved grafting pig tissues, had serious and sometimes fatal injuries. A scandal occurred when it was revealed that the company had communicated with the British government in an attempt to avoid regulation.

Toxicology testing, also known as safety testing, is conducted by pharmaceutical companies testing drugs, or by contract animal testing facilities, such as Huntingdon Life Sciences, on behalf of a wide variety of customers. According to 2005 EU figures, around one million animals are used every year in Europe in toxicology tests; which are about 10% of all procedures. According to Nature, 5,000 animals are used for each chemical being tested, with 12,000 needed to test pesticides. The tests are conducted without anesthesia, because interactions between drugs can affect how animals detoxify chemicals, and may interfere with the results.

Toxicology tests are used to examine finished products such as pesticides, medications, food additives, packing materials, and air freshener, or their chemical ingredients. Most tests involve testing ingredients rather than finished products, but according to BUAV, manufacturers believe these tests overestimate the toxic effects of substances; they therefore repeat the tests using their finished products to obtain a less toxic label.

There are several different types of acute toxicity tests. The ("Lethal Dose 50%") test is used to evaluate the toxicity of a substance by determining the dose required to kill 50% of the test animal population. This test was removed from OECD international guidelines in 2002, replaced by methods such as the fixed dose procedure, which use fewer animals and cause less suffering. Abbott writes that, as of 2005, "the LD50 acute toxicity test ... still accounts for one-third of all animal [toxicity] tests worldwide".

Irritancy can be measured using the Draize test, where a test substance is applied to an animal's eyes or skin, usually an albino rabbit. For Draize eye testing, the test involves observing the effects of the substance at intervals and grading any damage or irritation, but the test should be halted and the animal killed if it shows "continuing signs of severe pain or distress". The Humane Society of the United States writes that the procedure can cause redness, ulceration, hemorrhaging, cloudiness, or even blindness. This test has also been criticized by scientists for being cruel and inaccurate, subjective, over-sensitive, and failing to reflect human exposures in the real world. Although no accepted in vitro alternatives exist, a modified form of the Draize test called the low volume eye test may reduce suffering and provide more realistic results and this was adopted as the new standard in September 2009. However, the Draize test will still be used for substances that are not severe irritants.

The most stringent tests are reserved for drugs and foodstuffs. For these, a number of tests are performed, lasting less than a month (acute), one to three months (subchronic), and more than three months (chronic) to test general toxicity (damage to organs), eye and skin irritancy, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, and reproductive problems. The cost of the full complement of tests is several million dollars per substance and it may take three or four years to complete.

These toxicity tests provide, in the words of a 2006 United States National Academy of Sciences report, "critical information for assessing hazard and risk potential". Animal tests may overestimate risk, with false positive results being a particular problem, but false positives appear not to be prohibitively common. Variability in results arises from using the effects of high doses of chemicals in small numbers of laboratory animals to try to predict the effects of low doses in large numbers of humans. Although relationships do exist, opinion is divided on how to use data on one species to predict the exact level of risk in another.

Scientists face growing pressure to move away from using traditional animal toxicity tests to determine whether manufactured chemicals are safe. Among variety of approaches to toxicity evaluation the ones which have attracted increasing interests are in vitro cell-based sensing methods applying fluorescence.

The "Leaping Bunny" logo: Some products in Europe that are not tested on animals carry this symbol.

Cosmetics testing on animals is particularly controversial. Such tests, which are still conducted in the U.S., involve general toxicity, eye and skin irritancy, phototoxicity (toxicity triggered by ultraviolet light) and mutagenicity.

Cosmetics testing on animals is banned in India, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Israel and Norway while legislation in the U.S. and Brazil is currently considering similar bans. In 2002, after 13 years of discussion, the European Union agreed to phase in a near-total ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics by 2009, and to ban all cosmetics-related animal testing. France, which is home to the world's largest cosmetics company, L'Oreal, has protested the proposed ban by lodging a case at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, asking that the ban be quashed. The ban is also opposed by the European Federation for Cosmetics Ingredients, which represents 70 companies in Switzerland, Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy. In October 2014, India passed stricter laws that also ban the importation of any cosmetic products that are tested on animals.

Before the early 20th century, laws regulating drugs were lax. Currently, all new pharmaceuticals undergo rigorous animal testing before being licensed for human use. Tests on pharmaceutical products involve:

metabolic tests, investigating pharmacokinetics-how drugs are absorbed, metabolized and excreted by the body when introduced orally, intravenously, intraperitoneally, intramuscularly, or transdermally.

toxicology tests, which gauge acute, sub-acute, and chronic toxicity. Acute toxicity is studied by using a rising dose until signs of toxicity become apparent. Current European legislation demands that "acute toxicity tests must be carried out in two or more mammalian species" covering "at least two different routes of administration". Sub-acute toxicity is where the drug is given to the animals for four to six weeks in doses below the level at which it causes rapid poisoning, in order to discover if any toxic drug metabolites build up over time. Testing for chronic toxicity can last up to two years and, in the European Union, is required to involve two species of mammals, one of which must be non-rodent.

efficacy studies, which test whether experimental drugs work by inducing the appropriate illness in animals. The drug is then administered in a double-blind controlled trial, which allows researchers to determine the effect of the drug and the dose-response curve.

Specific tests on reproductive function, embryonic toxicity, or carcinogenic potential can all be required by law, depending on the result of other studies and the type of drug being tested.

It is estimated that 20 million animals are used annually for educational purposes in the United States including, classroom observational exercises, dissections and live-animal surgeries. Frogs, fetal pigs, perch, cats, earthworms, grasshoppers, crayfish and starfish are commonly used in classroom dissections. Alternatives to the use of animals in classroom dissections are widely used, with many U.S. States and school districts mandating students be offered the choice to not dissect. Citing the wide availability of alternatives and the decimation of local frog species, India banned dissections in 2014.

The Sonoran Arthropod Institute hosts an annual Invertebrates in Education and Conservation Conference to discuss the use of invertebrates in education. There also are efforts in many countries to find alternatives to using animals in education. The NORINA database, maintained by Norecopa, lists products that may be used as alternatives or supplements to animal use in education, and in the training of personnel who work with animals. These include alternatives to dissection in schools. InterNICHE has a similar database and a loans system.

In November 2013, the U.S.-based company Backyard Brains released for sale to the public what they call the "Roboroach", an "electronic backpack" that can be attached to cockroaches. The operator is required to amputate a cockroach's antennae, use sandpaper to wear down the shell, insert a wire into the thorax, and then glue the electrodes and circuit board onto the insect's back. A mobile phone app can then be used to control it via Bluetooth. It has been suggested that the use of such a device may be a teaching aid that can promote interest in science. The makers of the "Roboroach" have been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and state that the device is intended to encourage children to become interested in neuroscience.

Animals are used by the military to develop weapons, vaccines, battlefield surgical techniques, and defensive clothing. For example, in 2008 the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency used live pigs to study the effects of improvised explosive device explosions on internal organs, especially the brain.

In the US military, goats are commonly used to train combat medics. (Goats have become the main animal species used for this purpose after the Pentagon phased out using dogs for medical training in the 1980s.) While modern mannequins used in medical training are quite efficient in simulating the behavior of a human body, some trainees feel that "the goat exercise provide[s] a sense of urgency that only real life trauma can provide". Nevertheless, in 2014, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that it would reduce the number of animals it uses in its training exercises by half after PETA released video showing Guard members cutting off the limbs of unconscious goats with tree trimmers and inflicting other injuries with a shotgun, pistol, ax and a scalpel. That same year, citing the availability of human simulators and other alternatives, the Department of Defense announced it would begin reducing the number of animals it uses in various training programs. In 2013, several Navy medical centers stopped using ferrets in intubation exercises after complaints from PETA.

Besides the United States, six out of 28 NATO countries, including Poland and Denmark, use live animals for combat medic training.

Most animals are euthanized after being used in an experiment. Sources of laboratory animals vary between countries and species; most animals are purpose-bred, while a minority are caught in the wild or supplied by dealers who obtain them from auctions and pounds. Supporters of the use of animals in experiments, such as the British Royal Society, argue that virtually every medical achievement in the 20th century relied on the use of animals in some way. The Institute for Laboratory Animal Research of the United States National Academy of Sciences has argued that animal research cannot be replaced by even sophisticated computer models, which are unable to deal with the extremely complex interactions between molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms and the environment. Animal rights organizations-such as PETA and BUAV-question the need for and legitimacy of animal testing, arguing that it is cruel and poorly regulated, that medical progress is actually held back by misleading animal models that cannot reliably predict effects in humans, that some of the tests are outdated, that the costs outweigh the benefits, or that animals have the intrinsic right not to be used or harmed in experimentation.

Monument for animals used in testing at Keio University

The moral and ethical questions raised by performing experiments on animals are subject to debate, and viewpoints have shifted significantly over the 20th century. There remain disagreements about which procedures are useful for which purposes, as well as disagreements over which ethical principles apply to which species.

A 2015 Gallup poll found that 67% of Americans were "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about animals used in research. A Pew poll taken the same year found 50% of American adults opposed the use of animals in research.

Still, a wide range of viewpoints exist. The view that animals have moral rights ( animal rights) is a philosophical position proposed by Tom Regan, among others, who argues that animals are beings with beliefs and desires, and as such are the "subjects of a life" with moral value and therefore moral rights. Regan still sees ethical differences between killing human and non-human animals, and argues that to save the former it is permissible to kill the latter. Likewise, a "moral dilemma" view suggests that avoiding potential benefit to humans is unacceptable on similar grounds, and holds the issue to be a dilemma in balancing such harm to humans to the harm done to animals in research. In contrast, an abolitionist view in animal rights holds that there is no moral justification for any harmful research on animals that is not to the benefit of the individual animal. Bernard Rollin argues that benefits to human beings cannot outweigh animal suffering, and that human beings have no moral right to use an animal in ways that do not benefit that individual. Donald Watson has stated that vivisection and animal experimentation "is probably the cruelest of all Man's attack on the rest of Creation." Another prominent position is that of philosopher Peter Singer, who argues that there are no grounds to include a being's species in considerations of whether their suffering is important in utilitarian moral considerations. Malcolm Macleod and collaborators argue that most controlled animal studies do not employ randomization, allocation concealment, and blinding outcome assessment, and that failure to employ these features exaggerates the apparent benefit of drugs tested in animals, leading to a failure to translate much animal research for human benefit.

Governments such as the Netherlands and New Zealand have responded to the public's concerns by outlawing invasive experiments on certain classes of non-human primates, particularly the great apes. In 2015, captive chimpanzees in the U.S. were added to the Endangered Species Act adding new road blocks to those wishing to experiment on them. Similarly, citing ethical considerations and the availability of alternative research methods, the U.S. NIH announced in 2013 that it would dramatically reduce and eventually phase out experiments on chimpanzees.

The British government has required that the cost to animals in an experiment be weighed against the gain in knowledge. Some medical schools and agencies in China, Japan, and South Korea have built cenotaphs for killed animals. In Japan there are also annual memorial services ( Ireisai 慰霊祭) for animals sacrificed at medical school.

Dolly the sheep: the first clone produced from the somatic cells of an adult mammal

Various specific cases of animal testing have drawn attention, including both instances of beneficial scientific research, and instances of alleged ethical violations by those performing the tests. The fundamental properties of muscle physiology were determined with work done using frog muscles (including the force generating mechanism of all muscle, the length-tension relationship, and the force-velocity curve), and frogs are still the preferred model organism due to the long survival of muscles in vitro and the possibility of isolating intact single-fiber preparations (not possible in other organisms). Modern physical therapy and the understanding and treatment of muscular disorders is based on this work and subsequent work in mice (often engineered to express disease states such as muscular dystrophy). In February 1997 a team at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.

Concerns have been raised over the mistreatment of primates undergoing testing. In 1985, the case of Britches, a macaque monkey at the University of California, Riverside, gained public attention. He had his eyelids sewn shut and a sonar sensor on his head as part of an experiment to test sensory substitution devices for blind people. The laboratory was raided by Animal Liberation Front in 1985, removing Britches and 466 other animals. The National Institutes of Health conducted an eight-month investigation and concluded, however, that no corrective action was necessary. During the 2000s other cases have made headlines, including experiments at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University in 2002. In 2004 and 2005, undercover footage of staff of Covance's, a contract research organization that provides animal testing services, Virginia lab was shot by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Following release of the footage, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Covance $8,720 for 16 citations, three of which involved lab monkeys; the other citations involved administrative issues and equipment.

In 2006, a primate researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) shut down the experiments in his lab after threats from animal rights activists. The researcher had received a grant to use 30 macaque monkeys for vision experiments; each monkey was anesthetized for a single physiological experiment lasting up to 120 hours, and then euthanized. The researcher's name, phone number, and address were posted on the website of the Primate Freedom Project. Demonstrations were held in front of his home. A Molotov cocktail was placed on the porch of what was believed to be the home of another UCLA primate researcher; instead, it was accidentally left on the porch of an elderly woman unrelated to the university. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the attack. As a result of the campaign, the researcher sent an email to the Primate Freedom Project stating "you win", and "please don't bother my family anymore". In another incident at UCLA in June 2007, the Animal Liberation Brigade placed a bomb under the car of a UCLA children's ophthalmologist who experiments on cats and rhesus monkeys; the bomb had a faulty fuse and did not detonate.

In 1997, PETA filmed staff from Huntingdon Life Sciences, showing dogs being mistreated. The employees responsible were dismissed, with two given community service orders and ordered to pay £250 costs, the first lab technicians to have been prosecuted for animal cruelty in the UK. The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign used tactics ranging from non-violent protest to the alleged firebombing of houses owned by executives associated with HLS's clients and investors. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors US domestic extremism, has described SHAC's modus operandi as "frankly terroristic tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists", and in 2005 an official with the FBI's counter-terrorism division referred to SHAC's activities in the United States as domestic terrorist threats. 13 members of SHAC were jailed for between 15 months and eleven years on charges of conspiracy to blackmail or harm HLS and its suppliers.

Systematic reviews have pointed out that animal testing often fails to accurately mirror outcomes in humans. For instance, a 2013 review noted that some 100 vaccines have been shown to prevent HIV in animals, yet none of them have worked on humans. Effects seen in animals may not be replicated in humans, and vice versa. Many corticosteroids cause birth defects in animals, but not in humans. Conversely, thalidomide causes serious birth defects in humans, but not in some animals such as mice (however, it does cause birth defects in rabbits). A 2004 paper concluded that much animal research is wasted because systemic reviews are not used, and due to poor methodology. A 2006 review found multiple studies where there were promising results for new drugs in animals, but human clinical studies did not show the same results. The researchers suggested that this might be due to researcher bias, or simply because animal models do not accurately reflect human biology. Lack of meta-reviews may be partially to blame. Poor methodology is an issue in many studies. A 2009 review noted that many animal experiments did not use blinded experiments, a key element of many scientific studies in which researchers are not told about the part of the study they are working on to reduce bias. A 2021 paper found, in a sample of Open Access Alzheimer Disease studies, that if the authors omit from the title that the experiment was performed in mice, the News Headline follow suit, and that also the Twitter repercussion is higher.

There are various examples of activists utilizing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain information about taxpayer funding of animal testing. For example, the White Coat Waste Project, a group of activists that hold that taxpayers should not have

Anti-animal testing activists protesting in the streets of London in 2009

to pay $20 billion every year for experiments on animals, highlighted that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases provided $400,000 in taxpayer money to fund experiments in which 28 beagles were infected by disease-causing parasites. The White Coat Project found reports that said dogs taking part in the experiments were "vocalizing in pain" after being injected with foreign substances. Following public outcry, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) made a call to action that all members of the National Institute of Health resign effective immediately and that there is a "need to find a new NIH director to replace the outgoing Francis Collins who will shut down research that violates the dignity of nonhuman animals."

Most scientists and governments state that animal testing should cause as little suffering to animals as possible, and that animal tests should only be performed where necessary. The " Three Rs" are guiding principles for the use of animals in research in most countries. Whilst replacement of animals, i.e. alternatives to animal testing, is one of the principles, their scope is much broader. Although such principles have been welcomed as a step forwards by some animal welfare groups, they have also been criticized as both outdated by current research, and of little practical effect in improving animal welfare. The scientists and engineers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have created "organs-on-a-chip", including the "lung-on-a-chip" and "gut-on-a-chip". Researchers at cellasys in Germany developed a "skin-on-a-chip". These tiny devices contain human cells in a 3-dimensional system that mimics human organs. The chips can be used instead of animals in disease research, drug testing, and toxicity testing. Researchers have also begun using 3-D bioprinters to create human tissues for in vitro testing.

Another non-animal research method is or computer simulation and mathematical modeling which seeks to investigate and ultimately predict toxicity and drug effects on humans without using animals. This is done by investigating test compounds on a molecular level using recent advances in technological capabilities with the ultimate goal of creating treatments unique to each patient. Microdosing is another alternative to the use of animals in experimentation. Microdosing is a process whereby volunteers are administered a small dose of a test compound allowing researchers to investigate its pharmacological affects without harming the volunteers. Microdosing can replace the use of animals in pre-clinical drug screening and can reduce the number of animals used in safety and toxicity testing. Additional alternative methods include positron emission tomography (PET), which allows scanning of the human brain in vivo, and comparative epidemiological studies of disease risk factors among human populations. Simulators and computer programs have also replaced the use of animals in dissection, teaching and training exercises.

Official bodies such as the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Test Methods of the European Commission, the Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Validation of Alternative Methods in the US, ZEBET in Germany, and the Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (among others) also promote and disseminate the 3Rs. These bodies are mainly driven by responding to regulatory requirements, such as supporting the cosmetics testing ban in the EU by validating alternative methods. The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing serves as a liaison between the European Commission and industries. The European Consensus Platform for Alternatives coordinates efforts amongst EU member states. Academic centers also investigate alternatives, including the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the Johns Hopkins University and the NC3Rs in the UK.

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Description Around 50-100 million vertebrate animals are used in experiments annually. Subjects Animal testing, science, medicine, animal welfare, animal rights, ethics Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study.

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Animal testing

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An introduction to animal experiments

What are animal experiments?

An animal test is any scientific experiment or test in which a live animal is forced to undergo something that is likely to cause them pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm.

Animal experiments are not the same as taking your companion animal to the vet. Animals used in laboratories are deliberately harmed, not for their own good, and are usually killed at the end of the experiment.

Animal experiments include:

injecting or force feeding animals with potentially harmful substances

surgically removing animals' organs or tissues to deliberately cause damage

forcing animals to inhale toxic gases

subjecting animals to frightening situations to create anxiety and depression.

Some experiments require the animal to die as part of the test. For example, regulatory tests for botox, vaccines and some tests for chemical safety are essentially variations of the cruel Lethal Dose 50 test in which 50% of the animals die or are killed very close to death.

Which animals are used?

A surprisingly, large range of animal species are regularly used in experiments, including wild animals.

Only vertebrate animals (mammals, birds, fish and amphibians) and some invertebrates such as octopuses are defined as 'animals' by European legislation governing animal experiments. Shockingly, in the USA rats, mice, fish, amphibians and birds are not defined as animals under animal experiment regulations. That means no legal permission to experiment on them is needed and they are not included in any statistics.

Animals used in experiments are usually bred for this purpose by the laboratory or in breeding facilities. It's a cruel, multi-million dollar industry. We believe that all animals are equally important. A dog bred for research is still a dog who could otherwise live a happy life in a loving home.

Some monkeys are still trapped in the wild in Africa, Asia and South America to be used in experiments or imprisoned in breeding facilities. Their children are exported to laboratories around the world. The use of wild-caught monkeys in experiments is generally banned in Europe but is allowed elsewhere.

Horses and other animals such as cows, sheep and pigs are often supplied by dealers and may originate from racing stables or farms for use in animal experiments. The rules preventing the use of stray companion animals like dogs and cats vary from country to country.

Wild animals are sometimes used, either in trapping and monitoring experiments in the wild, or they may be captured and brought into a laboratory setting for more invasive research, sometimes in the name of conservation.

What are laboratories like?

Laboratories are no place for any animal. They are typically sterile, indoor environments in which the animals are forced to live in cages, pens or Perspex boxes - denied complete freedom of movement and control over their lives. Some animals in laboratories are confined on their own, without the companionship of others.

Our investigations show time and time again, that despite claims by the animal research community, life inside a laboratory is no life at all.

The science relating to animal experiments can be extremely complicated and views often differ. What appears on this website represents Cruelty Free International expert opinion, based on a thorough assessment of the evidence.

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An introduction to animal experiments An animal test is any scientific experiment or test in which a live animal is forced to undergo something that is likely to cause them pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm. Animal experiments are not the same as taking your companion animal to the vet.

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Animal testing

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Malaysia is home to the Sunda pangolin, one of eight existing species of pangolins in the world. It is also known to be a source and transit country in the global pangolin trade, including those from Africa. Seizure records show that it is in the top 10 countries with the highest incidences of international trafficking of pangolins and their parts. Along with neighbouring Indonesia, Malaysia has been identified as one of the priority countries of origin and recipients for large shipments of pangolins, either live or dead, or of pangolin scales and other body parts.

How big is the estimated pangolin population? How many have been seized in recent years?

There are no available population statistics on pangolins in Malaysia. However, it is widely accepted that the population is in steep decline due to the high number of pangolins being caught by wildlife smugglers.

In February 2019, authorities seized almost 30 tonnes of living, frozen and processed pangolins in a single raid on a warehouse in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

A decade ago, authorities confiscated logbooks from a wildlife syndicate in Sabah that showed that they poached and traded an estimated 22,000 pangolins between 2007 and 2009.

Smaller seizures of between 20 to 100 pangolins are common, often in areas near the Thai-Malaysia border.

Anecdotal evidence from communities living near forest areas also indicates that pangolins are increasingly rare.

What is the major use of pangolins?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that, historically, some sections of the local populace hunt pangolins for consumption and to turn its scales into medicine or ornaments. There is a small local demand for exotic meats like pangolin, but it is not thought to contribute significantly to poaching.

In more recent times, pangolins have been harvested in large quantities in Malaysia to feed international demand for its meat and scales, largely for medicinal purposes.

Are there any laws that ban farming, poaching or selling of pangolins? What are the penalties?

There are three separate wildlife laws covering the regions of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak.

The Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 covers Peninsular Malaysia and lists the pangolin as a "totally protected" species. Anyone found hunting or keeping the animal is liable to fines of up to 100,000 Malaysian ringgit (US$ 24,200), three years in prison, or both. There are stiffer penalties if the animal is a female or a juvenile.

The Wildlife Conservation (Amendment) Enactment 2016 covers the region of Sabah, and also lists the pangolin as "totally protected". Possession and hunting of pangolins is punishable by fines between 50,000 and 250,000 Malaysian ringgit (between US$ 12,100 and US$ 60,500), and one to five years in prison.

By comparison, the Wild Life Protection Ordinance 1998 that covers Sarawak is much softer on pangolin smuggling. It lists pangolins as "protected". Hunting, killing, trading or being in possession of a pangolin is only prohibited without a licence and is punishable by a fine of 10,000 Malaysian ringgit (US$ 2,420) and one year in prison.

Have there been any actual prosecutions? Have there been any court cases?

There have been a number of prosecutions, especially in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah, with fines of up to 125,000 Malaysian ringgit (US$ 30,200) meted out. However, anecdotal evidence from enforcement authorities indicates that most of the perpetrators are able to pay their fines or post bail in cash, leaving them free to return to their wildlife trade. Prison sentences have been handed out before, but they are usually short.

Who are the people involved in the trade of pangolins? Who do they sell the pangolins to and for how much?

Pangolins are usually collected by local communities living near forests or plantations. However, the trade is mostly driven by the high prices offered by smuggling syndicates. Middlemen for these syndicates pay local poachers between 50 to 300 Malaysian ringgit per kg (US$ 12.10 to US$ 72.60 per kg).

These prices are in turn fuelled by high demand from China and Vietnam. Authorities suspect that Malaysian syndicates are connected with syndicates in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, facilitating the trade from one country to the next, until it reaches China or Vietnam.

How can you help?

Avoid buying, selling or consuming pangolins and its derivatives.

If you come across evidence of pangolin poaching or smuggling, you can call the MYCAT Wildlife Crime Hotline at +60 193 564 194. The hotline is operated by a coalition of conservation NGOs and supported by the Malaysian Wildlife Department (PERHILITAN).

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The pangolin trade explained: situation in Malaysia - The Pangolin Reports

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What is Malaysia's role in the illicit trade of pangolins? Malaysia is home to the Sunda pangolin, one of eight existing species of pangolins in the world. It is also known to be a source and transit country in the global pangolin trade, including those from Africa.

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We present you with the essential poaching statistics, facts, and frequently asked questions to better understand this global issue.

We hope they'll encourage you to do whatever is in your power to stop poachers and help save the many endangered species out there.

Before we begin, let's take a look at some of the essential stats on animal poaching.

What Are the 10 Most Important Poaching Facts

Nearly two rangers a week are killed protecting the wildlife.

Illegal wildlife trafficking is a business worth $5-$23 billion a year.

100 million sharks are killed every year throughout the world.

In Africa, poachers kill thousands of endangered animals every day.

Rhinos are poached at a rate of one per 12 hours.

Rhino poaching is likely to increase by 356% by 2030.

Every year, 35,000 elephants in Botswana are slaughtered.

On average, poachers kill 96 African elephants every day.

Only 13 countries in the world have populations of wild tigers.

Over 30,000 green sea turtles are poached every year in Baja, California.

Unfortunately, animal poaching stats reveal that rare animals are lucrative on the black market. This has brought upon the world the illegal practice of poaching.

In the last few decades, poachers have managed to bring untold perils to animals around the globe.

We hope our article will shine some much-needed light on the importance of fighting poaching.

General Animal Poaching Statistics

Did you know that poaching is pushing many species to extinction? And even though poachers are killing animals, very often innocent people get harmed, as well.

1. Nearly two rangers a week are killed protecting the wildlife.

(Global Conservation)

It's impossible to give the exact numbers as the data isn't collected or kept in all countries worldwide. But we do have estimates. Over ten years, more than 1,000 rangers are killed.

About half of them are murdered by poachers, while the other half die in workplace accidents. Bear in mind that the facts about poaching casualties are just estimates, and the real number is most likely much higher.

2. Only six countries collect and keep detailed data on poaching.

(Poaching Facts)

Not all countries in the world have a poaching problem. However, most of Africa and a large part of Asia do. And yet, only five African countries and one Asian country keep records. They include:

3. Around 30,000 species are driven to extinction every year, poaching animals facts show.

(Center for Biological Diversity)

That's approximately three species per hour!

Naturally, species go extinct all the time - it's how life works, but the rate has never been so dramatic. And even though these numbers aren't poaching stats per se, poachers play a vital role in the mass extinction.

Global climate changes and the destruction of animals' natural habitats are the most significant issues here. But poachers don't help, either. They're especially devastating to the endangered species in Africa and Southeast Asia.

4. Illegal wildlife trafficking is a business worth $5-$23 billion a year.

(World Bank)

According to poaching facts and statistics, illegal wildlife trafficking, fishing, and logging are the second most lucrative crime globally, with $73-$216 estimated yearly value.

The first one is drugs, with $426-$652 billion estimated yearly value. Human trafficking is third, with an estimated $150 billion.

5. 160 animal species were illegally taken away from Brazil between 2012 and 2019.

(TRAFFIC)

This is millions of animals, and experts believe that a lot more animals get snatched. Also, consider these animal poaching facts in the table below.

Also, less than 1% were unidentified amphibians and unidentified butterflies.

However, the data doesn't account for the animals that die out due to habitat destruction. This is the case in many Amazon habitats cut down and ruined by private companies every year.

6. 100 million sharks are killed every year throughout the world.

(Al Jazeera)

Several species of sharks now face extinction because of this. According to the poaching statistics, a large part of this number is due to illegal fishing.

The main reason for the extinction of sharks is shark fin soup. This dish is very popular in China and Vietnam, so many fishermen resort to illegal fishing.

7. In Africa, poachers kill thousands of endangered animals every day.

(African Wildlife Foundation)

Poaching in Africa statistics reveal that many countries have increased their efforts to stop it. However, the poachers are still at large.

Poaching is such a massive business that some criminals even go as far as to assassinate people to cover their tracks.

8. Facts about poaching in Africa reveal that poaching threatens to destroy the world's most iconic animals.

(African Wildlife Foundation)

This includes the black rhino, the African elephant, the mountain gorilla, the lion, and the imperial zebra.

Do you know what connects all of these animals? All of them call Africa their home, and all are either endangered or very close to extinction.

Data shows there are only 1,000 mountain gorillas and 2,000 zebras left.

What's more, lion poaching facts reveal that 43% of the lion population has disappeared in the last 21 years.

While a staggering 97.6% of the black rhino population has vanished since 1960.

Poaching statistics in Africa also show that elephants might have it the worst, as around 35,000 are killed annually. Most of these species will likely go extinct within most of our lifetimes.

9. Poachers often use poisoned arrows to kill animals instead of rifles and other guns.

(Untold Africa)

Poachers use them for their lack of sound in the hopes of avoiding authorities. On top of that, a well-placed arrow can kill an animal in several minutes. But a bad shot can leave them dying from an infection for a whole month.

Other terrifying hunting and poaching facts show the situation is even worse. Besides weapons, poachers often use high-powered technology and other forms of weaponry to remain undetected and efficient at their "task."

Rhino Poaching Statistics

As you may know, rhinos are being poached mostly for the illegal trade in their horns. Certain cultures use these horns in medicine, while others buy them as a symbol of their wealth.

10. Rhinos are poached at a rate of one per 12 hours.

(Save the Rhino)

As you read on about rhino poaching, facts reveal that their population has significantly dropped worldwide.

This is a great success compared to 2015, when the average was 3 rhinos per 24 hours, as poaching in Africa facts reveal. We're still a long way from an ideal situation.

11. Only around 29,000 rhinos are left in the entire world today.

(Save the Rhino)

The rhino is one of the most famous animals globally. Still, you'll probably be surprised to learn that these are their population numbers for the entire globe.

The most numerous is the white rhino species, with around 18,000 of them alive. The most critically endangered rhino species are the Javan rhino (only 74 left) and the Sumatran rhino (less than 80 of them are alive today).

12. According to poaching statistics from 2020, rhino poaching decreased by over 50% in the first half of 2020 due to Covid-19.

(Rhino Review)

In the first half of 2019, 316 rhinos were killed. However, due to the pandemic, the number fell to 166 in the first half of 2020. Statistics show that three-quarters of the killings occurred before lockdown.

As a matter of fact, there were no killings during April in the Intensive Protection Zone in Kruger. This was the first time in almost ten years.

13. Around 5,600 black rhinos are left in the world.

(WWF)

Black rhinos are native to Africa and are the smaller and less numerous cousins of the white rhinos. According to these black rhino poaching statistics, their numbers dwindled to 2,500 in 1995.

However, that number increased substantially in the next 20 years or so and now stands at around 5,600.

Despite that, the black rhino species is still classified as critically endangered. And poaching remains a massive obstacle to their continued recovery.

14. The number of poached rhinos in Africa reached an all-time high in 2015 when poachers killed 1,349 rhinos.

(Save the Rhino)

However, according to some recent poaching statistics, the rates have dropped.

In South Africa, 594 rhinos were killed by poachers in 2019. Luckily, the numbers are decreasing. There were 769 poached rhinos in 2018.

15. The poaching crisis was the worst in 2013 when it spread from South Africa to Kenya and then later to Zimbabwe and Namibia.

(Save the Rhino)

We can safely say that the crisis was terrible for South Africa's rhino population from 2007 to 2014. During those years, rhino poaching grew by 9,000%.

But when it comes to poaching in Kenya, statistics aren't so bleak. In 2015, the number of poached rhinos had steadily begun to drop in South Africa. It went below 1,000 in 2018 for the first time since 2012.

16. The white rhino population is the largest in the Kruger National Park in South Africa, with their numbers being around 9,000-12,000.

(KNP)

Unfortunately, according to these white rhino poaching facts, the KNP has lost more than 100 white rhinos since January 2020. So far, the authorities have arrested 25 suspected poachers, with 17 in the KNP.

17. There were several hundreds of thousands of rhinos across Africa and Asia at the beginning of the 20th century.

(Rhino Fund)

That was barely 120 years ago!

When we consider the small numbers rhino poaching statistics from 2020 have shown us, this stat becomes all the more depressing.

We can't know the exact numbers as records weren't kept on rhinos in that period of history. But it's clear there were 10 to 40 times more rhinos than there are today.

Just let the numbers sink in, from hundreds of thousands some 120 years ago to less than 40,000 today.

Once, there were dozens of different species of rhino. And now, there are only five, two of which are on the verge of extinction.

18. The biggest rhino horns poaching hub is in Vietnam, where a single pound of it is sold for $15,000 to $30,000.

(African Wildlife Foundation)

These rhino poaching facts effectively show how lucrative this gruesome business is. The price also explains why rhino poaching has been on the rise for a long time.

But we're still glad that the poaching rates have begun going down in several countries across the African continent. There's still hope for the rhino population in Africa! But, the next stat paints a different picture.

19. Rhino poaching is likely to increase by 356% by 2030.

(African Wildlife Foundation)

Even though the rates have decreased in the last few years, experts' estimates for the future are still bleak.

Not all agree with these statistics on poaching. But most believe the rates are unlikely to keep falling and that they will, instead, start rising soon. We can only hope that they are wrong!

By the way, one of the reasons why rhino horns are in high demand is due to the belief that they cure diseases. However, science has proven that consuming rhino horn is as beneficial as chewing on your fingernails!

Elephant Poaching Statistics

Similarly to rhinos, elephants are being poached for their ivory tusks. The tusks are used as ornaments, piano keys, jewelry, and other items beneficial only for humans' entertainment and enjoyment.

20. Every year, 35,000 elephants in Botswana are slaughtered.

(African Wildlife Foundation)

Botswana is home to more than 130,000 elephants. It's the last stronghold for Africa's elephants. Sadly, poaching statistics for 2021 show that ivory demand is accelerating the poaching rates.

21. On average, poachers kill 96 African elephants every day.

(Wildlife Conservation Society)

As you are probably already aware, poachers usually kill elephants for their tusks. That's because ivory is incredibly lucrative, especially today.

22. The average price of ivory on the black market has risen by 1,019%.

(ZME Science)

The 1,000% rise has occurred in only 30 years.

According to elephant poaching facts, the increase has occurred mostly because of the worldwide ban on ivory trading. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) issued the ban in 1989.

Unfortunately, that ban hasn't stopped elephant poachers, who are now responsible for an 8% drop in the global population of elephants annually.

23. The African elephant poaching rates reached a peak in 2011 but have since slowly started to decline.

(ScienceDaily)

According to the poaching statistics for Africa, African elephants' annual poaching rate peaked at 10% in 2011. Luckily, it has dropped since.

But the drop in the poaching rates isn't good enough. With the current poaching rates, they still face extinction.

However, experts are optimistic. They believe that the rates will continue to drop, which will undoubtedly improve the elephants' chances.

24. As many as 40% of the 50,000 elephants living in Asia today are held in captivity.

(Poaching Facts)

Sometimes poaching is not the biggest problem for wild animals - being held in captivity in such large numbers is, according to the animal poaching facts.

25. In 1989, there were only 16,000 elephants in Kenya, but the number has doubled since.

(Earth.org)

Africa used to be a home for more than a million elephants. Sadly, poaching has led to a dramatic decrease in their numbers, and only 16,000 elephants lived in Kenya in 1989.

Thankfully, not all facts about elephant poaching are bleak. Despite poaching still being a threat in Africa, the population of elephants in Kenya is still increasing. By the end of 2019, there were 34,800 elephants - more than double.

26. There were a few million elephants in Africa and around 100,000 elephants in Asia at the start of the 20th century.

(Global Giving, WWF, International Elephant Foundation)

And do you know what the estimates are for today? Only some 415,000 African elephants 30,000-50,000 Asian elephants are left, according to the latest estimates.

Tiger Poaching Statistics

Sophisticated international crime syndicates run the massive wildlife poaching business. Tiger bones are smuggled to China, where they're used for tiger bone wine. But, they're also poached for fur and other traditional medicine.

27. Only a century ago, around 100,000 tigers roamed the wild. Today, there are only 3,900 left, as poaching facts show.

(Irish Examiner, Change.org)

Naturally, it's not all due to poaching. In large part, the destruction of their natural habitat is to blame. But poaching is still a massive issue for the continued existence of tigers.

That's because a single tiger (or better said, its parts) can yield the poachers around $50,000 on the black market. And it's not only the skin that's sold.

Tiger bones are also highly popular in the Eastern markets as many people use them in medicine and healing tonics.

28. Close to 3,000 of the total 3,900 tigers live in India.

(WWF, NPR)

Despite such low numbers, tiger poaching facts show India has improved its tiger population's security. And their numbers have seen a slight increase. There's still hope for the world's biggest cats!

29. Only 13 countries in the world have populations of wild tigers.

(WWF)

In 2010, WWF and 13 countries signed an initiative (TX2) to double the number of tigers globally by 2022. The countries included:

The progress is slow, but the tigers have made an incredible comeback in Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Russia. Unfortunately, tiger poachers are active in most of these countries.

30. Poachers killed 38 tigers in India in 2019.

(Wildlife Protection Society of India)

The latest illegal poaching facts from India paint an interesting picture. The number for 2019 is very similar to the ones the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) has been seeing for the last two decades.

The 1990s were much worse for tigers in India. Back then, around one hundred tigers were killed by poachers every year. For example, poachers killed about 121 tigers in 1995. Today, society doesn't include tigers with an uncertain cause of death.

So, the real numbers are most likely much higher, which is why tigers are still an endangered species.

(WWF)

Animal poaching facts and statistics reveal that poaching is the biggest threat to the wild tiger populations. This is because every part of the tiger is tradable and can be found in many illegal wildlife markets.

More than 7,000 tigers in East and Southeast Asia are not under this threat as they live in so-called tiger farms. Additionally, 5,000 tigers can be found in captivity in the US as well.

Gorilla Poaching Facts

Gorillas are poached for three main reasons: food, traditional medicine, and the Bushmeat trade. Current poaching rates have caused all gorilla species to become endangered.

32. All gorilla species are considered to be endangered or critically endangered, depending on the subspecies.

(WWF)

All gorilla species can be found in the tropical and subtropical forests of Central Africa. Moreover, all African countries with gorilla populations have laws to protect them. Unfortunately, a lot of them are not sufficiently enforced.

33. The most widespread gorilla species is the western lowland gorilla, with around 100,000 members.

(WWF)

According to WWF's recent gorilla poaching statistics, the other three gorilla subspecies include:

The Cross River gorilla - the world's rarest great ape with a population of 250-300

The mountain gorilla - with a population of 880

The eastern lowland gorilla - the subspecies lost a lot of its population in the last few decades and has around 4,000 individuals left

34. People expected the mountain gorilla to go extinct by the end of the 20th century.

(WWF)

Thankfully, the most recent mountain gorilla poaching facts show that the species is still going strong despite the habitat loss and constant poaching threat.

Their numbers have also increased in the last few years. It's estimated they number some 1,000 or more individuals. One of the things that might help them survive is that they live high up in the mountains, on elevations between 8,000 and 13,000 feet.

Poaching Statistics on Other Endangered Animal Species

Sadly, poaching isn't only a problem in Africa and Asia. Almost all other parts of the world are poisoned with this illegal activity. What's more, marine animals aren't safe either.

35. Wildlife tourism is worth five times more than the poaching industry.

(Natural Habitat Adventures)

This interesting fact is critical to note as we feel everyone should be aware of how pointless poaching is compared to an industry that's much better for everyone involved.

Since many don't understand why poaching is bad and are driven by money, maybe this economic comparison will persuade them to stop poaching animals.

Poaching is worth around $23 billion. But that's negligible compared to wildlife tourism, which brings around $120 yearly.

Unlike poaching, wildlife tourism creates jobs for local communities. And it also doesn't harm the ecosystem or the animal and human populations in the area.

It would be far more beneficial for everyone if the entire poaching industry were to turn to tourism. But alas, we don't live in a reasonable world. We live in a world where the great majority of the poaching statistics are devastating.

However, there is still hope that people can change their minds, and that's all we need.

36. Thousands of people are arrested each year for poaching in the United States.

(Animal Matters)

The UK is not the only country with poaching problems. As you can see, poaching statistics in the United States are serious, too.

What's more, poaching in Africa and Asia is, in some part, connected to the US as a lot of animal trophies are imported to the states every year, despite the harsh punishment for poaching the smugglers are facing.

37. As of 2016, the giant panda is no longer considered an endangered species.

(Earth Optimism)

At least panda poaching facts are very positive! News like this is rare today.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of activists and organizations worldwide, the beautiful giant panda is now officially only a vulnerable species after being endangered for a very long time.

Their population is recovering, and now there are more than 1,800 giant pandas in China.

38. Even though commercial whaling is banned globally, more than 1,000 whales are hunted every year.

(Whale and Dolphin Conservation)

According to whale poaching statistics, the world banned commercial whaling in 1986.

However, Japan has restarted the practice after a while. Norway objects to it, and Iceland does it anyway under some reservations.

Hunting whales is very profitable for people in these countries. This is likely the reason why the governments there don't want to ban or punish the practice.

Whale meat is used in many traditional dishes, and the oil is used in pharmaceuticals and some health supplements.

39. Over 30,000 green sea turtles are poached every year in Baja, California.

(WWF)

Moreover, every year, 100,000 are killed in the Indo-Australian archipelago.

Sea turtles have roamed the Earth's oceans for more than 100 million years. But, according to the poaching statistics from 2020, they are now an endangered species.

However, their biggest threat is not poaching - it's bycatch. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles are accidentally caught in nets intended for other fish every year.

Some are set free, but most die as they need to reach the surface to breathe, and most of these nets remain underwater for a long time.

40. Poachers have been killing cheetahs for decades. That's one of the main reasons there are only 10,000 cheetahs left in the world today.

(Big Cat Rescue)

According to cheetah poaching facts, there were more than 100,000 cheetahs in the world in 1900. But their numbers have plummeted to less than 25,000 in 1970.

Poaching is one of the biggest reasons for this. Especially when you consider that only in 1980, almost 7,000 cheetahs have reportedly been killed by poachers.

Most of the cheetahs left today are found in the wild, where their lifespan is less than six years, and they can live up to 15 years in captivity.

41. In 2014, a poisoned arrow shot by a poacher killed Kenya's most adored elephant, known as Satao.

(National Geographic)

When it comes to poaching in Kenya, statistics show that the beloved animal was shot only for its tusks. The poachers waited for the animal to die in pain, and then they cut off most of its face to get the ivory.

The terrifying truth is that it's necessary to cut a massive part of the elephant's face to reach the tusk as they grow from the skull through the face. It's almost impossible to gather the ivory from an elephant without killing it.

42. In Africa, ivory poaching and violent conflicts are deeply connected.

(Brookings, University of Birmingham)

Many aren't aware, but poaching has a more significant effect on humanity than most of us know.

Poaching in Africa facts show that the worlds of poaching and armed conflicts are intertwined in Africa. Armed militias and crime networks often use poaching funds to finance terrorism and even wars.

43. Chinese traditional medicine (CTM) is an industry worth $60 billion a year.

(National Geographic)

Most animal poaching stats have something to do with Africa. But the Chinese are still the world's largest consumers of "poached goods." It mostly has to do with their tradition and beliefs that many animal parts can heal or improve people's lives.

Naturally, the government of China banned poaching and has agreed to phase out the related industries. Unfortunately, this hasn't helped the tigers in China, as their population is almost eradicated.

44. When it comes to the Amur leopard, poaching facts reveal that there are barely more than 84 of them left in the world.

(WWF)

The stunning Amur leopard lives in vast expanses of Russia and adjacent Chinese areas close to the Russian border. It differs from other leopards because of its gorgeous, pale fur.

Even though their numbers are meager and the species is critically endangered, their total population has increased by a few in the last decade or so.

FAQ

45. Where is poaching most common?

Poaching is a global problem. Besides the destruction of natural habitat and climate change, it's the next most significant threat to animals.

Plenty of countries across the world have significant poaching problems. Most of them are found in central and southern Africa and South and Southeast Asia.

However, most experts agree that Zimbabwe is the country with the biggest poaching problem out of all the countries in the world. The next country where most of the world's poaching happens is Kenya.

As you can probably assume, most poaching in the world, about half of it, happens in Africa. That's mostly the case because most of the animal poachers seek can be found there.

Furthermore, it's also because many countries in Africa don't have the resources to protect their wildlife from poachers.

46. How many animals die from poaching a year?

As we've already mentioned, too many countries around the world don't keep poaching records. If not that, then many records are incorrect or unreliable.

With that in mind, it's next to impossible to determine the exact number of poached animals per year.

However, some estimates tell us that, for every animal killed legally, one is killed illegally. It's naturally a rough estimate, but it's still the closest one we have to a specific number.

So, the current estimate is that poachers kill millions of animals every year. This is undoubtedly a devastating number, especially when you consider that as many are killed legally.

47. Do poachers kill baby elephants?

Yes, poachers kill baby elephants. We've already covered statistics on elephants, so you already know that the numbers are terrible.

However, most of these are from African countries. Africa holds most of the world's elephant population. But there are still as many as 30,000 to 50,000 elephants in Asia, which is about a tenth of the elephants found in Africa.

We don't have exact numbers for Asian elephants. Still, we know that poaching is a problem in Asia as it is in Africa. We already know the estimated number of African elephants so that we can get a rough estimate.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 elephants are likely poached every year in Africa and Asia combined.

48. Why is poaching bad?

From all that you've seen from these statistics, you can probably guess what the consequences of poaching are. It's endangering the existence of several animal species, while specific species are close to extinction due to the illegal practice.

Additionally, local communities and the environment feel the adverse effects of poaching, too. It increases the spread of foodborne illnesses, and it causes a lack of natural resources as well.

When you consider all of that, it becomes even more crucial that countries stop poachers.

49. How has poaching changed in recent years?

In the distant past, people only killed animals for food, fur, and other things that ensured their survival. After a time, the nobility started hunting animals for sport.

However, it remained exclusive to them, as regular people rarely had the means or the time to kill animals for sport. What's more, poaching was illegal even though people didn't do it.

However, as rural poverty became prevalent globally in the 18th century, many people began to poach animals to get food and make a living.

That wasn't a big problem until more and more poachers became greedy. As time passed and the human population increased, so did the problems of poaching. That's why we have the problem we have today.

50. What is poaching?

The act of poaching is similar to hunting. The result of both is that a human being kills an animal.

On the one hand, hunting is entirely legal and sanctioned by the country in which it takes place. Many countries allow hunting, but most permit it under specific rules to enable animal species to continue to exist and thrive.

On the other hand, poaching is entirely illegal and not sanctioned by the country in which it occurs. It brings hefty fines in most countries, but unfortunately, that's not enough to stop poachers.

51. Where does poaching occur?

Poaching happens mostly in Africa. Zimbabwe and Kenya are the two countries affected the most by this illegal activity. However, smugglers have developed a worldwide network, so poaching isn't limited only to Africa.

52. How to stop poaching?

Putting an end to the wildlife trade isn't simple, but it can be done. There are a couple of things you can do:

Ask before you buy - get information on the fabric, jewelry, where they come from, how they were made, was it fair trade, etc. If the vendor seems reluctant to answer, move along

Stick to certified products - products go through severe inspection before they get a seal of certification, so this is the safest way to avoid wildlife trade

Eat sustainable seafood - check the Marine Stewardship Council to be sure

The Bottom Line

We hope these poaching statistics show the dire situation some species are in.

Poaching isn't a problem of the future, and it's not something that can be ignored - it's a problem that we need to fix today. If not for the animals themselves, then for our children.

If we don't, they'll only get to learn about them from books and videos. And the universe will never witness a tiger roar ever again or the gorilla pound on his chest.

Sources

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52 Eye-Opening Poaching Statistics You Must Know in 2021

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We present you with the essential poaching statistics, facts, and frequently asked questions to better understand this global issue. We hope they'll encourage you to do whatever is in your power to stop poachers and help save the many endangered species out there.

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save the pangolins!!!time is running out!!!Most trafficked mammal on the planet!!
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Time is running out for the pangolin - populations have declined by up to 80% in just a decade.

Poachers kill hundreds of thousands each year, largely because the hard scales covering their bodies are thought to be medicinal in some communities. Despite international laws protecting the pangolin, the killing continues.

It's more than a sad story of extinction: agriculture could also be affected if these shy, burrowing mammals are lost. Pangolins live on a diet of insects, and by devouring millions of them around crop plantations, these mammals protect food supplies.

Finalists in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition have been highlighting their situation.

The above image, The pangolin pit, by conservation photojournalist Paul Hilton, was featured in the 2016 exhibition. It shows about 4,000 dead, frozen pangolins that were seized by Indonesian police.

Paul says, 'I've been following the pangolin trade for over three years. There have been several occasions when I've mentioned my work and people hadn't even known what a pangolin is.

'They are on the brink of extinction, and lots of people still don't seem to know what they are. This is why I'm doing this - the pangolins need our support. People need to know what's going on.

'Photography is the tool to use because it transcends language and gets this conservation message across regardless of country or nationality.'

Playing pangolin

Pangolins live a solitary, quiet existence in grasslands, rainforests and agricultural areas in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

During the day they sleep in burrows, and sniff out food after dark with their long snouts and sticky tongues. Their main defence against predators is their set of hard, overlapping scales, as shown in this image by photographer Lance van de Vyver.

Lance had been tracking a pride of lions for several hours when they happened across this pangolin and started to 'roll it around like a soccer ball'.

Louise Tomsett, the Museum's Mammals Curator, says, 'The scales help pangolins to dig burrows as well as act as armour, and some species also use them to climb trees.

'Pangolins curl up into a tight ball when threatened, rendering them virtually impenetrable, even to a lion's teeth. Unfortunately this also makes them rather easy for poachers to pick up and carry.'

Illegal commodities

The international trade in pangolin meat and scales is huge, with confiscated shipments often amounting to tonnes.

Louise says, 'The main drive for trade is the false idea that pangolin body parts are medicinal. Alleged benefits range from curing acne to curing cancer, and they are used as traditional medicine in China and Vietnam.

'In some countries, the meat is a status symbol because it costs so much. In other places, pangolins are used as bush meat, for indigenous folk rituals, and for leather goods.'

Pangolins are easily stressed and many die during trafficking. They are difficult to keep in captivity because little is known about their biology and care, and a continuous supply of live ants and termites is hard to source.

Natural pest controllers

Pangolins have rarely been bred successfully, so populations will continue to fall if nothing is done to stop poachers.

Their disappearance could have serious effects on agriculture in some communities.

An adult pangolin may consume an estimated 70 million insects every year, providing natural pest control in areas where termites would otherwise cause substantial damage to manmade structures.

It is estimated that pangolins save millions of dollars per year in pest control.

Louise adds, 'Pangolins provide value in controlling insect populations within an ecosystem, and they benefit humans considerably. It is also thought that their digging action during feeding helps to get air into soil and turn it over regularly.'

The fight to save them

Global research is helping to combat the plight of the pangolin.

Pangolins feature in the Museum's collections, which are used by researchers from all over the world. Beyond providing specimens for display in the galleries, the Museum's pangolins play a much bigger role in global science.

Louise says, 'The pangolin specimens we hold contain a wealth of information, much of it waiting to be unlocked.

'The geographical information can provide historical species ranges, and tissue samples can be analysed to show the genetics of different populations.

'Tissue samples can also reveal the movements of one individual throughout its life. All of this information is extremely valuable for conservation.'

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Uncover stories of conservation and see stunning images of nature in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year online gallery.

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Time is running out for the pangolin - populations have declined by up to 80% in just a decade. Poachers kill hundreds of thousands each year, largely because the hard scales covering their bodies are thought to be medicinal in some communities. Despite international laws protecting the pangolin, the killing continues.

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by a.

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Pangolins are the world's most heavily trafficked mammal, making it particularly challenging for conservationists across the world to prevent their eventual extinction.

Largely driven by demand in China and Vietnam, pangolins are poached extensively for their scales and meat. International trade of pangolins has reached epic proportions, with more than one million traded illegally in the last decade. Furthermore, as pangolins produce only one to two offspring each year, the global pangolin population is depleting at a much faster rate than it can reproduce.

In Singapore, Sunda pangolins are mainly distributed in nature reserves and adjacent nature parks on the mainland. They can also be found on the islands of Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong.

While there are no reports of pangolin poaching in Singapore, the species has suffered massive habitat loss due to the city-state's rapid urbanisation. As a result, they have wandered into residential areas and onto roads, where they are easily injured or killed by vehicles.

Furthermore, while local rescued pangolins have been released into the wild, the challenge of monitoring them post-release should be carefully addressed, including suitability of release sites and evaluation of survival rates.

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Millions of pangolins have been illegally traded in the last 10 years - more than the number of poached elephants and rhinos combined. While there are no reports of poaching in Singapore, local Sunda pangolins have suffered massive habitat due to the city-state's rapid urbanisation.

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Emelie

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Shark Populations Are Crashing, With a ‘Very Small Window’ to Avert Disaster

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Oceanic sharks and rays have declined more than 70 percent since 1970, mainly because of overfishing, according to a new study.

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Christina

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How to Stop Poaching and Protect Endangered Species? Forget the ‘Kingpins’ (Published 2018)

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Authorities keep arresting people said to be bosses of wildlife trafficking, but that isn’t making a dent in the problem.

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https://www.awf.org/stop-killing

Christina

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About poaching

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

poaching, in law, the illegal shooting, trapping, or taking of game, fish, or plants from private property or from a place where such practices are specially reserved or forbidden. Poaching is a major existential threat to numerous wild organisms worldwide and is an important contributor to biodiversity loss.

History

Until the 20th century most poaching was subsistence poaching-i.e., the taking of game or fish by impoverished peasants to augment a scanty diet. In medieval Europe feudal landowners from the king downward stringently enforced their exclusive rights to hunt and fish on the lands they owned, and poaching was a serious crime punishable by imprisonment. Large stretches of forested countryside were subject to special laws to preserve the deer, wild boars, and other beasts of the chase who provided the nobles and royalty with sport. With the destruction of forests over the centuries and the taking of communal or royally owned lands into private use, laws were passed in the 17th and 18th centuries restricting hunting and shooting rights on private property to the landowner and his sons, and the practice of hiring gamekeepers to protect the wildlife on privately held land became common. Given these obstacles, subsistence poaching necessarily became a more specialized activity; during the 18th and 19th centuries gangs of organized poachers often engaged in fierce battles against gamekeepers, and mantraps and spring guns were hidden in the underbrush to catch intruders.

Modern poaching

Poaching is now usually done for sport or commercial profit, both in legal and black markets. Poaching can be a serious threat to many wild species, particularly those protected in wildlife preserves or national parks. Many animal species have been limited in range or depleted in numbers, sometimes to the point of extinction, by the depredations of market hunters and unregulated sportsmen.

In Africa the difficulty of enforcing game codes has led to the critical depletion of the rhinoceros, which is hunted for its horn, and of the African elephant, which is slaughtered for its ivory. The Bengal tiger of India and the gorilla of central Africa have similarly been threatened with extinction by hunters operating illegally. Asian and African pangolins are heavily poached for their meat and for the organs, skin, scales, and other parts of the body that are valued for use in traditional medicine; as a result, populations of all eight species have fallen dramatically during the early 21st century, and they are listed as endangered or critically endangered species. Many species of parrots are in danger because of the pet trade, as are many tropical fish collected illegally for aquaria. River poaching has been a problem in some countries, causing the depletion of stocks of fish in many areas.

Plants are also susceptible to poaching. For example, even when forests are not completely cleared, particularly valuable trees such as rosewood or mahogany may be illegally logged from an area, eliminating both the tree species and all the animals that depend on it. Some species are illegally collected not to be killed but to be kept alive and sold as ornamental plants, and the survival of various carnivorous plants, cycads, cacti, and orchid species is threatened by collectors.

Efforts to reduce poaching

Game management and other conservation programs throughout the world have been instituted to counteract the effects of poaching and other threats to wildlife, reinforced by the patrolling of game wardens to restrain poaching for commercial profit. Sometimes conflicts can be violent, and wardens, environmentalists, and poachers have been killed in confrontations over especially valuable animals and poaching operations.

International agreements, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), seek to reduce poaching incentives by regulating worldwide commercial trade in wild animal and plant species. International border customs can also serve to deter the smuggling of poached wildlife and wildlife products. Many governments have made public displays of the destruction of confiscated wildlife products, such as pangolin scales or elephant tusks, to signal that the preservation of the animals depends on the end of the sale of their products.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Melissa Petruzzello.

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Poaching | Description, History, Examples, & Control

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poaching, in law, the illegal shooting, trapping, or taking of game, fish, or plants from private property or from a place where such practices are specially reserved or forbidden. Poaching is a major existential threat to numerous wild organisms worldwide and is an important contributor to biodiversity loss.

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Social issues about animal cruelty

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Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any way. Explore this section to learn more about the issues.

©iStock.com/mumifikator

Every day in countries around the world, animals are fighting for their lives. They are enslaved, beaten, and kept in chains to make them perform for humans' "entertainment"; they are mutilated and confined to tiny cages so that we can kill them and eat them; they are burned, blinded, poisoned, and cut up alive in the name of "science"; they are electrocuted, strangled, and skinned alive so that people can parade around in their coats; and worse.

The abuse that animals suffer at human hands is heartbreaking, sickening, and infuriating. It's even more so when we realize that the everyday choices we make-such as what we eat for lunch and the kind of shampoo we buy-may be directly supporting some of this abuse. But as hard as it is to think about, we can't stop animals' suffering if we simply look the other way and pretend it isn't happening.

Animals are counting on compassionate people like you to give them a voice and be their heroes by learning about the issues they face and taking action. Each of us has the power to save animals from nightmarish suffering-and best of all, it's easier than you might think. If you're ready to join the millions of other compassionate people who are working to create a kinder, better world for animals, learn how animals suffer when used for experimentation, food, entertainment, clothing and the pet-trade. Together, we can make a difference.

Personal Care & Fashion

The time has come for vegan fashion. This handy guide reveals how simple it is to wear vegan clothing-and where to find it.

Personal Care & Fashion

PETA's Beauty Without Bunnies program is the ultimate resource for conscientious shoppers, making the quest for cruelty-free products as easy as pie.

Take Action

Going vegan is easy. We've listed our top six tips for making your transition smooth and delicious.

Take Action

Animal Companions

In the U.S., homelessness is not just a human problem. On any given day, an estimated 70 million homeless dogs and cats are struggling to survive on the streets, where they face dangers such as traffic, extreme temperatures, contagious diseases, parasites, and predators (including cruel humans). There are too many animals and not enough good adoptive ... Read more "

Take Action

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Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any way. Explore this section to learn more about the issues.

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Puppy farming is another thing that comes down animal cruelty

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Why should we save endangered species?

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Plants and animals maintain the health of an ecosystem. When a species becomes endangered, it's a sign that an ecosystem is out of balance. And the consequences can be critical.

Ecosystems are groups of plants and animals that are found in the same area and interact with each other. These interactions make up and maintain the environments we know today - like rainforests, mountains and savannahs.

This happened because the elk population, which are usually hunted by wolves, were able to graze freely and more heavily on the plants that were also needed by beavers to survive during winter.

The conservation of endangered species, and restoring balance to the world's ecosystems, is vital for humans, too. Here's how.

The benefits of conserving endangered species

A well-balanced ecosystem maintains the health of the environment. This ensures that humans have access to clean air and water, and fertile land for agriculture.

So, when ecosystems aren't maintained, our health can be affected too. That's why, when you contribute to the conservation efforts of endangered species, you're also contributing towards humans' well-being.

How to contribute towards the conservation of endangered species

Governments, non-profit organisations, international organisations, local communities and individuals are working together to contribute towards growing the populations of endangered species.

They're also building on awareness campaigns that are aimed at getting more people involved in vital conservation work.

This is a great way to learn about wildlife conservation, and gain hands-on, professional field experience. These practical skills will boost your resume for a career in sustainable development. And if you have a different career in mind, you'll still pick up other valuable skills like teamwork and leadership.

Volunteering is also a valuable opportunity to get involved in scientific research aimed at wildlife conservation. Part of your duties on a wildlife conservation program might include data collection, which provides valuable information that can be used by scientists.

GVI works on protecting endangered species by partnering with local governments, communities and non-profit organisations.

Here are some of the projects that you could get involved in to add to the conservation of endangered species with GVI.

Find out more

There are several reasons for this including:

Climate change, which can affect the nesting sites and the temperature of the sand (warmer sand temperatures mean more female turtles).

Poaching activities that target turtle eggs, skins, shells and meat.

Uncontrolled coastal development which limits their nesting grounds.

Waste polluting the ocean (turtles are at risk of eating or becoming tangled in litter like plastic bags, COVID-19 masks or plastic beer rings).

For example, by grazing on seagrass, turtles help keep it short, encouraging it to grow horizontally across the sea floor. In this way, the seagrass can continue to provide support and protection for other marine life. It can also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more efficiently, which is vital for regulating the earth's atmosphere.

The Mediterranean Sea hosts thousands of loggerhead turtles during their nesting season. And the Greek shoreline serves as one of the largest loggerhead breeding grounds in the world.

This organisation worked alongside the government to establish protective regulations that are still in place today.

GVI partners with ARCHELON in Greece to patrol the beach, locate new tracks and nests, measure the size of sea turtles, record data, install protective night grids, and conduct public awareness activities in Greek communities.

The data collected is used to develop local coastal-management plans and international conservation strategies.

And, by assisting in protecting nests against predation and flooding, GVI volunteers can contribute towards the survival of as many hatchlings as possible.

Looking to help sea turtles elsewhere? Check out GVI's other sea turtle conservation projects in , Seychelles and .

GVI volunteers assist in dehorning a black rhino in Karongwe Private Game Reserve in Limpopo, South Africa. Dehorning takes place every two years and is essential in ensuring the protection of the critically endangered black rhino, which is poached for its horn.

Rhinos are known as megaherbivores - very large animals that only eat plants. And, rhinos are considered a keystone species. This means that they are a species that is important in maintaining the habitat they live in.

Grazers, like rhinos, play a critical role in keeping the ecosystem balanced. Their grazing keeps grass short, and because they prefer to eat certain plants over others, they influence the types of plants that grow in an area, and how fast they grow.

Today, few rhinos survive outside of national parks due to poaching and the destruction of their natural habitat. In 2021, 451 rhinos were poached in South Africa.

Rhinos are poached primarily for their horns. These horns are used in some traditional medicines or sold in illegal trade.

As a volunteer on GVI's anti-poaching project, you'll learn about the conservation concerns in South Africa.

You'll also get involved in activities that build on public awareness of these issues, and work alongside local partners to collect data on rhinos and other wildlife species.

Your work will include tracking wildlife, setting up camera traps and using radio telemetry equipment on research game drives.

Volunteer with Asian elephants in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and contribute toward their reintroduction into the wild. Volunteers work in partnership with local elephant carers (mahouts) who draw on generations of local knowledge about elephants.

Like rhinos, elephants are also a keystone species. When they graze in the forest, they cover great stretches of ground and control the growth of vegetation. Elephants also spread the seeds of the plants they eat, which promotes plant growth and biodiversity.

Asian elephants are listed as endangered by the IUCN. The decrease in their population size is largely due to elephant labour in the tourism industry, as well as deforestation of their habitats.

This is because in Thailand, Asian elephants were historically used as part of the workforce, in the logging industry and the military, as well as for cultural celebrations.

Even though they are no longer used in the workforce, Asian elephants are seen as tourist attractions. This means that the elephants take part in activities like providing rides for tourists, or performing in circuses, which has a negative impact on their well-being.

As a volunteer on GVI's Thailand elephant reintegration project in Chiang Mai, you'll collect data on the behaviour and feeding patterns of elephants.

You'll work alongside traditional elephant carers who have generations of knowledge on elephant behaviour and well-being.

During your time in Thailand, you'll live with a local family, which will help you to better understand how this community relies on these endangered animals.

Make a positive impact in wildlife conservation

This is because all animals are affected by global warming and environmental challenges. So we're keeping an eye on as many animal species as possible, and getting involved in their conservation as soon as we can.

Want to be at the forefront of conservation work across the world?

Check out GVI's wildlife and marine conservation programs in Asia, Africa, Europe, Australasia, and Central and Latin America, and start adding to the conservation of endangered species today.

We understand that you may have questions about how COVID-19 will affect your travel plans. Visit our FAQs page which explains our latest safety protocols in response to COVID-19.

Disclaimer: The images in this article were taken pre-COVID-19.

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Plants, animals and people are all linked by the earth's atmosphere and environments, and conserving endangered species can add to the well-being of all life on earth. Read this article for in-depth answers to the question "Why should we save endangered species?"

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How do the Extinctions of Other Creatures Affect Humans Directly?

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While extinction of animal species is part of the natural process of evolution, the expansion of the human species has led to significant increases in the extinction rate. Because humans share ecosystems with endangered species, our quality of life and our survival is linked to them. Habitat destruction, climate change, resource depletion and other factors have increased the extinction rate by a factor of 1,000, putting substantial pressure on thousands of the most vulnerable creatures on the planet.

One example of how the depletion of a species affected humans is what occurred after the American bison nearly vanished in the 19th century. Originally, the bison was a common animal on the central plains, with an estimated population of 15 million, and the Native Americans of the region depended on the animal for food, leather, fur and many other goods vital to a nomadic lifestyle. By 1890, however, there were only a few thousand bison left in America. Tribal hunters were able to kill more of the animals with the aid of firearms, and in some cases the United States government encouraged the widespread slaughter of bison herds. The vanishing species forced tribes dependent on the animal to move to new lands in search of food, and eventually those tribes could no longer support themselves and had to deal with the United States government for survival.

Another species under threat that humans rely on is the common honeybee. Bees are responsible for pollinating more than 250,000 species of plants. However, a malady known as "colony collapse disorder" has wiped out entire populations of the insect, and scientists have yet to discover its true cause. Dwindling bee populations have already forced some growers to import colonies to their fields in order to keep yields up, and continued losses could threaten the supply of crops like almonds, apples and cucumbers. Of the different varieties of crops humans rely upon for food worldwide, 87 rely on pollinators, mainly honeybees, while only 28 different crops could survive without such assistance.

Some species serve as buffers between humans and pathogens that could prove extremely dangerous. The common opossum is resistant to the parasites that cause Lyme disease, but human development and other factors have seen their numbers dwindle in the United States. Other species that have moved in to fill their ecological niche have less resistance to the disease, and as a result, the incidence of Lyme disease among humans in these regions has increased. In some areas of the United States, the incidents of Lyme disease has increased by about 30 percent in the past 20 years. Scientists have also discovered links between the incidence of West Nile virus and hantavirus and local reductions in biodiversity.

Animal extinctions may also rob humans of valuable medical advancements. Many different species have unique bodily processes that can offer insight into curing human disease. The toxins produced by dart-poison frogs in the rain forest, for example, have yielded invaluable information about how alkaloid compounds behave in living organisms. Scientists also study bears for clues about how they recycle blood toxins during hibernation to find potential solutions to kidney disorders. Each species that vanishes may hold the key to any number of medical breakthroughs, and the loss of these resources could prove a terrible blow to humans.

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How Do the Extinctions of Other Creatures Affect Humans Directly?

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While extinction of animal species is part of the natural process of evolution, the expansion of the human species has led to significant increases in the extinction rate. Because humans share ecosystems with endangered species, our quality of life and our survival is linked to them.

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1 million animal and plant species at risk of extinction

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A recent United Nations scientific report documents the "unprecedented" decline in global biodiversity that has alarming implications for human health, prosperity and long-term survival

It's long been no secret that people are destroying the natural world all around the planet at a rapidly accelerating pace, but a landmark UN intergovernmental analysis released on Monday assessed the state of global biodiversity and finds that the devastation is proceeding at a rate that is tens to hundreds of times faster than during the past ten million years (Figure 3B and C) -- a rate never seen before in history -- and could plunge the planet into a sixth mass extinction event.

"Nature and its vital contributions to people, which together embody biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are deteriorating worldwide," warn the authors in their IPBES Summary For Policymakers ( PDF).

According to the new Report, entitled Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), more than one million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction (Figure 3A) -- many of which are predicted to be pushed into extinction within just a few decades -- thanks to decades of rampant poisoning, looting, vandalism and wholesale destruction of the planet's forests, oceans, soils, watersheds, and air.

The Report finds that more than 40% of amphibian species, almost 33% of reef-forming corals and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened, and at least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century. The picture is less clear for insect species, but available evidence supports a tentative estimate of 10% being threatened.

In the United States, nothing escapes our covetous gaze. We have a long and sordid history of driving species extinct, from the passenger pigeon, which was probably the most populous bird species on the planet ( more here); and the iconic Carolina parakeet ( more here); to the mountain caribou of the South Selkirk Mountains, which were recently declared extinct ( link); and we're even madly working on pushing endangered prairie chickens into oblivion ( more here); as well as the monarch butterfly ( link) and even the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale ( more here) -- just to name a few of our more odious accomplishments.

The IPBES executive summary and its underlying Report also noted that even seemingly common species not yet threatened with extinction are experiencing steep declines in abundances -- one indicator reports a 60% decline for vertebrate species since 1970 (excluding humans, of course, whose exploding population currently numbers 7.7 billion). Furthermore, direct and indirect human impacts have severely damaged 75% of the terrestrial environment and 40% of the marine environment upon which these animals depend.

The IPBES Report is based on a detailed and systematic review of about 15,000 scientific papers and government reports that assess changes over the past five decades. These documents were complied and analyzed by 145 experts, with additional input from another 310 contributing authors, from 50 countries over three years. The Report, which is 1,500 pages long, provides an exhaustive expert analysis of what is known about the relationships between economic development and the loss of species (Figure 5).

To ensure that its findings are plain for all to see and understand, and can be used to support policy-level decision-making to remedy this desperate situation, the Report's authors ranked the top five drivers for biodiversity extinctions (Figure 2). By a wide margin, the top two are (1) land and sea use, including development, logging, mining and harvesting, and (2) hunting and fishing for food or for trade in body parts.

Perhaps surprisingly, global climate change is third on this list, but considering that, since 1980, greenhouse gas emissions have doubled, and thereby raised average global temperatures by at least 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit), its damaging impacts are expected to move up the list in importance -- and very quickly. Already we know that climate change is aggravating the damaging effects of overfishing, pesticide use, pollution, and urban expansion into natural spaces. The Report documented that warming climate is impacting nature at all levels, from ecosystems to genetics -- and those impacts are expected to increase dramatically over the coming decades.

Fourth and fifth on this list are pollution and invasive alien species. The report notes that 400 million tons of heavy metals, toxic sludge and other wastes are dumped into oceans and rivers every year, and invasive alien species, such as rats, mosquitoes, snakes and plants that hitchhike on ships or airplanes are becoming more widespread.

This advancing global biodiversity crisis poses serious threats to human health, prosperity, security and even to the future of modern society; indeed, these threats are at least perilous as climate change, according to Robert Watson, an atmospheric chemist at the University of East Anglia who chaired the 132-nation meeting (which included the United States) that signed off on the Summary for Policymakers ( here) at the seventh session of the IPBES meeting last week in Paris.

"We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality-of-life worldwide," Professor Watson warned.

This global assessment serves as an urgent clarion call to politicians, corporate leaders and other decision-makers: we have not met our goals for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, and as a result, we are courting disaster. Will they hear this alarm and respond?

Despite this dire global report card, the Report did provide some encouraging news.

"It is not too late to make a difference," Professor Watson said, "but only if we start now at every level from local to global. Through 'transformative change', nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably -- this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values."

The Report included individual success stories that demonstrate that we do possess the knowledge and tools to improve this situation -- provided that we have the political will to enact system-wide changes to how we live and organize human societies, and that we radically rethink our underlying values and ethics, so we conserve and restore the natural environment upon which we depend.

"The member States of IPBES Plenary have now acknowledged that, by its very nature, transformative change can expect opposition from those with interests vested in the status quo, but also that such opposition can be overcome for the broader public good," Professor Watson said.

But this won't be easy: such transformative changes will require more than 100 developing and nondeveloped nations -- each with its own priorities and objectives -- to put aside their differences and work together to overhaul established practices in agriculture, forestry and fishery and reject those that are environmentally and economically destructive.

The Report also admonishes each of us, as individuals, to make specific changes in our personal lives. Topping this list: reduce meat consumption, reduce luxury consumption, end environmentally damaging subsidies, stop cutting down trees in tropical countries, and get used to living in a limited-growth economy. The Report also emphasizes the need to develop integrated management of landscapes so trade-offs are balanced between food and energy production, infrastructure, freshwater and coastal management, and nature conservation.

"We must radically change the way we live, including how we use energy to power our societies, grow our food, and manage our waste," the authors write in the Report.

In short, the current biodiversity and climate change crises are catastrophes of our own making. It is our moral and ethical responsibility to fix this mess, and to do so now. The Report has provided overwhelming evidence attesting to our precarious situation, as well as clear and unambiguous suggestions for what we can do at individual, local, national and global levels to remedy it. Procrastinating in the face of this impending disaster will certainly seal the grim fate of our species and that of the planet.
Other important IPBES findings include:

Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. On average these trends have been less severe or avoided in areas held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

More than a third of the world's land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production

The value of agricultural crop production has increased by about 300% since 1970, raw timber harvest has risen by 45% and approximately 60 billion tons of renewable and nonrenewable resources are now extracted globally every year -- having nearly doubled since 1980

Land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23% of the global land surface, up to US$577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss and 100-300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of loss of coastal habitats and protection

In 2015, 33% of marine fish stocks were being harvested at unsustainable levels; 60% were maximally sustainably fished, with just 7% harvested at levels lower than what can be sustainably fished

Urban areas have more than doubled since 1992

Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980, 300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes from industrial facilities are dumped annually into the world's waters, and fertilizers entering coastal ecosystems have produced more than 400 ocean 'dead zones', totalling more than 245,000 km² -- a combined area greater than that of the United Kingdom

Negative trends in nature will continue to 2050 and beyond in all of the policy scenarios explored in the Report, except those that include transformative change -- due to the projected impacts of increasing land-use change, exploitation of organisms and climate change, although with significant differences between regions

UN Report: 1 Million Animal And Plant Species At Risk Of Extinction | @GrrlScientist

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UN Report: 1 Million Animal And Plant Species At Risk Of Extinction

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A recent United Nations scientific report documents the "unprecedented" decline in global biodiversity that has alarming implications for human health, prosperity and long-term survival It's long been no secret that people are destroying the natural world all around the planet at a rapidly accelerating pace, but a landmark UN intergovernmental

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Art work about animal extinction picture of the animal and as many pixels as there are animals left

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A brilliant 2008 campaign by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been resurfacing thanks to a recent reddit post going viral. The campaign, called WWF Japan - Population by pixel, was created by the agency Hakuhodo C&D / Tokyo. The brains behind it were creative directors Nami Hoshino, Yoshiyuki Mikami, and designer Kazuhiro Mochizuki. Inspired by their work, Imgurian JJSmooth44 made a follow-up to their project and it's just as powerful as the original. "I did it as a programming challenge," JJSmooth44 wrote.

African Wild Dog. Estimated between 3000 and 5500 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

"I did it ... in python ... but the code is very gross. I only worried about the final product and not the readability/niceness of the code." They paid homage to Hakuhodo C&D / Tokyo by scraping the Animal Planet endangered animals list.

Amur Leopard. Estimated about 60 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Amur Tiger. Estimated about 450 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Asian Elephant. Estimated between 40000 and 50000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Bengal Tiger. Estimated about 2500 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Black Footed Ferret. Estimated about 300 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Black Rhino. Estimated about 5000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Blue Whale. Estimated between 10000 and 25000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Bonobo. Estimated between 10000 and 50000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Bornean Orangutan. Estimated between 45000 and 69000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Borneo Pygmy Elephant. Estimated about 1500 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Chimpanzee. Estimated between 172700 and 299700 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Eastern Lowland Gorilla. Estimated about 17000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Fin Whale. Estimated between 50000 and 90000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Galapagos Penguin. Estimated about 2000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Giant Panda. Estimated about 1864 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Green Sea Turtle. Estimated between 3000 and 5500 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Hectors Dolphin. Estimated about 7000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Indian Elephant, Estimated between 20000 and 25000 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Indochinese Tiger. Estimated between 600 and 650 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Indus River Dolphin. Estimated about 1100 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Javan Rhino. Estimated about 60 remain

Image credits: JJSmooth44

Here's what people said about the project

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These 22 Pics Are Composed Of As Many Pixels As There Are Animals Still Alive In These Species

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A brilliant 2008 campaign by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been resurfacing thanks to a recent reddit post going viral. The campaign, called WWF Japan - Population by pixel, was created by the agency Hakuhodo C&D / Tokyo. The brains behind it were creative directors Nami Hoshino, Yoshiyuki Mikami, and designer Kazuhiro Mochizuki.

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The sixth mass extinction

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tiger poaching infographic - Google Search

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Tiger poaching has long been an issue that has plagued the wild animal population. Their coats ... African Elephants Slaughtered for Ivory Trade Infographic.

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Sam

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History of Extinction

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Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

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Learn about the 5 mass extinctions, and see a list of some extinct species. Explore how we can prevent extinctions, or possibly reverse them.

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Saving elephants using...DNA

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36 animals lost because of humans

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36 Extinct Animals Lost to History Due to Human Activity

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What animals are extinct now because of human influence, whether it be pollution, destroyed habitat, an invasive species that humans introduced to a new area, or hunting?

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Poaching elephants causes elephants...

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The oldest elephants wandering Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park bear the indelible markings of the civil war that gripped the country for 15 years: Many are tuskless. They're the lone survivors of a conflict that killed about 90 percent of these beleaguered animals, slaughtered for ivory to finance weapons and for meat to feed the fighters.

Hunting gave elephants that didn't grow tusks a biological advantage in Gorongosa. Recent figures suggest that about a third of younger females-the generation born after the war ended in 1992-never developed tusks. Normally, tusklessness would occur only in about 2 to 4 percent of female African elephants.

Decades ago, some 4,000 elephants lived in Gorongosa, says Joyce Poole-an elephant behavior expert and National Geographic Explorer who studies the park's pachyderms. But those numbers dwindled to triple digits following the civil war. New, as yet unpublished, research she's compiled indicates that of the 200 known adult females, 51 percent of those that survived the war-animals 25 years or older-are tuskless. And 32 percent of the female elephants born since the war are tuskless.

A male elephant's tusks are bigger and heavier than those of a female of the same age, says Poole, who serves as scientific director of a nonprofit called ElephantVoices. "But once there's been heavy poaching pressure on a population, then the poachers start to focus on the older females as well," she explains. "Over time, with the older age population, you start to get this really higher proportion of tuskless females."

This tuskless trend isn't limited to Mozambique, either. Other countries with a history of substantial ivory poaching also see similar shifts among female survivors and their daughters. In South Africa, the effect has been particularly extreme-fully 98 percent of the 174 females in Addo Elephant National Park were reportedly tuskless in the early 2000s.

"The prevalence of tusklessness in Addo is truly remarkable and underscores the fact that high levels of poaching pressure can do more than just remove individuals from a population," says Ryan Long, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Idaho and a National Geographic Explorer. The "consequences of such dramatic changes in elephant populations are only just beginning to be explored."

Josephine Smit, who studies elephant behavior as a researcher with the Southern Tanzania Elephant Program, says that among the female elephants she tracks at Ruaha National Park, an area that was heavily poached in the 1970s and 1980s, 21 percent of females older than five are tuskless. As in Gorongosa, the numbers are highest among older females. About 35 percent of females older than 25 are tuskless, she says. And among elephants ages five to 25, 13 percent of females are tuskless. (Smit, a doctoral candidate at the University of Stirling, in Scotland, says the data have not yet been published, though she presented the findings at a scientific wildlife conference last December.)

Poaching has also pushed tusk sizes down in some heavily hunted areas, such as southern Kenya. A 2015 study conducted by Duke Universityand the Kenya Wildlife Service compared the tusks of elephants captured there between 2005 and 2013 with those of elephants culled between 1966 and 1968 (that is, before significant poaching took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s) and found significant differences. Survivors of that period of intense poaching had much smaller tusks-they were about a fifth smaller in males and more than a third smaller in females.

The pattern repeated in their offspring. On average, male elephants born after 1995 had tusks 21 percent smaller than the males from the 1960s, and 27 percent smaller than the females from that period. According to the study's authors, "although our evidence for the role of genetics on tusk size is indirect," studies of mice, baboons, and humans have similarly established that incisor size-homologous to a tusk in elephants-is heritable and has "substantial genetic influence."

IMPLICATIONS OF TUSKLESSNESS

Despite the wave of human-influenced tusklessness in recent decades, elephants missing their tusks are surviving and appear healthy, according to Poole. Scientists say that the significant proportion of elephants with this handicap may be altering how individuals and their broader communities behave, and they want to find out if, for example, these animals have larger home ranges than other elephants because they might need to cover more ground to find recoverable foods.

Tusks are essentially overgrown teeth. Yet they're typically used for most tasks of daily living: digging for water or vital minerals in the ground, debarking trees to secure fibrous food, and helping males compete for females.

The work elephants do with their tusks is vital for other animals too. Elephants' "role as a keystone species to topple trees and dig holes to access water is important for a variety of lower species that depend on them," Long says. Tusk action also helps create habitats. Certain lizards, for example, prefer to make their homes in trees roughed up or knocked over by browsing elephants.

If elephants are changing where they live, how quickly they move, or where they go, it could have larger implications for the ecosystems around them. "Any or all of these changes in behavior could result in changes to the distribution of elephants across the landscape, and it's those broad-scale changes that are most likely to have consequences for the rest of the ecosystem," Long says.

Now, Long and a team of ecology and genetic researchers are starting to study how tuskless elephants are navigating their lives. In June, the team started tracking six adult females in Gorongosa-half with tusks, half not-from three different breeding herds. They fitted them with GPS collars, took blood and dung samples, and plan to monitor them for a couple of years-or until the battery life in each of the collars gives out-periodically taking more fecal samples to analyze the elephants' diet.

Their goal is to uncover more information about how these animals move, eat, and what their genomes look like. Long hopes to detail how elephants without the benefit of tusks as tools may alter their behavior to get access to nutrients. Rob Pringle, at Princeton University, plans to look at dung samples for insights about both diet and the army of microbes and parasites that live inside each elephant's gut. Another collaborator, Shane Campbell-Staton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California Los Angeles, will study blood, searching for answers about how genetics influences the phenomenon of tusklessness.

Exactly how this trait is inherited is "puzzling," Campbell-Staton says. Tusklessness does seem to occur disproportionately among females. It makes sense that tuskless males wouldn't be able to compete for breeding access to female elephants, he says. But if this trait was traditionally X-linked-passed down along the X chromosome, which helps determine sex and carries genes for various inherited traits-we would think that because males always get their X chromosome from their mothers that you'd have a really large population of males that are tuskless. "But we don't see that. Tuskless males are extremely rare in African elephants," he says.

Joyce Poole corroborates this. She says that in her entire career she's seen only three or four tuskless males-none of them in Gorongosa.

Although tuskless elephants' nutritional and behavioral characteristics haven't yet been formally compared to those of tusked elephants in any herd, Smit says anecdotally that in her research she's seen that elephants without tusks appear to have found work-arounds.

"I've observed tuskless elephants feeding on bark, and they're able to strip bark with their trunks, and sometimes they use their teeth." They may also be relying on other elephants' inadvertent help, she says. Perhaps the elephants are targeting different kinds of trees that are easier to strip, or trees that have already had some stripping by other elephants-giving them a prepared leverage point for tearing off bark.

Recent bans on the ivory trade in China and the U.S. may help reduce demand for tusks, but exactly how long it could take a population with a high proportion of tusklessness to recover some of its numbers-and its tuskedness-varies. Among Asian elephants, for example, a long history of hunting for ivory-as well as removing tusked elephants from the wild for labor-likely helped contribute to higher tuskless numbers there.

"If you look at Asian elephants, females don't have tusks at all, and depending on which population you look at in which country, most males are also often tuskless," Poole explains. Exactly why the Asian and African elephant populations have such different rates of tusklessness remains unexplained.

Yet Poole and others note that in areas in Asia that historically have been targeted for ivory hunts, tuskless levels are high-just as in Africa-underscoring that humans are leaving a lasting mark on Earth's largest land mammal.

Wildlife Watch is an investigative reporting project between National Geographic Society and National Geographic Partners focusing on wildlife crime and exploitation. Read more Wildlife Watch stories here, and learn more about National Geographic Society's nonprofit mission atnationalgeographic.org. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas tongwildlife@natgeo.com.

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Elephants are evolving to lose their tusks

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The oldest elephants wandering Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park bear the indelible markings of the civil war that gripped the country for 15 years: Many are tuskless. They're the lone survivors of a conflict that killed about 90 percent of these beleaguered animals, slaughtered for ivory to finance weapons and for meat to feed the fighters.

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How Long it will take to recover all the endangered species?

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It will take the Earth 3 million years to recover from the species going extinct in the near future

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The Earth is undergoing a mass extinction, which is caused by human activity, according to a new study.

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History of poaching

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Poaching has been illegal for hundreds of years, but it was during the Late Middle Ages that poaching became a punishable offense. During this time, the right to hunt was limited to landowners and nobility. Peasants usually did not have weapons, skills or the extra time to hunt, so in order to provide food for their families they devised another way to bring meat to their tables, including snares [source: NationMaster].

While hunting was reserved for the privileged, it was illegal to buy and sell wild animals. It remained illegal to do so until the mid-1800s. Gangs of poachers formed outlaw bands and sold animals through the black market. Buyers of black-market food even included wealthy people, who could not or chose not to hunt on their own.

As rural poverty was prevalent in the 1700s, many people turned to poaching just to survive. Commoners protected poachers as an act of rebellion, because food was so scarce. Though poaching gangs did provide food to the poor, they were also violent and often greedy, poaching to feed the black market more so than hungry peasants.

Because authorities could not depend on citizens to turn in poachers, they created traps and spring-guns that would maim or kill poachers. In the 1830s, traps and spring guns were deemed illegal, and in 1883, peasants were allowed to kill small game, such as hares and rabbits, on their own farms [source: Scribd].

Have poaching issues changed since the Middle Ages? Indeed, they have. Move on to find out how modern poaching differs from the poaching of the days of Robin Hood.

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Poaching ­has been illegal for hundreds of years, but it was during the Late Middle Ages that poaching became a punishable offense. During this time, the right to hunt was limited to landowners and nobility.

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Cycle of extinction

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The species alive today are only a tiny fraction of all those that have ever lived. The vast majority of species in the history of the planet have become extinct. The fossil record indicates that the average "lifespan" of a species, from its origin to its extinction, is between 1 and 5 million years. The process of fossilization itself, however, suggests that this is probably a substantial overestimate, and the lifespan of many species is much shorter, on the order of thousands of years. This means that in the grand sweep of the history of life, extinction is occurring all the time. Extinctions affecting one or a few species and occurring in one locality rather than globally belong to a pattern known as background extinction.

The fossil record, however, describes sudden, global extinctions that affect many species. These dramatic events are known as mass extinctions. Some populations seem more vulnerable than others: tropical forms of life have been drastically affected, while land plants tend to be highly resistant to mass extinctions. Ammonites and trilobites were vulnerable, but snails seem to pass through mass extinction events relatively unscathed.

There have been at least five mass extinctions, and maybe many more, but the fossil record is unclear. The two biggest extinctions were at the end of the Permian Period, about 250 million years ago, and at the end of the Cretaceous, some 65 million years ago. The Permian extinction saw the loss of 80 to 96 percent of all marine species. In the Cretaceous event, perhaps 60 to 75 percent of marine species disappeared.

What caused these immense die-offs? No one process has been implicated, but there are many suspects, including the most dramatic: asteroids crashing into Earth. This was first suggested in 1980 when a layer of iridium was found in rocks laid down at the Cretaceous/Tertiary, or K/T, boundary. Greeted with skepticism at first, the impact hypothesis has gained strength as more evidence supporting it has emerged. A crater of the right size and age, known as the Chixulub crater, was found off the coast of Yucatan, along with rocks known as shocked quartzes and tektites, which suggest a high-velocity collision. An impact big enough to create the Chixulub would certainly have had dramatic effects, throwing up global dust clouds, perhaps enough to render the planet dark and sunless for some time. Other possible consequences have also been suggested, including acid rain, massive volcanic eruptions, and climatic heating.

It is now widely accepted that an impact occurred at the time of the K/T extinction, but whether it was the primary cause of the extinction event is still the subject of debate. Some fossil evidence suggests that many organisms, including dinosaurs, were declining in numbers well before the K/T event. Other factors, less dramatic and sudden than an asteroid impact but potentially just as devastating in their effects, were operating, too. Sea levels were dropping, causing changes to climate and vegetation that would severely affect large herbivores, including many dinosaurs.

Changes in sea level, in fact, accompanied each of the five mass extinctions, while only the K/T event has been persuasively linked to an asteroid impact. Among the causes that have been suggested for the other mass extinctions are volcanism, climate changes (mostly cooling), changes in the shorelines of continents as crustal plates shifted and coalesced, and changes in the circulation and chemistry of the oceans. The question of mass extinctions and their causes is an area of vigorous research.

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The species alive today are only a tiny fraction of all those that have ever lived. The vast majority of species in the history of the planet have become extinct. The fossil record indicates that the average "lifespan" of a species, from its origin to its extinction, is between 1 and 5 million years.

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Diseases that have threatened animals a lot

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It's not just humans that have to deal with epidemics. Disease outbreaks can kill thousands of animals very quickly. They hit especially hard if the animals are rare, threatened or fragmented species.

Over the last few decades many new animal diseases have emerged, and older diseases have spread to new areas. "Part of this is due to increased trade and travel, which brings pathogens to new regions," says A. Marm Kilpatrick of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Diseases are also being passed back and forth between humans, livestock and wild animals.

The biggest threat to wildlife is still loss of habitat, often triggered by the growth of farmland. Still, diseases can threaten wildlife populations with severe decline and extinction, says Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, UK.

Here are ten diseases that are taking a heavy toll on wild animals. We'll start with a famous one.
1. Ebola
We think of Ebola as a human disease, and with good reason. Last year's outbreak killed about 10,000 people. But it has also been wiping out populations of our closest relatives, the great apes.

In the early 1990s, the disease ravaged groups of chimpanzees living in Taï National Park in Côte d'Ivoire. The following decade, repeated outbreaks in the Republic of the Congo took a heavy toll on the gorilla population. Ebola killed about 5000 critically endangered western gorillas between 2002 and 2003 at the Lossi Sanctuary, and then wiped out hundreds of gorillas in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in 2003-2004.

The ebola virus strikes both species hard. It kills about 95% of those it infects, by causing severe fever and bleeding.

Ebola's effects can be particularly devastating when combined with other threats like hunting and deforestation. Hunting has reduced the populations so much, the disease could cause extinction, says Julia PG Jones of Bangor University in the UK.

Vaccines against Ebola may be one way out. By 2014, researchers had tested a vaccine on a group of captive chimpanzees. It proved to be safe and effective.

A deadly fungus called " chytrid" has spelt doom for many frogs and salamanders. Over the last 30 years, it has sent more than 200 amphibian species into catastrophic declines, and in some cases driven them to extinction.

For instance, a wave of chytrid infections in Panama's El Copé in the early 2000s wiped out 30 species of amphibians. Five had never been seen before.

The fungus, called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is found on every continent except Antarctica. It infects and damages the outer layer of the frogs' skin. Since frogs and salamanders use their skin to absorb nutrients and take in water, the infection eventually suffocates them.

But chytrid was not always the deadly killer it is today. For over 100 years, it coexisted harmlessly with amphibians in some places, such as Illinois and Korea.

Also, not all frogs infected with the fungus become sick or die. Some, like American bullfrogs and African clawed frogs, seem to be resistant. These species have been blamed for the spread of the disease, although Kilpatrick points out that the amphibian trade has also played a role.
3. West Nile encephalitis
In 1999, New York City became the epicentre of a new disease outbreak. People were admitted to hospitals with encephalitis: their brains were inflamed. Around the same time, several crows in the city, and other birds at the Bronx Zoo, turned up dead. In all cases, the culprit was the West Nile virus, which at the time was mostly found in Africa and Asia.

Transmitted by mosquitoes, the virus has since infected and killed millions of birds across the US, Mexico, and Canada. The virus has been detected in about 48 species of mosquitoes and 250 species of birds, and occasionally spills over to humans and horses.

In some areas, West Nile encephalitis has reduced the numbers of American crows by about 45%. It has also caused large declines in other bird species like American robins, eastern bluebirds, tufted titmouses and chickadees. But the West Nile virus does not likely threaten these species with extinction, says Kilpatrick.

Some endangered bird species are at more risk, however. So researchers have developed vaccines for critically endangered California condors, and for rare island scrub jays that are only found on California's Santa Cruz Island. Vaccines for other birds are also being tested.
4. White-nose syndrome
In 2006 a recreational caver took a photograph of a bat in a cave near Albany, New York. The bat had white fungus around its nose. This was the first evidence that a devastating disease had struck North America's bats. Called white-nose syndrome, the disease has rapidly spread across the US and Canada.

Nearly 6 million bats have been killed, and numbers of some species - like the northern long eared bat - have declined by 99% in the north-east. "White-nose syndrome is dramatically changing the bat populations of North America," says Kock.

The offending fungus is called Pseudogymnoascus destructans. It makes hibernating bats behave erratically. Instead of hibernating during the winter, the bats fly dangerously far out of their caves, even in daylight. As a result they quickly drain their fat reserves, and starve to death.

The fungus might have come from Europe, where it does not appear to harm the bats it colonises. Restricting human access to caves, and protecting their habitats, may help the bats.
5. Anthrax
Anthrax is best known for its use as a weapon of bioterrorism. But the disease is an ancient scourge of wildlife. It mostly affects herbivores, but anthrax can cause outbreaks in other mammals, including some carnivores, great apes and humans.

Anthrax can have different consequences based on the species and ecosystem. In places like Etosha National Park in Namibia, the disease is considered to be a natural part of the ecosystem, and has not been managed since the early 1980s, according to ecologist Wendy Turner of the University of Oslo in Norway.

Sometimes though, anthrax outbreaks can turn deadly. For instance, a 2004 outbreak in Zimbabwe's Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve killed over 90% of some of the wild herbivore populations. In 2010, a similar outbreak killed more than 80 hippos in Uganda.

Spores of the anthrax bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, can live in soil for several years and infect grazing livestock, and subsequently people. Regularly vaccinating livestock could restrict outbreaks, says Turner.
6. Devil facial tumour disease
A strange epidemic of contagious cancer has swept through Australia's Tasmanian devils. The cancer jumps from one devil to another when they bite each other. They do that a lot, while fighting over food or during mating.

The disease is often fatal. It results in large cancerous lumps on the devils' faces, which then spread over their entire bodies, killing them in a few months.

The disease is believed to have begun in a kind of nerve cell called a Schwann cell, in a single animal. Then the cancerous cells spread from one devil to another, helped by devils' tendency to bite each other.

Devils are all quite similar genetically, which means their immune systems are bad at fighting the cancer. It was first recorded as recently as 1996, but since then the disease has killed over 90% of the devils in some areas.

To preserve the species, scientists have established captive " insurance populations" of about 500 disease-free devils. These represent over 98% of the species' genetic diversity.

7. Canine distemper

A domestic dog virus is wiping out wild carnivores around the world. The virus, closely related to the human measles virus, attacks the animals' respiratory, nervous, and gastrointestinal systems.

In 1985, canine distemper slashed numbers of black-footed ferrets in Wyoming. Then in the early 1990s, the disease killed many African wild dogs and wiped out about 1000 lions from Africa's Serengeti. And in late 2000, the disease killed 49 of 52 captive African wild dogs in Tanzania within two months.

As domestic dog populations increase, the disease is spreading to newer areas, and jumping to a wider range of carnivores. For instance, the rare Amur tigers in eastern Russia have fallen prey to the virus.

Vaccinating domestic dogs against the virus can sometimes halt the spread of the disease. But it may not be enough as other animals can also spread it. Vaccinating the vulnerable wild carnivores might be the solution.
8. Chlamydia
Australia's koalas are suffering from a sexually transmitted disease: chlamydia, which also affects humans. The disease can cause them to become infertile, or develop urinary and respiratory infections, to say nothing of blinding them and sometimes outright killing them.

Combined with drought, chlamydia has reduced koala populations in some areas of Australia from 60,000 in the mid-1990s to 10,000 in 2012. They have been worst hit in the states of Queensland and New South Wales.

To detect infections in time, some veterinarians have been scanning koalas using ultrasound machines, rather than taking swabs as usual. Scientists have also begun sequencing koala genes, including those that play an important role in the animal's immune system, to help figure out how the disease affects them.

The situation is being made worse by a second disease, a koala retrovirus similar to HIV. It suppresses their immune systems, making them more susceptible to chlamydia.

These two diseases, along with the destruction of their habitats and the threat from other animals, are pushing koalas towards extinction. But a vaccine, which has been successfully tested, offers some hope.
9. Sarcoptic mange
Sarcoptic mange causes severe itchingand an intense desire to scratch, leading to infections and sometimes death. It is caused by a parasitic mite called Sarcoptes scabiei.

The disease affects over 100 species, from wombats in Australia to red foxes and lynx in Europe and wolves in North America. A close relative of the mite infects humans, causing scabies.

A scabies mite burrows under an animal's skin, producing lesions that get infected. The infection spreads as the animal scratches the skin incessantly. Over time, the animal loses hair, becomes dehydrated, develops hypothermia, starves, and sometimes dies.

In many stable wildlife populations, mange does not appear to have a long-term effect on their numbers. But the disease can be catastrophic for populations that are already threatened, isolated or fragmented. For instance, sarcoptic mange is believed to have wiped out all the red foxes on the island of Bornholm in Denmark.

To establish mange-free animal pools, veterinarians sometimes treat them with drugs like ivermectin.
10. Plague
The same bacterium that causes plague in humans, including the infamous "Black Death" that struck Europe in the 1300s, also wreaks havoc in the animal kingdom. Confusingly it's called " sylvatic plague" but that just means it's a disease of wildlife. It's all the same microorganism: Yersinia pestis.

Sylvatic plague first appeared in North America around 1900. Ships coming from plague-ridden areas of Europe and Asia probably carried over infected rats and fleas, which passed it on to the local wildlife. These animals had never been exposed before.

In some areas plague wiped out entire colonies of prairie dogs. With mortality rates over 90%, sylvatic plague has been devastating for these animals.

This massive prairie dog die-off has in turn caused black-footed ferret populations to plummet. One of North America's rarest animals, these ferrets feed mainly on prairie dogs, and use their burrows to raise their young. So when prairie dogs die, ferret populations decline too. Moreover, the disease is almost always fatal to the ferrets.

The endangered ferrets have been bred in captivity and reintroduced, and their populations are slowly recovering. Vaccinating the ferrets may also help prevent outbreaks. Similarly, dusting prairie dog burrows with pesticides and vaccinating them using baits might help protect prairie dog populations.

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Ten shocking animal diseases that may threaten species

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It's not just humans that have to deal with epidemics. Disease outbreaks can kill thousands of animals very quickly. They hit especially hard if the animals are rare, threatened or fragmented species. Over the last few decades many new animal diseases have emerged, and older diseases have spread to new areas.

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How diseases connect to extinction

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Abstract

Invading infectious diseases can, in theory, lead to the extinction of host populations, particularly if reservoir species are present or if disease transmission is frequency-dependent. The number of historic or prehistoric extinctions that can unequivocally be attributed to infectious disease is relatively small, but gathering firm evidence in retrospect is extremely difficult. Amphibian chytridiomycosis and Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) are two very different infectious diseases that are currently threatening to cause extinctions in Australia. These provide an unusual opportunity to investigate the processes of disease-induced extinction and possible management strategies. Both diseases are apparently recent in origin. Tasmanian DFTD is entirely host-specific but potentially able to cause extinction because transmission depends weakly, if at all, on host density. Amphibian chytridiomycosis has a broad host range but is highly pathogenic only to some populations of some species. At present, both diseases can only be managed by attempting to isolate individuals or populations from disease. Management options to accelerate the process of evolution of host resistance or tolerance are being investigated in both cases. Anthropogenic changes including movement of diseases and hosts, habitat destruction and fragmentation and climate change are likely to increase emerging disease threats to biodiversity and it is critical to further develop strategies to manage these threats.

Keywords: extinction, disease, amphibian chytrid fungus, Tasmanian devil facial tumour

1. Introduction

The role of infectious disease in the history of human society is well known. In contrast, until the pioneering work of Anderson and May [ 1- 4] in the late 1970s, the perception among most ecologists was that 'well-adapted' parasites do not harm their hosts. The role of infectious disease as a driver of host population dynamics was therefore underappreciated, and infectious diseases or parasites were rarely considered as significant extinction threatening processes.

In theory, however, simple models show that parasites and infectious diseases may, in some circumstances, be capable of being significant contributors to extinction [ 5]. From first principles, a population declines when there are more deaths than there are births and extinction occurs when there continue to be more deaths than births even as the population declines towards zero. It is therefore necessary to first distinguish between situations in which infectious disease may reduce population size to such an extent that other factors may lead to extinction and cases in which infectious disease contributes to there being an excess of deaths over births even in a vanishingly small population.

The most fundamental concept in epidemiology is the basic reproductive number, R ₀, which is the number of secondary infections per primary infection when disease is introduced into a naive population [ 6, 7]. For many (but not all) pathogens or parasites, R ₀ is an increasing or saturating function of population size or density [ 8], leading to the existence of a threshold host population size below which the pathogen cannot persist.

The simplest host pathogen models are those in which there is a single host and a single pathogen, no spatial structure, and transmission occurs as a binary collision process between infected and susceptible hosts. In this situation, R ₀ is directly proportional to host population size, which means that at a sufficiently small population size R ₀ will decrease to below one and the pathogen will no longer be able to persist in the host population. A host-specific pathogen should therefore itself become extinct before it is capable of driving its sole host to extinction [ 9]. However, such a pathogen maybe able to reduce a population to a sufficiently low level that other factors may lead to the ultimate extinction of the host.

Sexually transmitted diseases are particularly likely to have severe effects on their host population and potentially to be able to cause host extinction. Not only are they often transmitted in a frequency-dependent rather than in a density-dependent fashion [ 10, 11], meaning that R ₀ depends weakly, if at all, on host density, but also in many cases they affect fecundity rather than mortality. Whereas very high mortality reduces R ₀ because infected animals are rapidly removed from the population, a reproductively suppressed host may remain in the population for an extended period, continuing to spread infection. The number of sexually transmitted diseases in non-human animals is much larger than is commonly supposed [ 12] and they may be important drivers of extinction.

Finally, in many populations where disease is an important threatening process, it is one of several multiple stressors. For example, many local populations of the koala Phascolarctos cinereus are affected by chlamydia ( Chlamydia pecorum and Chlamydia pneumoniae [ 13]), which is primarily sexually transmitted, causing both reproductive suppression through cystitis and increased mortality through keratoconjunctivitis-related blindness [ 13- 15]. However, while prevalence in a population of clinical signs of chlamydia does appear to be associated with lower koala recruitment, it may be a relatively weak predictor of overall population change (), suggesting that other factors may be more important in driving population dynamics. It seems that chlamydia is particularly important in combination with multiple stressors such as habitat loss and distress caused by overbrowsing [ 17].

2. Role of disease in historical and prehistoric extinctions

Verifying that infectious disease has been responsible for a historical or prehistoric extinction is difficult. The extinct host is, of course, no longer available for any experimental work and it is rare for good-quality data to have been collected as the species involved was in terminal decline. Further, the mere presence of a pathogen or parasite in a declining host population is not evidence that the parasite was a significant contributor to decline.

In some cases, the role of infectious disease in extinction is nevertheless fairly clear. There is very good evidence that avian malaria and birdpox were responsible for the extinction of a substantial proportion of the Hawaiian avifauna in the late nineteenth century [ 18, 19]. While there is no direct evidence that any of the 25 [ 18] species of Hawaiian land birds that have become extinct since the documented arrival of Culex quinquefasciatus in 1826 [ 19] were even susceptible to malaria and there is limited anecdotal information suggesting they were affected by birdpox [ 19], the observation that several remaining species only persist either on islands where there are no mosquitoes or at altitudes above those at which mosquitoes can breed and that these same species are highly susceptible to avian malaria and birdpox [ 18, 19] is certainly very strong circumstantial evidence. An important contributor to the potential of avian malaria and birdpox to cause extinctions of highly susceptible species is the existence of a range of birds in Hawaii, both native and non-native, that are able to tolerate infections with these pathogens and therefore act as reservoirs [ 20, 21].

A second example of extinction of an island species in which disease is strongly implicated is less commonly known. The formerly abundant endemic rats Rattus macleari and Rattus nativitas disappeared from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean (10°29′ S 105°38′ E) around the turn of the twentieth century. Their disappearance was apparently abrupt, and shortly before the final collapse sick individuals were seen crawling along footpaths [ 22]. At that time, trypanosomiasis transmitted by fleas from introduced black rats R. rattus was suggested as the causative agent. Recently, Wyatt et al. [ 22] managed to isolate trypanosome DNA from both R. rattus and R. macleari specimens collected during the period of decline, whereas no trypanosome DNA was present in R. nativitas specimens collected before the arrival of black rats. While this is good circumstantial evidence, direct evidence that trypanosomes caused the mortality is limited, except that the one specimen described at the time of collection as suffering trypanosome infection did in fact test positive for trypanosome DNA. As with the Hawaiian birds, the role of a reservoir species able to tolerate infection, in this case the introduced black rat, is critical.

For other historical extinctions that have been blamed on disease, evidence is much weaker. It has been suggested that disease was responsible for the most notorious of Australia's mammal extinctions, that of the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger Thylacinus cynocephalus. The suggestion was first made by Guiler [ 23], who claimed that the decline in thylacine scalps brought in through the then bounty programme () was too rapid to have been a result of overhunting but was consistent with what might be observed as a result of epidemic disease. There were also some anecdotal records of a 'distemper like' disease among both thylacines [ 24] and other marsupial carnivores (dasyurids) [ 25]. Canine distemper certainly poses an extinction threat to some populations of placental carnivores [ 26, 27] but I can find no published evidence to confirm that dasyurids are susceptible to canine distemper.

Attributing prehistoric extinctions to infectious disease has become almost a cottage industry in the last two decades. summarizes some of these proposed disease-induced extinctions. In all cases, the evidence is far from convincing, although several cases are plausible.

Table 1.

extinction event

hypothesis/argument in favour proposed by authors

objection

genetic evidence suggests that there were at least 3-12 million moa 1000 years ago and decline occurred before human settlement. Disease introduced by migrant birds from Australia may have caused decline to the approximately 160 000 moa present at the time of human settlement

no direct evidence of the presence of a virulent infectious disease. Why would migrant birds bringing disease have arrived only as recently as 1000 years ago?

dinosaurs [ 29]

endothermic vertebrates are relatively resistant to fungal diseases in comparison with ectotherms and elevated environmental temperature can clear fungal infections in ectotherms. Events at the K-T boundary may have led to a massive fungal proliferation

no direct evidence. Is the assumption that most dinosaurs were ectothermic correct?

Neanderthals [ 30]

after Neanderthals had persisted in Europe for 200 000 years, anatomically modern humans eliminated them 28 000 years ago, after the arrival of modern humans 40 000 years ago. Perhaps modern humans brought in infectious agents with which they had co-evolved in Africa

no direct evidence. 15 000 years of coexistence would appear unlikely if epidemic disease was responsible for Neanderthal extinction

Late Quaternary extinctions, especially North American mega-fauna [ 31]

'hyperdisease' transmitted from humans or their commensals has led to extinction in numerous species. Such a hyperdisease should have one or more reservoir species, potential for causing infection and very high mortality in 'new hosts', but not to seriously threaten humans. Large bodied species were particularly vulnerable because low reproductive capacity reduced ability to recover from epidemics

no existing disease meets the necessary criteria and there is no evidence for size-based declines or extinctions in modern multi-species epizootics such as West Nile virus and avian malaria in Hawaii [ 32]. Rapid extinctions within a few generations of human contact would be expected, but has not been observed [ 33]

3. Current extinctions

Disease is listed as a key threatening process for a relatively small proportion of endangered or vulnerable species in the IUCN Red List. In an analysis based on the 2004 Red List, Smith et al. [ 34] found that of the 833 listed extinctions (animals and plants), only 31 were attributed even in part to infectious disease. In the 2006 Red List, 54 mammal species have infectious disease listed as a threatening process [ 35]. Mammals threatened by infectious disease are clustered in two orders, with 13 per cent of the 218 artiodactyl species and 5.3 per cent of the 281 carnivores listed as threatened.

However, it is possible that disease may be underestimated as a cause of extinction. For example, Western Australia has recorded a large number of extinctions and dramatic range contractions among mammals since European settlement (of the 72 non-flying mammals present on the Western Australia mainland in 1900, 11 are extinct and 20 have experienced major declines [ 36]. These declines are usually attributed to predation by European red foxes and domestic cats [ 37, 38]). Abbott [ 39] describes nearly 50 first-hand reports from between 1840 and 1920 of disease (possibly mange) causing large-scale mortality amongst native mammals and reports declines prior to the arrival of the red fox in Western Australia around 1910 [ 38]. He also suggests that there is evidence of a spatial trend in declines, consistent with the introduction of disease somewhere in the northwest.

In this paper, I consider two case studies of infectious diseases threatening to cause extinction in Australia, Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) and the amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (hereafter Bd). These are very different diseases in terms of their epidemiology and ecology. Tasmanian DFTD is entirely host-specific and is almost uniformly lethal [ 40]. It appears to be capable of causing the extinction of Tasmanian devil populations because the rate of transmission depends weakly, if at all, on host population density [ 41]. The amphibian chytrid fungus, in contrast, has a very broad host range and while it is highly pathogenic in some populations of some frog species [ 42, 43], other species (and even some populations of frogs that have declined as a result of the disease [ 44]) appear to be able to persist in the presence of the disease with little overt impact on either individuals or at a population level, creating the potential for spillover from tolerant reservoir species even as intolerant species become rare.

What both diseases have in common is that the host-pathogen relationship is very recent in evolutionary time, the amphibian chytrid fungus being apparently a relatively recent introduction worldwide [ 45] and Tasmanian DFTD being the result of a mutation in a single individual, probably in the last 20 years [ 46, 47]. In both cases, active evolutionary processes are currently underway, and the best prospect for managing disease may well lie in artificially accelerating these evolutionary processes.

(a) Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis

An infectious disease was first suggested in 1996 as the agent responsible for a series of declines and extinctions in stream-dwelling frogs in Queensland [ 48], although no agent had been identified and the suggestion was highly controversial at the time [ 49, 50]. Several years later, the amphibian chytrid fungus Bd was described, shown to be highly pathogenic in some frogs and suggested as the agent responsible for these declines [ 51, 52]. Since then, it has become increasingly clear that the fungus is a primary causative agent for widespread amphibian declines in Australia [ 53, 54], Central America [ 42, 55, 56] and North America [ 57- 59].

Nevertheless, the situation is substantially more complex than simply arrival of an exotic pathogen leading to widespread declines and extinctions. Some frog species are clearly highly susceptible to the disease, whereas others are relatively tolerant [ 60- 62]. This much falls well within the standard paradigms of disease-induced extinction: the existence of reservoir hosts within which the disease has limited effect enables a strong force of infection to be maintained on to highly susceptible and intolerant species, even as their population size declines towards extinction [ 9]. What is more puzzling is that some populations of particular species appear able to persist with the disease, whereas other populations of the same species decline to extinction [ 63]. Temperature certainly plays an important role. As a parasite of a poikilothermic host, it is not surprising that the growth rate of Bd is strongly influenced by environmental conditions. In culture, the fungus grows fastest at temperatures between 10°C and 23°C and it can be eliminated from frogs by exposing them to temperatures in excess of 30°C [ 64]. Several Australian tropical frog species have disappeared at altitudes over 1000 m, but persist at lower altitudes [ 65]. Environmental temperature is an important predictor of both the distribution of the fungus in Australia and the extent to which it has caused population declines [ 66].

Relatively little is known about the transmission dynamics of Bd. An experiment using caged Rana muscosa tadpoles in infected natural lakes [ 67] showed that transmission occurred from the water in the absence of close contact with infected individuals, but that transmission increased with increasing density of infected tadpoles in the cages. The standard compartmental SIR framework of most infectious disease models is insufficient to adequately understand the dynamics of the disease, as the intensity of infection determines the mortality rate of individual frogs and intensity is highly variable within infected populations, both seasonally and at any particular point in time. Unlike typical microparasites, Bd does not multiply rapidly within an individual host. The life cycle of the fungus involves growth within the epidermis of the frog, followed by external release of zoospores [ 68]. These may reinfect the same host, but the extent to which this happens is likely to depend on whether the frog is in water or, if not, the humidity and microclimate occupied by the frog at the time of zoospore release. The dynamics of the parasite therefore share some features of 'macroparasite' models developed by Anderson & May [ 3], in which the parasite burden and distribution within the host population are of critical importance. Recent work by Briggs et al. [ 68] suggests that understanding this feature of the dynamics may be critically important in understanding how the pathogen can display both endemic and epidemic behaviour.

(b) Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease

Tasmanian DFTD is an infectious cancer threatening to cause the extinction of the largest surviving marsupial carnivore, the Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus harrisii [ 40, 46, 69]. The tumour cells themselves are the infectious agent [ 70], an aetiology shared in nature by only one other cancer, canine transmissible venereal tumour [ 71, 72]. DFTD is spread by biting, which occurs frequently in sexual encounters and disputes over food. Tumour cells appear not to be rejected by recipient devils because of the very low genetic diversity in devil populations, particularly even in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), to the extent that cells from another devil are not recognized as 'foreign' [ 47, 73], although recent work suggests that the tumour cells also have some ability to evade the host's immune system [ 74]. Since its first appearance in northeastern Tasmania in 1996, the infection has spread across most of the range of Tasmanian devils, causing population declines of up to 90 per cent in affected populations [ 69]. The disease manifests as large tumours, particularly around the head of the affected animal, and is inevitably fatal once clinical signs are apparent [ 75, 76]. In populations with MHC types similar to the tumour [ 73], prevalence increases rapidly after the initial arrival of the disease, affecting the majority of the adult population within 3-4 years (). Prevalence remains very high (in excess of 50% in susceptible age classes) even after major population declines (), suggesting that the disease has a very low density threshold [ 41]. Although no local population has yet completely disappeared, the disease could drive populations to low levels where individuals cannot find mates or stochastic extinction becomes inevitable.

4. Predicting the emergence of extinction threatening diseases

One clear lesson from both the amphibian chytrid fungus and Tasmanian DFTD is that the early detection of a disease capable of causing host extinction is critical in managing disease threats [ 40]. If action to manage disease is delayed until unequivocal evidence of the threat is obtained, it is likely to be too late. Two questions arise. First, are there characteristics of some wildlife populations that are likely to make them particularly susceptible to emerging disease threats? Second, what are the signs that declines may be attributable to an infectious disease?

(a) Identifying particularly susceptible populations

Almost all cases of disease-threatening extinction are a result of a host encountering a pathogen to which it has had no previous exposure in evolutionary time. We clearly need to be particularly concerned with 'pathogen pollution' [ 77, 78], in which pathogens are introduced into naive populations or communities. Populations in habitats that have been relatively isolated until recently are therefore likely to be particularly at risk from disease. Habitat fragmentation and ecological transformation are also likely to bring susceptible host populations in contact with novel pathogens [ 79]. Although DFTD is a counter example, most pathogens threatening to cause extinction have one or more disease-tolerant reservoir hosts that can maintain a high force of infection even as the threatened host declines towards extinction. Low genetic diversity in host populations not only may make them initially more susceptible to disease, but also reduces their potential to respond evolutionarily.

(b) Identifying incipient disease threats

High prevalence of a parasite in a declining population or among morbid individuals is not in itself evidence that the pathogen is responsible for decline. In fact, parasites that cause little mortality are more likely to occur at high prevalence than those that are highly pathogenic [ 9]. Other criteria that indicate a pathogen may be responsible for population decline are needed. A possible approach is to apply the Bradford Hill criteria [ 80], which have also been suggested as being useful in understanding the emergence of infectious wildlife diseases [ 81]. Bradford Hill developed nine criteria to suggest that environmental factors have a causal relationship to human disease. He discussed these primarily in relation to smoking as a cause of lung cancer, a non-infectious disease causation, but they can be applied in other contexts. The criteria () are essentially a series of circumstantial associations, which suggest a causal relationship if several are satisfied.

The criteria may even be of use in suggesting the influence of infectious disease in population decline, without having identified a putative disease agent. Laurance et al. [ 48, 82] postulated that an infectious disease was responsible for precipitous declines in several frog species in tropical and subtropical Australia. At that time, no agent was suggested. Of their lines of evidence (many of which were refuted at the time [ 49, 50]), there was limited experimental evidence that some mortality-causing agent could be transferred in water (criterion 8), evidence that declines were widespread in similar habitats (criterion 2), evidence that moribund individuals could be collected from affected populations (criterion 6) and a suggestion of a wavelike progression of extinctions from south to north (perhaps evidence supporting criterion 4). Their final line of evidence, 'absence of plausible alternatives', could perhaps be aligned with criterion 7.

5. Managing extinction-threatening diseases

The options available to manage extinction-threatening diseases in wild populations are limited [ 83, 84]. They can broadly be considered as: (i) isolating uninfected populations from disease; (ii) culling either infected animals only or all animals to reduce the force of infection; (iii) reducing transmission by habitat modification to reduce foci of infection; (iv) genetic management to spread resistance alleles within the host population; and (v) vaccination. Treating individuals will rarely be practical. A fallback option to preserve some individuals of species threatened with extinction is to bring them into captivity, with the possibility of reintroduction following extinction in the wild, if the disease problem has been solved.

(a) Isolating infected populations

In almost all cases, an extinction-threatening disease will be a relatively recent introduction into the population under threat: otherwise, that population would no longer exist. Preventing further spread of infection into currently unaffected populations or establishing new free-ranging populations in areas that cannot be reached by disease is an obvious management strategy. For chytridiomycosis, bioclimatic models have an important role to play in identifying currently uninfected areas into which the disease could be expected to spread [ 66]. On a global level, these include Madagascar, Borneo and New Guinea [ 85]. Concerningly for the latter two, the fungus has recently been isolated from Indonesia [ 86].

For Tasmanian DFTD, two possible ways of isolating uninfected free-ranging populations are introducing devils to offshore islands currently unoccupied by devils and fencing off peninsulas in western Tasmania, which the disease has yet to reach [ 87]. Fencing to prevent disease spread will inevitably be extremely difficult when potential hosts live on either side of the fence, although there has been some success of this strategy in preventing foot and mouth disease spread in South Africa [ 88]. Proposals to establish disease-free populations of Tasmanian devils on offshore islands have proved surprisingly controversial [ 87], it appears because of a deep-seated reluctance to undertake ex situ translocations. This is despite the success of similar strategies in protecting the related northern quoll from cane toads in Australia's Northern Territory [ 89] and increasing suggestions that ex situ translocations may be necessary to preserve species from climate change threats [ 90- 92].

(b) Culling

Culling of all individuals that have potentially been in contact with disease is a standard approach for controlling incursions of exotic diseases into livestock populations (for example, foot and mouth disease [ 93]). However, it is unlikely to often be appropriate for control of extinction threatening diseases in wildlife populations. In principle, rapid 'stamping out' would be applicable to control the incursion of a known highly pathogenic disease into a population of conservation significance, provided it could be done early enough. However, in the cases of both DFTD and Bd, disease was widely spread in most affected populations before the extinction threat was confirmed so that stamping out would be more likely to lead to extinction than to prevent it. For a pathogen affecting multiple host species, non-selective culling of a non-endangered reservoir species may be an appropriate means to limit disease transmission into an endangered species. For example, North American bullfrogs ( Rana catesbeiana) have frequently become feral in South America, Europe and Japan, where they consistently carry Bd, with the potential to transmit the pathogen to endangered native anurans [ 94]. Although there is limited evidence that it has been effective, non-selective culling of bullfrogs to control Bd has been proposed [ 95]. Culling of grey squirrels, which are a reservoir for a pox virus that threatens red squirrel populations, has also been suggested as a strategy to maintain red squirrel populations [ 96]. Non-selective culling of hosts can contribute to disease control in two potential ways. First, if it is intense, it may increase mortality of infected hosts (even though they are not specifically targeted) sufficiently to reduce R ₀ to below one. Second, non-selective culling can reduce host density and thus disease transmission. This effect relies on the shape of the relationship between host density and transmission [ 8]. There can, however, be unexpected results of culling, particularly in territorial species, which may increase movements following culling. For example, there is evidence that culling at some spatial scales can lead to an increase in bovine tuberculosis in both badgers and cattle in the United Kingdom [ 97, 98].

An alternative culling strategy is to remove infected individuals only, often referred to as 'test and cull' in the veterinary literature. This approach is immediately more appealing than 'stamping out' when dealing with infectious disease in an endangered species. However, it has rarely been successful in practice. An attempt was made to control DFTD on the Tasman Peninsula, which is connected to the Tasmanian mainland only by a narrow isthmus cut by a canal. Frequency-dependent transmission makes control by culling more difficult than if transmission is density-dependent, but in other respects, DFTD is a disease one might expect to be amenable to this control strategy. Devils are highly trappable, clinical disease is apparent on external examination and it is likely that transmission occurs primarily from individuals with large, visible tumours. Unfortunately, the trial was not successful and has now been terminated. There was no evidence that the rate at which uninfected individuals acquire disease has been decreased by the removal since late 2004 of all infected devils captured [ 99]. Models [ 100] suggest that it is unlikely that any feasible culling strategy would have been successful: more than 90 per cent of infected animals would need to be removed during each trapping bout, which cannot be achieved in practice. These models assumed that culling commenced very early in the epidemic and that transmissibility and detectability occurred after the same time delay (i.e. the incubation and latent periods were of the same length). A test that enabled the identification and removal of infected animals before they become infectious would increase the likelihood that a test and cull strategy would be successful. 'Test and cull' has also not proved to be successful in controlling brucellosis in bison populations in the USA [ 101], and modelling suggests that culling sufficient to eliminate chronic wasting disease in deer would probably cause extinction of the deer populations [ 102].

(c) Genetic management

Natural selection on hosts in response to a highly pathogenic emerging infectious disease can be expected to be very strong. Selection can be expected to occur for either increased resistance (hosts are less likely to acquire infection when exposed) or increased tolerance (hosts still become infected, but with fewer effects on mortality or fecundity), or both. Provided sufficient genetic variation in susceptibility to the disease exists in populations under threat, the host population should become progressively more resistant or tolerant. For example, in the case of myxoma and Australian rabbits, case fatality from the original myxoma strain in an area with annual epizootics decreased from 99 per cent to less than 70 per cent within a decade of the introduction of the pathogen [ 103], indicating increased tolerance. In comparison with most species likely to be threatened with emerging infectious disease, rabbits have very high reproductive output, permitting rapid response to selective pressure. Nevertheless, the rabbit-myxoma example is not unique. Hawaiian Amakihi Hemignathus virens, a bird species that originally declined following the introduction of avian malaria, now are increasing in numbers at low altitudes despite high levels of infection by Plasmodium relictum, strongly suggesting that they have evolved tolerance of the parasite [ 21].

If this process of evolution of resistance or tolerance in the host could be accelerated or facilitated, it would represent a powerful means to control emerging disease threats. In the case of Tasmanian devils, the cancer has been able to spread through populations in the eastern part of the island because of extraordinarily low MHC diversity [ 47], such that recipient devils are unable to recognize tumour cells from another animal as 'non-self'. In the northwest of the island, which is only now being invaded by the tumour, there is a greater variety of MHC types [ 73]. Furthermore, there is evidence that the epidemiology of the tumour is different in the northwest from eastern Tasmania, with slower increase in prevalence through time and fewer effects on the age structure of the devil population [ 104]. However, it is unclear at this stage whether this is related to differences in the host population or differences in tumour strain. If northwestern populations do contain alleles resistant to the tumour, then it may be possible to introduce animals with these genotypes into the currently depleted east coast populations.

It may also prove possible to manage for genetic resistance to chytridiomycosis. Some populations of frogs that were apparently brought close to extinction when chytridiomycosis was first detected now appear to coexist with the fungus with little detectable impact on survivorship [ 44]. However, Briggs et al. [ 68] have shown both from empirical evidence and the modelling that some populations of the same species can coexist with Bd whereas others are driven to extinction, without there necessarily being any difference in innate susceptibility between the populations. They suggest that this is a result of differences in parasite load between populations, as a result of differing population density and differences in self-reinfection rates.

An intriguing possibility for genetic management of Bd is that some frog species excrete antimicrobial peptides that prevent establishment of Bd [ 105]. In principle, it might be possible to use genetic modification techniques to insert genes producing these peptides into susceptible species. This would raise a series of ethical questions about the appropriateness of using genetic modification on endangered species, which then would be released into the wild. One can imagine that spectre of 'Frankenfrogs' might be raised.

An option that is less likely to be successful is genetic management of the pathogen population. It is certainly the case that selective pressure can act to reduce the pathogenicity of emerging diseases: for example, the dominant strain of myxomatosis in Australia changed from a case fatality rate of 99 per cent in 1950-1951 to a case fatality rate between 70 and 95 per cent in 1975-1981 [ 103] (see also [ 106]). This has usually been thought of as a result of a trade-off between virulence and transmissibility [ 107]: a parasite that kills its host too quickly has less opportunity to transmit. Furthermore, when a pathogen is first introduced into a naive population, there may be transient selection for high virulence in the initial epidemic phase compared with the final endemic state [ 106]. However, developing strategies for virulence management of pathogens has proved elusive [ 108, 109].

(d) Habitat modification

Wobeser [ 83] suggests that habitat modification to interfere with disease transmission is 'potentially of great value' in managing diseases of wild animals. As is the case with human diseases (for example, draining swamps to limit malaria transmission), this is likely to be of most value when dealing with infectious diseases transmitted by vectors.

(e) Vaccination

Delivery of an oral rabies vaccine through baits has been effective in controlling rabies infection in foxes in Europe [ 110] and raccoons in the USA in order to safeguard human health [ 111]. Targeted delivery of rabies vaccine by injection to Ethiopian wolves ( Canis simensis) in habitat corridors between subpopulations has also proved effective in limiting the size of rabies epidemics in this endangered species [ 112]. Rabies is, however, a rather unusual case in that its impact on human health means that there has been considerable investment in developing a vaccine. There has been some success in vaccinating American robins against West Nile virus [ 113], another wildlife disease with serious zoonotic effects, although this was not done with a conservation aim. Developing vaccines for pathogens that affect only wildlife is likely to be prohibitively expensive in most cases. There has been research into developing a vaccine for DFTD [ 114, 115], but it has yet to result in an effective vaccine.

Some microbes are effective in limiting mortality and morbidity from Bd in captive populations [ 116], and it has been proposed that bioaugmentation of such microbes might be used to control chytridiomycosis [ 117]. While this is not vaccination in the usual sense of the word, functionally it is quite similar. Potentially, these microbes might be self disseminating in wild populations, although effects on non-target species would need to be considered.

6. Conclusion

It is relatively unusual for infectious disease to be the sole cause of endangerment for a species [ 34]. In most cases, there will be multiple stressors contributing to decline, such as habitat destruction and fragmentation or overexploitation. Chytridiomycosis is unusual in that it has led to declines in frog species in otherwise pristine environments. Although there have been suggestions that climate change has been responsible for increasing the impact of the disease in central and South America [ 118], this hypothesis has not stood up to detailed analysis [ 119]. Tasmanian DFTD is threatening a species that, until the appearance of disease, appeared to be secure and increasing in numbers. However, extremely low genetic diversity, possibly as a result of a previous selective sweep [ 47, 73], has predisposed the species to be susceptible to an allograft.

Loss of genetic diversity and pathogen pollution are increasing, with concomitant increase in risk of novel disease threats. The effects of anthropogenic climate change on infectious diseases are complex [ 120], but climate change is likely to lead to disease emergence in at least some cases [ 121], including through host range shifts and changes in migration patterns [ 122]. While approaches to address these threats are being developed, the range of tools currently available is limited. There is an urgent need both to address the factors likely to cause disease emergence in wildlife populations and to develop new approaches to manage the disease threats to biodiversity that will inevitably arise in the future.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the organizers of the joint Zoological Society of London-Royal Society symposium 'Disease Invasion' for the invitation to present at the meeting. This research has been supported by grants from the Australian Research Council (DP0772644, LP0561120 and DP110102656).

References

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Invading infectious diseases can, in theory, lead to the extinction of host populations, particularly if reservoir species are present or if disease transmission is frequency-dependent. The number of historic or prehistoric extinctions that can unequivocally be attributed to infectious disease is relatively small, but gathering firm evidence in retrospect is extremely difficult.

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Ivory in China

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Today one of the world's largest domestic markets for elephant ivory begins to wind down. China is closing 67 of its licensed ivory facilities, including 12 of its 35 ivory carving factories and several dozen of its more than 130 ivory retailers, according to a notice from the country's State Forestry Administration, which oversees wildlife trade issues. The rest will be closed before the end of the year.

The Chinese market is believed to be one of the major drivers of elephant poaching in Africa, which has suffered a massive decline in elephant numbers in recent years. Some 30,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year, a rate that will extinguish Africa's elephants within just a few generations if nothing changes.

"These closures prove that China means business in closing down the ivory trade and helping the African elephant," said Peter Knights, CEO of the nonprofit WildAid, which first reported the closures, in a press release.

The international trade in ivory has been banned since 1990, but many countries, including the China and United States, have continued to allow domestic sales of ivory.

In 2015 Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama made the historic announcement that the two countries had agreed to "nearly complete" bans on their domestic ivory markets. In China demand for ivory is primarily driven by the desire for status symbols among the growing middle and upper classes. Ivory carvings, chopsticks, and jewelry are seen as a way to show off wealth. In the U.S. the ivory trade has for many years been allowed for ivory brought into the country legally before 1990, ivory taken from elephants killed before 1976, and for a range of antiques and trophies from legal sport hunting.

In June 2016 the U.S. passed new regulations banning the buying and selling of almost all ivory, with exceptions for century-old antiques and a few other categories. This move essentially fulfilled the U.S.'s pledge. And at the end of 2016, China announced that its near-total ban would be in effect within the next 12 months, although it didn't provide specifics.

Today's move to close down carving factories is the first concrete step in fulfilling China's side of the deal.

"China's steps to move from stated intentions to end the commercial sale of ivory to concrete actions mark an exciting new chapter in the fight to preserve elephants in the wild," says Catherine Novelli, Under Secretary of State under Obama, who was instrumental in bringing about China's commitment to shut down its domestic ivory market.

Until quite recently, the Chinese government had promoted its ivory trade. It licensed new carving factories and retailers and declared ivory carving to be part of its natural heritage. It now has several dozen tons of ivory stockpiled, primarily from a sale in 2008 authorized by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which regulates wildlife trade.

China has released a set amount of raw ivory to its factories each year for carving and sales. This slow drip of ivory into the domestic market caused its value to skyrocket, but a new study released this week by the Nairobi-based nonprofit Save the Elephants finds that during the past three years, the price of ivory has dropped by nearly two-thirds.

Save the Elephants researchers Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin attribute the price drop to several factors: an economic slowdown, a crackdown on corruption (ivory items are often used to curry favors with officials), public awareness campaigns about poaching, and the government's commitment to close the trade.

"The ban has had an effect in the [price drop] as legal traders want to sell off their ivory before it is illegal," Vigne wrote in an email.

The government has not said what it plans to do with its ivory stockpile once the ban is fully implemented. (Read more: With Ivory Ban Imminent, What Will Happen to China's Legal Stockpile?)

Some Chinese artists worry that the tradition will be lost. Zhang Minhui, a respected leader in the ivory carving community, told the Guardian earlier this year that his carving factory has been preparing for the shutdown for a while, gradually transitioning to ox bones and mammoth tusks. Still, he thinks the focus needs to be on conservation in Africa, not on demand in China.

"Yes, elephants should be protected, but so should the tradition and art of ivory carving," he told the Guardian in January. "Honestly, we artists don't need a lot of tusks. Those from elephants' natural deaths are more than enough for our creative works because each piece takes months, sometimes years, to finish."

Many conservationists, on the other hand, argue that any legal market for ivory encourages and facilitates poaching by providing cover for the trade in trafficked tusks.

The Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong also has a thriving ivory market, which is regulated separately from mainland China's. Conservationists fear that Hong Kong's market may heat up in response to the shutdown in China. But Hong Kong too is considering closing its market. Last year, it announced a five-year plan to phase out the trade, and on Monday, its Legislative Council began debate on the proposal.

On March 28, Hong Kong convicted two people for illegal ivory possession, using radiocarbon dating to prove that the ivory was obtained after the 1990 international ban. They were fined $770 and $1,030.

Read more stories about wildlife crime and exploitation on Wildlife Watch. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas tongwildlife@natgeo.com.

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World's Biggest Ivory Market Shutting Down-What It Means

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Today one of the world's largest domestic markets for elephant ivory begins to wind down. China is closing 67 of its licensed ivory facilities, including 12 of its 35 ivory carving factories and several dozen of its more than 130 ivory retailers, according to a notice from the country's State Forestry Administration, which oversees wildlife trade issues.

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BrainPOP video about animal extinction

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By Noel

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Bangkok, Thailand- Following hard on the heels of Swaziland's much-criticized export of one-third of its elephants to US zoos last year, the Kingdom has now received permission from the Parties to CITES to exploit its tiny white rhino population. Despite a national total of just 61 animals, the Conference approved live sales of 7% of the rhino population and a further 1% for trophy hunting, each year.

"What signal does this send to poachers and profiteers attracted by the high value of rhino horn?" asked Nicholas Duncan, President of Save Foundation (Australia). "There is already widespread rhino poaching in Africa and Asia. Since 2002 a total of at least 230 rhino have been killed illegally. Swaziland's proposal sends out exactly the wrong message and could lead to yet further poaching pressure on fragile rhino numbers."

The decision to approve Swaziland's proposal follows recent, highly-controversial CITES votes to permit rhino trophy hunting exports from Namibia and South Africa. It has sparked further controversy since the manager of Swaziland's Big Game Parks not only owns the animals but signs the permits for export from the country.

"Swaziland's rhino population was wiped out in the early part of the 20 th century and did not exist until animals were re-introduced in the 1960's," said Will Travers, President of the Species Survival Network. "During one four-year period (1988-1992) Swaziland lost 80% of its rhinos according to its own proposal. It must be hoped that today's worrying decision will not increase pressure on rhino in Swaziland and elsewhere."

Some delegates appeared understandably confused by the need for the proposal in the first place, since activities such as non-commercial trade in live animals and even trophy hunting are permissible under CITES Appendix I. Swaziland's downlisting proposal was entirely unnecessary.

"It is eminently possible and highly preferable for African countries to reap financial benefits from their wildlife without killing their animals or trading them away," recognized Winnie Kiiru, Africa Representative of the Born Free Foundation. "Economic benefits derived in situ from endangered wildlife should only be from uses that are primarily non-commercial."

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Bangkok, Thailand-Following hard on the heels of Swaziland's much-criticized export of one-third of its elephants to US zoos last year, the Kingdom has now received permission from the Parties to CITES to exploit its tiny white rhino population.

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Good infographic for CHANGE

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An interlinked system of animals that carry nutrients from ocean depths to deep inland -- through their poop, urine, and, upon death, decomposing bodies. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that -- in the past--this chain of whales, seabirds, migratory fish and large land mammals transported far greater amounts of nutrients than they do today. Here, the red arrows show the estimated amounts of phosphorus and other nutrients that were moved or diffused historically -- and how much these flows have been reduced today. Grey animals represent extinct or reduced densities of animal populations. Credit: PNAS; designed by Renate Helmiss

Giants once roamed the earth. Oceans teemed with ninety-foot-long whales. Huge land animals-like truck-sized sloths and ten-ton mammoths-ate vast quantities of food, and, yes, deposited vast quantities of poop.

A new study shows that these whales and outsized land mammals-as well as seabirds and migrating fish-played a vital role in keeping the planet fertile by transporting nutrients from ocean depths and spreading them across seas, up rivers, and deep inland, even to mountaintops.

However, massive declines and extinctions of many of these animals has deeply damaged this planetary nutrient recycling system, a team of scientists reported October 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This broken global cycle may weaken ecosystem health, fisheries, and agriculture," says Joe Roman, a biologist at the University of Vermont and co-author on the new study.

On land, the capacity of animals to carry nutrients away from concentrated "hotspots," the team writes, has plummeted to eight percent of what it was in the past-before the extinction of some 150 species of mammal "megafauna" at the end of the last ice age.

And, largely because of human hunting over the last few centuries, the capacity of whales, and other marine mammals, to move one vital nutrient-phosphorous-from deep ocean waters to the surface has been reduced by more than seventy-five percent, the new study shows.
Ignoring Animals
"Previously, animals were not thought to play an important role in nutrient movement," said lead author Christopher Doughty, an ecologist at the University of Oxford.

But the new study shows that animals are a crucial "distribution pump," the scientists write, transporting masses of fecal matter to fertilize many places that would otherwise be less productive, including ocean surface waters and the interior of continents.

These fertilized ecosystems, in turn, maintain natural functions vital to people. For example, the new study notes that restoring whale populations could help increase the ocean's capacity to absorb climate-warming carbon dioxide.

Traditionally, scientists studying nutrient cycling have focused on weathering of rocks and nitrogen collection by bacteria-largely ignoring animals. This view assumed that the role of animals was minor, and mostly that of a passive consumer of nutrients. "However, this notion may be a peculiar world view that comes from living in an age where the number and size of animals have been drastically reduced from their former bounty," the team of nine scientists write.

"This study challenges the bottom-up bias that some scientists have-that microbes are running the show, and phytoplankton and plants are all that matter," says Joe Roman, a whale expert in UVM's Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics.

"This once was a world that had ten times more whales; twenty times more anadromous fish, like salmon; double the number of seabirds; and ten times more large herbivores -giant sloths and mastodons and mammoths," says Roman.

On land, before the rise of modern humans, there were elephant-like gomphotheres the size of a backhoe, deer with twelve-foot wide antlers, and bison herds to the horizon. These were just a few of the huge animals that could eat huge amounts of plant matter, accelerating the release of nutrients through digestion and carrying these nutrients away from feeding areas to higher ground through their deposit of feces, urine and, upon death, decomposing bodies.

Overall, the scientists calculate that this animal-powered, planetary pump may have dropped to just six percent of its former capacity to spread nutrients away from concentrated sources on both land and sea.
Whale Work
A series of recent studies show that large animals appear to disproportionately drive nutrient movements. To make their new study, the team-including scientists from University of Oxford, University of Vermont, Harvard University, Aarhus University in Denmark, Princeton University, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, and Purdue University-used these findings and other existing data about historic and current animal populations. Then they applied a set of mathematical models to estimate the movement of nutrients vertically in the oceans and across the land-and how this movement changed with extinctions and declining animal populations.

For example, whale densities are estimated to have declined by between 66% and 90% over the last three centuries due to commercial hunting, the study notes. Most grievously, 350,000 blue whales, many over one hundred tons, used to inhabit oceans around the globe. Only a few thousand now remain. These and other great whales feed in the depths-and then defecate at the sun-lit surface "in a flocculent, liquidy cloud," says Roman.
Limited Phosphorous
In particular, the new study examined phosphorous, a nutrient critical for plant growth. Prior to the era of commercial hunting, the scientists estimate that whales and other marine mammals annually moved around 750 million pounds of phosphorus from the depths to the surface. Now that figure is about 165 million pounds-some 23% of former capacity.

The team also gathered data on seabird and fish populations that feed in the sea and then come onto land-like ocean-going salmon that move up rivers to defecate, spawn, and die. Movements by these birds and fish once carried more than 300 million pounds of phosphorus onto land each year, but that number has declined to less than four percent of past values as a result of destroyed seabird colonies, habitat loss, and overfishing.

"Phosphorus is a key element in fertilizers and easily accessible phosphate supplies may run out in as little as fifty years," says Oxford's Chris Doughty. "Restoring populations of animals to their former bounty could help to recycle phosphorus from the sea to land, increasing global stocks of available phosphorus in the future."
Recovery
The world of giants came to an end on land after the megafauna extinctions that began some 12,000 years ago-driven by a complex array of forces including climate change and Neolithic hunters. And it ended in the oceans in the wake of whale and other mammal hunting in the industrial era of humans.

"But recovery is possible and important," says UVM's Roman. He points to bison as an example. "That's achievable. It might be a challenge policy-wise, but it's certainly within our power to bring back herds of bison to North America. That's one way we could restore an essential nutrient pathway."

And many whale and marine mammal populations are also recovering, Roman notes. "We can imagine a world with relatively abundant whale populations again," he says.

But have domestic animals, like cows, taken over the nutrient distribution role of now-extinct large land animals? No, the new study shows. Though there are many cows, fences constrain the movement of domestic animals and their nutrients. "Future pastures could be set up with fewer fences and with a wider range of species," the team writes.

"The typical flow of nutrients is down mountains to the oceans," says Joe Roman. "We are looking at ways that nutrients can go in the other direction-and that's largely through foraging animals. They're bringing nutrients from the deep sea that could eventually reach a mountain in British Columbia."

More information: Global nutrient transport in a world of giants, PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1502549112

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by University of Vermont

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Study shows declines in whales, fish, seabirds and large animals damages Earth's nutrient cycle

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Giants once roamed the earth. Oceans teemed with ninety-foot-long whales. Huge land animals-like truck-sized sloths and ten-ton mammoths-ate vast quantities of food, and, yes, deposited vast quantities of poop.

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By Noel

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Editor's note: This story was updated following publication to clarify the specific location of the hound program and the initial role of the Southern African Wildlife College.

Two years ago, Joe Braman was living a regular family life with his wife and two daughters on his remote ranch in southern Texas. A part time cop, businessman, and cowboy, he'd never given a thought to the rhino poaching crisis in South Africa. But in May 2018, Braman and his free-running hounds were sprinting across the acacia plains close to Kruger National Park chasing armed rhino poachers.

To date since then, according to authorities, his hounds have helped law enforcement teams in the greater Kruger region catch an unprecedented 145 poachers and confiscate 53 guns, boosting the overall rate of successful arrests and providing a new strategy to fight poaching in Africa.

"Just think about it," Braman says. "If you spun a globe and threw a dart and it stuck, what's the odds you'll find a low-key guy in southern Texas's coastal bend gettin' picked to stop the extinction of a species?"

Some 8,000 rhinos, whose horns are smuggled to Asia for unfounded medicinal uses, were poached in South Africa from 2008 to 2018, with more than half killed in Kruger, the country's signature national park, and the surrounding private reserves. There are some 20,000 white rhinos and just over 5,000 critically endangered black rhinos in the wild across Africa. South Africa is home to about 80 percent of the world's last remaining rhinos.

The Texan connection started early in 2017, when Theresa Sowry, CEO of the Southern African Wildlife College-a wildlife management and training facility based near Kruger-visited Braman in Refugio, Texas, to discuss his experience with hounds and watch them in action. She'd heard about a unique bloodline of aggressive free-running pack dogs-black-and-tan hounds-used in Texas law enforcement to track down escaping prison inmates.

Previously, South African National Parks, the agency that oversees Kruger, had asked the college to test a pack dog program as a new tool for rangers during a time of dire rhino losses.

The anti-poaching teams used individual dogs (bloodhounds and Malinois) on leads to track humans. But often the man-dog pairs were unable to keep up with fleeing poachers. Gun fights between rangers and poachers were common, rhinos were dying, and arrests were few.

"Kruger was very keen to test free-running dogs," Sowry says, adding that the college had been tasked with proving the concept of the pack dog program, but with barely any money or resources. "Building a pack dog team is a massive undertaking," she explains. "You need the right genetics, the right training, and, most importantly, the right mind-set to bring it all together." Nobody was up to it before the Texans got involved, she says.

As the beneficiary of a lucrative working ranch, Joe Braman might have deemed it unnecessary to become a cop. But he felt a calling to law enforcement-and he's always been drawn to the chase.

"I grew up runnin' pack hounds with my father," he says. "We would chase bobcats and racoons, training 15 or 18 dogs at time to follow the scent of animals." Their dogs, broadly called American coonhounds because of their ability to track down raccoons, came in various breeds: black-and-tan, blue tick, red tick. After becoming a deputy game warden for Texas Parks and Wildlife, Braman joined the Houston Police Academy in 2001 and has been working for the sheriff's office in Refugio and Victoria counties ever since. He also has a master chef degree from culinary school and says he takes his interests to the extreme. "Everything I do, I do it to the fullest of my capability. I push myself to be the best."

The same goes for his dogs. On Braman's ranch, Sowry and her colleagues were impressed by a demonstration of 10 of them trailing a human decoy in the brush. The excited hounds would split up and compete, yipping and howling, to be the first to pick up the scent. They would then work as a team to stay on scent while deputies on horses followed quickly behind. On contact with the decoy, the hounds would surround him, baying and barking as the terrified escapee shinnied up the nearest tree.

"We had no idea if free-running dogs would work for anti-poaching purposes in Africa," says Ivan Carter, whose conservation foundation, the Ivan Carter Wildlife Conservation Alliance, put Braman in contact with Sowry and helped finance the project. "The team from the college was excited by what they saw in Texas. We hoped Joe would be able to help."

Shortly after the demonstration, Braman accepted an invitation from the college to travel to Kruger to assess its K9 unit. "I was just gonna go over and do an evaluation and help them train a few dogs," he says. But things didn't go as expected.

Johan Van Straaten, who grew up with dogs on a farm in South Africa's Karoo region, is the unit's lead trainer. At the time, he was experimenting with training their local dogs to run as a team. But, he says, "I had never trained my dogs to bite or attack."

Braman believed that aggression was an essential trait in the free-running hounds. "It's all about intimidation!" he says. "If a dog starts attacking you, the first thing you're gonna do is throw the gun and climb a tree." That leaves time "to get in and take a poacher into custody."

Teaching a hound to bite a person and hold them at bay "is one of the hardest things in the world," Braman says. You have to separate new puppies from their mother for short periods and withhold food, which "makes them mad at you. And you let 'em know it's ok to bite and bark." In the field, the dogs learn to follow an individual human scent trail, and then to nip and bite while on the run. "We teach them to stay with that person," and if they don't, they get their "behind kicked."

Van Staaten refers to the Texan style of training as old school. "They're really hard on their dogs," he says. "They work with whips. Shouting at dogs-shocking them if they don't do the right thing." But, he says, he prefers a more natural approach to training-letting the dogs gravitate to roles they're good at. "They have to want to work," he adds.

Braman says that after a few weeks in South Africa, he grew frustrated with the slow progress they were making with the local dogs. "They were pushin' water up a hill," he says. "Their hearts were in the right spot, but they just don't do things the way we do in Texas."

One day during training, Van Straaten showed Braman a video of a paralyzed rhino whose horn had been axed off that day by poachers. "He was aspirating on his own blood!" Braman remembers. "I don't think I have ever seen anything as horrific." He says he watched the video over and over again. And every time, he became more angry.

"I believe in reaction," he says. "You do something-that means I'm gonna do something twice as bad to get you back. Some of these people are recklessly killing two or three rhino a night. That's a war. And all is fair in war."

He told the South Africans: "'I need to go home and train y'all some dogs!'"

Zeke Ortiz spent 30 years as a dog trainer for the Texan prison system, working with free-running hounds to track felons all over the state. He was just going into retirement in Refugio county when Braman arrived back from Africa and asked him if he'd be interested in partnering on a program to train free-running hounds for Africa.

So Ortiz brought a hundred dogs, many of them donated by the state, to Braman's property. "The genetics go back over a century of prison training," Ortiz explains. "They've been bred to have an aggressive nature."

The two men dedicated months to training the dogs-a blend of black-and-tans, blue ticks, and red ticks. They focused on developing the three key traits that make a good, free-running pack hound: scent-tracking ability, baying ability, and aggressiveness.

Van Straaten flew to Texas, hoping to learn new training techniques and monitor their progress. When he watched a trial run of the hounds, he was shocked to see them jumping and biting and tearing into a human decoy. "After taking off the tackle suit, the man was full of bruises," he says. "I called Theresa and said, 'Do we really want to go this way? We are going to kill people!'"

Braman, after initial reluctance, agreed to train a new set of dogs to be less aggressive. "I was trainin' dogs to be mean. And I mean mean, dude! I wanted to send a message to the poachers. But he admitted: "I was allowing the emotion of the [rhino] video to dictate how we trained the dogs," he says. "We pulled back a bit."

He and Ortiz spent another two months honing the skills of 20 of their best hounds, then shipped them to South Africa.

Braman had hardly arrived back at the Southern African Wildlife College when the first call came from the field. Poachers had just killed a rhino-and they were on the run.

The Texan dogs were rushed into helicopters. Braman admits to being a little nervous: "My dogs had never seen an elephant before-never seen a lion. Never been in a helicopter."

On the ground, the excited hounds immediately picked up the scent trail. Fitted with GPS collars, they bolted across the golden plains past herds of impala and wildebeest, darting through thickets and over termite mounds. After they'd covered 10 miles, Braman got the call from one of the helicopters: The pack had made contact with four poachers.

"The poachers were striking them with sticks!" Braman says. "In my mind, I'm still in Texas. And I'm thinkin', I hope they bite 'em! But the dogs didn't. They just surrounded them: bark bark bark! We arrived, and my dogs had a guy under a tree. And we took [the poachers] into custody. Everyone was in disbelief."

The next day, the team caught three poachers, and the day after that, another two. Then more and more on multiple deployments. "To have the hounds catch numerous groups of poachers right out of the gate-it was such a massive affirmation of us being on the right track," Ivan Carter says.

Ten-fold increase in apprehensions

Without dogs, according to the college, enforcement teams on average were nabbing only 3 to 5 percent of known poachers, which Sowry says is the generally accepted average. With the new K9 unit, the rate has increased to 54 percent-a 10-fold improvement.

Sowry is quick to share credit for the success. From intelligence provided by local people to individual lead dogs, from helicopter operators to law enforcement rangers on the ground-"everything plays a role, nothing can stand alone," she says. "It's a massive team work."

The human support teams also provide safety for the dogs. Helicopters are quick to drive off dangerous predators, and armed men are at hand should there be a gun fight. "It's a high-risk job for human and dog," Van Staaten says. "But with training and with standard operating procedures, we try try to minimize the risk."

It wasn't long before the Texan hounds in South Africa had puppies of their own. Precious Malapane helps look after them. "We are training really confident dogs who are not afraid to approach a poacher on their own," she says as bronze, long-eared puppies nip at her legs. According to Carter, these puppies may one day be dispatched to other areas of Africa that have a need for free-running hounds to catch wildlife poachers.

Back in Texas, Joe Braman has a framed certificate from the U.S. House of Representatives commending him on his efforts in Kruger. He and Ortiz, inspired by their success in Africa, are continuing the hound program in Texas, training pack dogs for law enforcement and to counter human trafficking across the state.

And they're having success running down suspects with dogs that don't bite. "I learned a lot in Africa," he says. "When I got there, I just wanted control. I had to learn patience. I had to collaborate. And it made me a better person."

Wildlife Watch is an investigative reporting project between National Geographic Society and National Geographic Partners focusing on wildlife crime and exploitation. Read more Wildlife Watch stories here, and learn more about National Geographic Society's nonprofit mission atnationalgeographic.org. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas to ngwildlife@natgeo.com.

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Texas hounds chase down rhino poachers in South Africa

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Editor's note: This story was updated following publication to clarify the specific location of the hound program and the initial role of the Southern African Wildlife College. Two years ago, Joe Braman was living a regular family life with his wife and two daughters on his remote ranch in southern Texas.

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Bribing from poachers

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Created by FindLaw's team of legal writers and editors.

Bribery is the offer or acceptance of anything of value in exchange for influence on a government/public official or employee. In general, bribes can take the form of gifts or payments of money in exchange for favorable treatment, such as awards of government contracts. Other forms of bribes may include property, various goods, privileges, services and favors.
Bribery: An Overview
Bribes are always intended to influence or alter the action of various individuals and go hand in hand with both political and public corruption. No written agreement is necessary to prove this crime, but a prosecutor generally must show corrupt intent. In most situations, both the person offering the bribe and the person accepting can be charged.

Another crime often associated (and sometimes confused) with bribery is extortion. The difference is that bribing someone involves offering a positive reward for compliance, whereas extortion uses threats of violence or other negative acts in exchange for compliance.
Elements of a Bribery Charge
At the most fundamental level, charges of bribery need only to prove that an agreement for the exchange of something of value (political influence, for example) for a sum of money or something else of value. While a written agreement isn't required, prosecutors must be able to prove that an agreement was actually made. For example, a taped phone call between a politician and the party offering the bribe may be sufficient evidence. Similarly, a police body cam video of a driver handing the officer cash before being let go would suffice.

The federal government, however, has very specific elements that it uses to prosecute cases of bribery against federal employees. These include the following:

1. The individual being bribed is a "public official," which includes rank-and-file federal employees on up to elected officials;

2. A "thing of value" has been offered, whether it's tangible (such as cash) or intangible (such as the promise of influence or official support);

3. There's an "official act" that may be influenced by a bribe (such as pending legislation that may have a direct impact on the party offering the bribe);

4. The public official has the authority or power to commit the official act (for instance, the official is a senator who is voting on a particular piece of legislation);

5. There must be the establishment of intent on the part of the bribing party to get a desired result (the intent to sway the vote by handing over an envelope full of cash); and

6. The prosecution must establish a causal connection between the payment and the act meaning there must be more than just a suspicious coincidence.

Examples of Bribery
Bribery can happen in many different spheres of influence. In the sporting world, for example, one boxer might offer another a payoff to "throw" (deliberately lose) an important fight. Or a gambler may offer to pay a basketball player to "shave" points off the score so a team loses by more points.

In the corporate arena, a company could bribe employees of a rival company for recruitment services. It's important to note that even when public officials are involved, a bribe doesn't need to be harmful to the public interest in order to be illegal. Depending on the jurisdiction, a conviction can result in a fine and/or prison time.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977 makes it unlawful for a United States citizen, as well as certain foreign issuers of securities, to pay a foreign official in order to obtain business with any person. In 1998 a provision to the Act was added which applies to any foreign firms or foreign-born persons who take any act in furtherance of a corrupt payment while in the United States.
Let an Attorney Help You Defend Against Bribery Charges
An alleged act of bribing someone could result in charges in a wide variety of courts, and the evidence or statements that come out in one court might be used against you in another. As such, an organized and forward-looking strategy for defense should be developed. Contact a qualified, local criminal defense attorney today to learn more.

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Created by FindLaw's team of legal writers and editors. Bribery is the offer or acceptance of anything of value in exchange for influence on a government/public official or employee. In general, bribes can take the form of gifts or payments of money in exchange for favorable treatment, such as awards of government contracts.

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It can be hard to resist the cute puppies and kittens for sale in pet-store windows. But a closer look into how these stores obtain animals reveals a system in which the high price that consumers pay for "that doggie in the window" pales in comparison with the cost paid by not just the animals who are sold in pet stores but also the animals who are forced to produce litter after litter in order to supply these stores.

That adorable little puppy in the store probably came from a "puppy mill," a breeding kennel that raises dogs in cramped, crude, filthy conditions. The majority of these facilities are in the Midwest, but they can be found throughout the country, and some dealers even import puppies from other countries. ¹ Constant confinement and a lack of adequate veterinary care and socialization often result in unhealthy animals who are difficult to socialize. Consequently, many puppies are abandoned within weeks or months of their adoption by frustrated buyers-further exacerbating the tragic companion-animal overpopulation crisis.

Cages, Filth, and Neglect
Puppy-mill kennels can consist of anything from small cages made of wood and wire mesh to tractor-trailer cabs to simple tethers attached to trees. A Pennsylvania breeder confessed that he kept his dogs in cages because it was "the only way to keep a lot of dogs-to keep them penned up." ² Female dogs are bred twice a year and are usually killed or abandoned when they are no longer able to produce puppies. ³ Mothers and their litters often suffer from malnutrition, exposure, and a lack of adequate veterinary care. A puppy mill operator in New York used a makeshift gas chamber to kill 93 dogs and puppies, putting groups of five or six at a time into a sealed "whelping box," which he had hooked up to a tractor engine. He told a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspector that he gassed the dogs after being told that he would have to test and treat them for brucellosis. ⁴

Puppies are torn away from their mothers and sold to brokers who pack them into crates for transport and resale to pet stores. Puppies who are shipped from mill to broker to pet store can travel hundreds of miles in pickup trucks, tractor-trailers, and airplanes, often without adequate food, water, ventilation, or shelter.

Young puppies who survive the unsanitary conditions at puppy mills and endure the grueling transport to pet stores have rarely received the kind of loving human contact that is necessary for them to become suitable companions. Breeders, brokers, and pet stores ensure maximum profits by not spending money for proper food, housing, or veterinary care.

Conditions don't improve much when the puppies reach pet stores. Dogs who are kept in small cages without exercise, love, or human contact tend to develop undesirable behavior and may bark excessively or become destructive and unsociable. Unlike many humane societies and animal shelters, pet stores do not screen buyers or inspect potential future homes of the dogs they sell. Poor enforcement of humane laws allows shops to continue selling sick animals, although humane societies and police departments sometimes succeed in closing down stores in which severe abuse is uncovered.

Of the millions of puppies born at mills every year, an estimated half of them are sold over the internet. Rolling Stone called online sales of puppies "the perfect crime...Courts don't care about out-of-state victims, and the feds don't even fine breeders, much less arrest them, for selling sick pups on bogus sites." ⁵

The Plight of Purebreds and 'Designer Dogs'
Some people impulsively obtain purebred dogs, even though they may not be educated about the breed or ready for the commitment that companion animals require. Movies, TV shows, and commercials have caused a jump in the popularity of certain breeds, yet very few potential dog caretakers take the time to investigate the traits and needs of the breed that they are considering. "Every time Hollywood makes a dog movie, the breed goes to hell," says one caretaker of bouviers des Flandres dogs. A Dalmatian fancier concludes that "the unscrupulous breeders will see there's a profit margin there." ⁶ When there is a surge in demand for a particular breed, puppy mills try to meet that demand. But when the dogs don't turn out to be just like their fictional counterparts, rescue groups and animal shelters become flooded with these breeds.

A similar phenomenon happens with so-called "designer dogs," such as Labradoodles and cockapoos, who can be sold for thousands of dollars to unsuspecting people who know nothing about the breeds. Says one animal geneticist, "Cute as they may be, when you mix dog breeds, you really don't know what you're going to get." 7 At puppy mills, dogs are bred for quantity, not quality, so unmonitored genetic defects and personality disorders that are passed on from generation to generation are common. This situation results in high veterinary bills for people who buy these dogs and the possibility that unsociable or maladjusted dogs will be disposed of by their unprepared "owners." "There is virtually no consideration of temperament," says one dog trainer. "I wish legislators could sit in my office and watch intelligent, articulate, hardworking people sobbing in extreme emotional pain over having to decide whether to euthanize their dog because of some serious behavioral problem." ⁸

The American Kennel Club (AKC) opposes mandatory spay-and-neuter programs for purebred dogs and receives funding from breeders who pay AKC registration fees. ⁹ Buyers may be swayed by talk of "papers" and "AKC registration," but these papers cannot ensure good temperament or good health. Says one veterinarian, "The best use of pedigree papers is for housebreaking your dog. They don't mean a damn thing." ¹⁰

The Puppy Pipelines
Dealers who want to avoid relevant U.S. laws-the few that exist-look elsewhere to continue doing business. For example, there is a network of breeders and smugglers who bring puppies into the U.S. from Mexico. While investigating what he called this "multi-million dollar industry," Capt. Aaron Reyes of the Southeast Area Animal Control Authority reported finding "puppies stuffed in speaker boxes, screwed into the car door panels and wrapped in blankets with their little legs taped to their bodies and stuffed under seats." ¹¹ At Los Angeles International Airport, 30 puppies were found in a shipment from South Korea. Twenty either died or had to be euthanized after the arduous journey. ¹²

While no federal agency tracks the number of puppies that enter the U.S., an investigation by a New York TV station concluded that thousands of puppies arrive every year and that many are sick or dead when they get here. A staff member at a private veterinary clinic at John F. Kennedy International Airport told the CBS affiliate that she had seen "a couple of cases where [the puppies] were shrink-wrapped." The station also found that although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal agencies have been alerted to the problem of underage, sick puppies being crammed for shipping into filthy, crowded kennels for hours at a time, none has jurisdiction over the animals' care. The CDC only checks animals for rabies, and the USDA regulations for transport conditions do not apply to foreign shipments. 13,14

What You Can Do
With millions of unwanted dogs and cats (including purebreds) dying every year in animal shelters, there is simply no reason for animals to be bred and sold for the pet-store trade. Without these stores, the financial incentive for puppy mills would disappear, and the suffering of these dogs would end. The best way to find a companion animal is through an animal shelter or a rescue group.

References
¹Saryn Chorney, " 23 French Bulldog Puppies Found Inside Moving Van in 121 Degree Heat Get Second Chance,'" People, 23 Aug. 2018.
²Suzanne Smalley, " How Puppy Mills May Benefit from Obama Dog Choice," Newsweek 3 Apr. 2009.
³Natalie Lariccia, "A Warning on Puppy Mills," The Vindicator 25 Apr. 2000.
⁴Scott Rapp, " Seneca County Kennel Owner Accused of Using Homemade Gas Chamber To Kill 93 Dogs," The Post-Standard, 15 Sept. 2010.
⁵Paul Solotaroff, " The Dog Factory: Inside the Sickening World of Puppy Mills," Rolling Stone, 3 Jan. 2017.
⁶Chuck Haga, "Every Dog Has Its Day," Minneapolis Star-Tribune 7 Sep 1999.
⁷Elizabeth Fiedler," Americans Love Designer Dogs But Health Problems Are Common," WHYY, 23 Jan. 2017.
⁸Richard P. Jones, "Panel Weakens Pet Industry Rules," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 19 May 2003.
⁹American Kennel Club, " Issue Analysis: Why Breed-Specific Legislation Doesn't Work," AKC News, 7 Apr. 2015.
¹⁰Michael D. Lemonick, " A Terrible Beauty," Time 24 Jun. 2001.
¹¹Chris Sweeney, " Inside the Black Market: Puppy Smuggling," DVM Newsmagazine 7 Mar 2015.
¹²Carrie Kahn, " Grim Puppy-Mill Shipment Makes L.A. Take Notice," NPR Morning Edition 30 Dec 2008.
¹³Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, " Bringing a Dog into the United States," 18 Dec. 2018.
¹⁴United States Department of Agriculture," Importation of Dogs Regulation," 10 Aug. 2018.

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Puppy Mills: Dogs Abused for the Pet Trade | PETA

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It can be hard to resist the cute puppies and kittens for sale in pet-store windows. But a closer look into how these stores obtain animals reveals a

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Levels of extinction

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Poaching

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A whistle-blower has told the BBC he was the middleman between rhino-horn smugglers and a court syndicate in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.

He alleges he took money given to a lawyer from rhino-horn kingpins and paid it to people within the judiciary.

The lawyer, Welcome Ngwenya, denies that he was involved in paying bribes.

But investigations, involving others informants, point to a court syndicate that could be keeping rhino killers beyond the reach of the law.

Rhinos in South Africa:

South Africa is home to 80% of Africa's population, but there are only about 25,000 rhinos left

About 1,000 are killed every year for their rhino horn

Most are destined for Asia where rhino horn is an ingredient in traditional medicine and herbal remedies

Rhino horns are made of keratin - the same substance as fingernails

But it is worth more by weight than cocaine, and so traffickers go to great lengths to smuggle it out of Africa.

'Web of corruption' behind SA rhino poaching Could farming rhinos save them from extinction?
Lie-detector test

The middleman informant, who used the pseudonym "Fresh" after his favourite DJ, is now in hiding.

He passed a lie-detector test, and his affidavit has been cross-checked by police investigators who feel his accusations are "serious and need investigating".

Fresh says he used to work for Mr Ngwenya, his uncle, and has described how he used to deliver bribes for him.

"I would give money to most of his friends and most of his friends are magistrates, lawyers, prosecutors," he told the BBC.

"If you want your case to be withdrawn or if you want everything to just disappear you just go to him."

Fresh's most high-profile allegation involves suspected rhino-horn kingpin Dumisani Gwala.

He says Mr Ngwenya accepted money from Mr Gwala and paid it to a magistrate to affect the result of his case.

Mr Gwala was arrested with rhino horn, but has pleaded not guilty to charges of dealing in protected wildlife parts - he and another lawyer who acted for him, Mpume Linda, refused to answer to the allegations of bribery when confronted outside a courtroom.

Fresh alleges that at a meeting at which he was present, his uncle, Ms Linda and the presiding magistrate, Kwazi Shandu, agreed that money would be paid to prolong the case.

He says he handed the money over to the magistrate.

Mr Shandu strongly denies the allegations: "Nobody has ever approached me for a bribe in my whole career of 30 years and I will never pay such a bribe."

He ruled the case should be moved to another court to be heard by another magistrate.

More than three years after being arrested and bailed, and following more than 20 court appearances, Mr Gwala's trial has still not begun.

'Pattern of racketeering'

In an affidavit, Fresh describes cases in detail in which he names other magistrates, lawyers, and prosecutors.

Many of their names, and others, also appear in a confidential report for the Magistrates' Commission, seen by the BBC.

It contains allegations against Eric Nzimande, the most senior magistrate in KwaZulu-Natal, from one of his own acting magistrates, concerning payments being made for appointments.

Bank account searches led the investigator to widen the report to include other court officials.

The Nzimande Report outlines the accusations and finds that there "appears to have [been] a pattern of racketeering activity", urging further investigation.

The ultimate authority for appointing magistrates is South Africa's Deputy Minister for Justice John Jeffery, who says he is aware of an investigation into Mr Nzimande and others, including prosecutors and lawyers.

The report was handed over to the Magistrates' Commission last year and the police submitted their findings to the director of public prosecutions at least nine months ago, but so far nothing has happened.

"Unfortunately investigations into magistrates do take time," said Mr Jeffery, adding that he would only act when the Magistrates' Commission had completed its work.

Mr Nzimande told the BBC: "I can't respond to something...unless there is a formal charge against me and then I will go to court."

'Blood rhino blacklist'

The public prosecutor is still deciding whether to act on the testimony provided by Fresh - evidence initially gathered by Jamie Joseph, head of the environmental group, Saving the Wild.

She says she has exposed an allegedly corrupt syndicate, which she calls the "Blood rhino blacklist".

"We are focussed on exposing and eradicating the corruption enabling rhino poaching," said Ms Joseph, who added that she had received death threats because of her anti-poaching work.

She has since teamed up with Jean-Pierre Roux, a former police endangered wildlife investigator. Mr Roux was the investigating officer on the Dumisani Gwala case. He believes he was sacked from the police to stop him from getting to the truth.

He was dismissed on a bureaucratic matter despite a high conviction rate for poachers and traffickers.

"We suspect we got too close to some of the higher syndicate members with possible links to government," he alleges.

Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, is one of the worst-affected reserves in South Africa, suffering regular losses of rhinos.

A ranger we spoke to - who did not want to be named - accused "half the park" of being corrupt and described cases where rangers were apparently moved just before poachers struck.

He blames management, but the head of rhino security for KwaZulu-Natal's government parks, Cedric Cotzee, denied things were that bad.

"There has been corruption in terms of some areas and we believe we've tackled those areas. We've also passed that information on to the South African Police Services," he said.

As yet nobody has been charged.

If elements of South Africa's justice system prove to be corrupt it not only threatens rhinos and allows poachers to act with impunity, but it compromises the police and the justice system in other cases as well.

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SA 'court bribes' linked to rhino deaths

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A whistle-blower has told the BBC he was the middleman between rhino-horn smugglers and a court syndicate in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. He alleges he took money given to a lawyer from rhino-horn kingpins and paid it to people within the judiciary. The lawyer, Welcome Ngwenya, denies that he was involved in paying bribes.

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How monarch butterflies are affected by climate change

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Cause and effects of poaching

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Every day we are losing hundreds of mammals belonging in endangerous species. This is mostly due to the lack of enforcement as well as the corupt goverments in the surrounding area. This can be seen in the developing countries that do not see the enforcement of poaching a nessicity. Eventhough we cannot see it presently, poaching does have long term effects. Poaching is detrimental to the ecosystem, and actually can hurt your economy. We are inhabitants of this great planet, and its our responsibility to sustain it. And we only get one.

Background

"At the beginning of the 20th century there were 500,000 rhinos; in 1970 there were 70,000; today, there are fewer than 29,000 rhinos surviving in the wild ("Rhino Population Figures")." Poaching is the practice of killing or trading animals for economic gain or necessity and has resulted in substantial losses of many species throughout developing countries and throughout time. Every year more and more species are killed and sold in the black market for a quick profit; some of the effects include economic downfall or ecological instability and destruction. The major causes and effects of poaching need to be prevented through implementation.

Causes

There are many causes for poaching. For one thing, poaching is hard to regulate and law enforcement is susceptible to bribery, making poaching an easy crime. For example, Lovejoy Sakala, a reporter of the Zimbabwean, stated that "Top police are conniving with poachers. They are taking bribes and not doing much to stop these illegal activities." Then there are many people who are so desperate for money and must poach to provide for their families. To continue, bushmeat, food derived from hunted wild animals, has long been a staple part of forest peoples' diet and since the 1900s they have increased eight-fold as an easy way to get food and survive ("Bushmeat"). Also, as demonstrated in 2008, African ivory, exotic birds, pelts, and tiger bone wine due to online transactions amounted to an extraordinary 3.8 million dollars; poaching was turning into a profitable business (Donovan). Some people have religious obligations and traditions that involve rare animals. A group of Tibetan monks illegally obtain or hunt rare creatures due to religious obligations (McLachlan). As one can see, causes of poaching are done for many reasons, such as food, religion, money, and even lack of enforcement.

Effects

The many causes of poaching create negative effects, mainly in the environment and economy. One negative effect on the environment can be seen with the decline in the tiger population. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, tigers are in imminent danger of extinction. Tigers are a keystone predator, which means they help to keep the local prey populations under control, thus keeping the entire ecosystem balanced. The decrease in tigers will result in negative environmental effects, because large-scale growth of prey animal populations will influence the rest of the food chain. Without a keystone predator, its prey will grow exponentially. The large population of prey animals will consume all of the producers (plants), which will retard the growth of the ecosystem (Pedersen.

A recent study conducted by Austin J. Gallagher and Dr. Neil Hammershlag of the R. J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami discussed negative effects on the economy due to poaching. They examined the problem of overfishing sharks and the effects on ecotourism, a sector which many developing nations rely on. The results of the study indicated that a single reef shark will net approximately 73.00-dollars a day in ecotourism, while that same reef shark will net a fisherman only about 50.00-dollars one time for the sale of its fins. With an almost increase of 50 percent in profit, developing countries are losing major money that can be used to actually help their population. Ecotourism is excellent industry for developing nations, but the industry cannot function without living animals (Pedersen).

Action

Developing countries will continue to suffer the effects of poaching if the causes are not prevented. The problem of poaching can be prevented if people are willing to take action. Change is constantly applied to the world, so now is the time for change to be applied to the problem of poaching. However, it cannot be done without the consent of people willing to change. Enforcement through the government, the officials, and the peoples is a critical to create change. Doctor Seuss put it best when he wrote the Lorax: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

References

"Bushmeat." Lpzoosites. Http://www.chimp-ssp.org, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.

Donovan, Travis. "Illegal Wildlife Poaching: 7 Species Endangered By Internet Trade (PHOTOS)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 25 May 2011. Web. 08 Nov. 2012.

McLachlan, Sean. "African Governments Doing More to Stop Poaching of Endangered Species." Gadling.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.

Pedersen, Stephanie. "Continued Poaching Will Result in the Degradation of Fragile Ecosystems." The International. The International Inc., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

Sakala, Lovejoy. "Zambian Poachers Accused of Making Zim Council Lose Money." The Zimbabwean. Zambian Watchdog, 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.

"Rhino Population Figures." Save the Rhino. Save the Rhino International, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.

"The Lorax Quotes." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.

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Every day we are losing hundreds of mammals belonging in endangerous species. This is mostly due to the lack of enforcement as well as the corupt goverments in the surrounding area. This can be seen in the developing countries that do not see the enforcement of poaching a nessicity.

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How climate change affects asians elephants

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How climate change affects animal animal extinction

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Changes in climate and extreme weather events have already begun to affect biodiversity across the globe. And climate change also worsens other threats like habitat destruction, overexploitation, and disease.

From the shrinking habitat of the polar bear to increased water scarcity driving human-wildlife conflict, these changes will become more pronounced in years to come.

WWF is working to better understand how a changing climate impacts wildlife, and developing and implementing adaptation solutions. We are assessing our priority species to determine traits that make them resilient or vulnerable to changes in climate, crowdsourcing data on climate impacts, and funding projects through our Wildlife Adaptation Innovation Fund.

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Changes in climate and extreme weather events have already begun to affect biodiversity across the globe. And climate change also worsens other threats like habitat destruction, overexploitation, and disease. From the shrinking habitat of the polar bear to increased water scarcity driving human-wildlife conflict, these changes will become more pronounced in years to come.

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people who poach

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Welcome to BBC Earth, a place to explore the natural world through awe-inspiring documentaries, podcasts, stories and more.

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motivation of poaching

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What is motivation? To most of us, we see motivation as a sort of intangible energy that pushes us towards a goal. In psychology, motivation has the same meaning, except that motivation is in everything that we do. In psychology, motivation is the cause of all behaviours. Motivation can be biological (e.g. thirst, hunger etc), behavioural or learned (e.g. wanting to be a filial child), or cognitive (e.g. deciding that a certain job is the best option). Some characteristics of motivation include activation, persistence, vigour, direction and perception. In motivation, there is energy, direction, intensity and persistence.

Why are we discussing motivation? By knowing the motivations behind a person's actions, it would be easy to curb undesirable actions (which is poaching, in this case) and even nudge the person towards desirable actions through well-designed incentives or punishments by law-enforcers and campaigns by activists to prevent more people from joining or contributing to this terrible business.

There are a few central theories of motivation: homeostasis, hedonism and growth motivation. Homeostasis is when there is a certain optimum "level" of everything at which a person can be. Certain situations may shift the balance such that there is a deviation from that optimum level. In this theory, people behave in ways to return that level to homeostasis - the optimum level. The theory on hedonism is where people act in ways to pursue pleasure and avoid pain - still there is such a thing as too much good! Many philosophers advocate a temperate life with modest pleasures. With this in mind, perhaps we can see why our excessive ways have put us in danger. The final theory is growth motivation. In this theory, it is posited that we behave in ways to fulfil our needs. According to David McClelland, we have three needs: the need for achievement, the need for affiliation and the need for power.

We all know that the environment can affect our behaviour; behaviours do not always result from internal motivations. The simplest ways in which we can see how external sources of motivation is through rewards, punishments and incentives. This will be important in directly curbing poaching. Cognitive theories tell us that mental representations play a role in guiding our behaviour, for example through goal-, expectancy- and values-forming.

Even motives themselves have different causes. They are categorised into approach and avoidant causes. As the names suggest, avoidant motives are caused by important survival mechanisms such as fear and anxiety. These emotions would cause a person to refrain from engaging in behaviours that would increase their fear and anxiety and engage in behaviours that would reduce such emotions. Approach motives also have a biological basis and these motives promote behaviour in people. As you can see, and have probably experienced for yourself, emotions play a big role in affecting motivation. When you are feeling down, you tend to see things in a more negative way then if you were feeling upbeat. People also approach things in order to experience positive affect and avoid things in order to avoid negative affect.

With these in mind, it is also important to remember that there are individual differences in motivation. The choices that we make are tainted by our past experiences, our personality dispositions and what each situation uniquely means to us. It is a complicated area of study but a very important one that would better help to control people's behaviour.

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What is motivation? To most of us, we see motivation as a sort of intangible energy that pushes us towards a goal. In psychology, motivation has the same meaning, except that motivation is in everything that we do. In psychology, motivation is the cause of all behaviours. Motivation can be biological (e.g.

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brink of extinction

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Do you want the bad news or the even worse news?

The bad news you probably already know: Cecil the lion, one of Zimbabwe's best loved wild animals, was slain last week at the hands of unscrupulous safari guides and, it's claimed, a crossbow-happy dentist from Minnesota.

Cecil's death, sadly, is only the tip of the iceberg - and unlike the real icebergs we're so intent on melting, this one ain't shrinking, it's growing. Each year humans deliberately kill thousands of the animals we're privileged to share the planet with, even the ones we nominally call "protected." Not content with destroying their habitats and compromising their food supply, some members of our species hunt and slaughter creatures that are already struggling to survive.

It's not just humans who want to shoot something. More often it's organized criminals who want to cut up animals and sell them to different humans who think they'll make them live longer or look good on a wall. Other times it's impoverished people looking for ready cash, or even a meal.

Whatever poachers' motivations, they're threatening to wipe some of the most vulnerable species off the face of the earth. Here are six animals that, like Cecil, poaching might rob us of forever.
1. Elephants
Right now, poachers are the single biggest threat to elephants' survival. After decades of decimation of elephant populations for their ivory, the international trade in "white gold" was banned in 1989. Yet people's persistent willingness to hand over bigger and bigger sums of money for dead elephant tusk - in China, $2,100 per kilo on average as of last year - has made it more tempting than ever for profit seekers to kill elephants illegally. The most comprehensive survey to date stated that 100,000 African elephants were poached across the continent between 2010 and 2012. According to those figures, in 2011 alone poachers killed roughly one in every 12 African elephants.

Sometimes elephant poachers, like Cecil the lion's killers, use bows and arrows as their weapon of choice. Sometimes they tip the arrows with poison, like the people who last year slaughtered one of Kenya's most famous elephants, Satao, and hacked off his magnificent 6.5-foot tusks. Other hunting expeditions have seen gangs turn grenades and AK-47s on entire herds, even within the supposed shelter of national parks.

Asian elephants, considered an even more vulnerable species, are also hunted for their tusks, body parts, meat and hide. Unlike their African cousins, only male Asian elephants have tusks - a fact that makes the consequences of poaching even more devastating, since the selective killings of bulls creates a gender imbalance and thereby reduces reproduction in the remaining population.
2. Rhinos
Rhinoceroses, like elephants, suffer the misfortune of having an external protrusion that humans arbitrarily place a crazily high value upon. Crazy, crazy high: rhino horn was reported to be selling for $65,000 per kilo in 2012, making it more expensive by weight than gold, diamonds or cocaine.

The demand comes from Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, where some people believe that consuming rhino horn - approximate nutritional value: human fingernails - will cure everything from cancer to hangovers to a dull night out. The black market demand for rhino horn has led to a surge in poaching of the critically endangered black rhino and the more numerous southern white rhino across southern Africa since 2008. This is especially the case in South Africa, where illegal killings hit another record high this year at 393 in the 12 months till April. And that's not counting legal deaths. Trophy hunters can pay more than $100,000 for the "right" to kill a rhino and keep its horn, under a government scheme that allows hunters to shoot one rhino a year with the proper permit. Many suspect it's open to abuse by people who've come for the horn, not the hunt. Either way, the rhino ends up dead.

Finding themselves faced with more and more mutilated rhino carcasses, horns hacked off sometimes while the animals were still alive, authorities are resorting to increasingly drastic methods to try and protect the rhinos that remain, from drone surveillance to a rhino DNA database to even poisoning rhinos' horns. So far, it's not working. The western black rhinoceros went extinct in 2011. T he rest of Africa's wild rhinos could follow suit within 20 years.
3. Tigers
Fact: humans are the worst thing ever to happen to tigers. We'd hunted them down to just 5,000 and 7,000 individuals worldwide by the late 1990s. That was considered a dangerously low number then. By 2014, it had halved. Some estimates say fewer than 2,500 mature tigers currently exist in the wild.

The problem is our passion for every part of them: Tiger skins, bones, teeth, claws, tails and even whiskers find a place on the black market as decorative items or ingredients in traditional Asian remedies. The illegal trade is further fuelled by tiger farms in China and Vietnam, where large numbers of the animals are bred for their body parts. Depressingly, as many as three times more tigers exist on such farms than in the wild. Elsewhere, tigers are reared to be killed in "canned" hunts by trophy seekers.

Even in the wild, we're killing tigers faster than we can destroy their habitat. The most haunting proof that poaching is the greatest threat to tigers? " Empty forest syndrome ": Roughly 620,000 square miles of what should be tiger habitat currently lies unoccupied.
4. Sea turtles
Don't imagine that poachers only ransack the land. Oh no, they find plenty to kill in the sea, too. One of their most popular targets is the hawksbill, the tropical turtle whose beautiful yellow-and-brown shell provides the commodity known as tortoiseshell. Millions of the animals have been killed over the past century to feed the fashion for tortoiseshell jewelry, glasses, ornaments, instruments and other items, with the result that the species is now critically endangered. The international trade has been banned for almost 40 years, but a black market continues to thrive in Asia, notably China and Japan, and in the Americas.

Hawksbills are also killed for what's under their shell - their meat. Either it's eaten by humans, or used as bait to catch sharks. Other parts of their body are used to make leather, perfume and cosmetics, or stuffed whole and displayed as "decoration."

For all sea turtles, including the leatherbacks and green turtles that also find themselves on the receiving end of poachers' deadly attention, poaching is potentially catastrophic. The animals take so long to reach breeding age - more than 30 years, in some cases - that many are killed before they ever have the chance to reproduce.
5. Lemurs
There are no mammals on earth more endangered than lemurs - and yet, we're still hunting them. Over 90 percent of all species of the big-eyed primates - found only on the island of Madagascar - are considered vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.

Deforestation and climate change are largely to blame for their decline. But hunting lemurs for their meat, which has reportedly increased in the chaos that followed Madagascar's 2009 coup, is also diminishing their tiny numbers. Despite legislation that makes killing them illegal, lemurs are poached either to be sold to restaurants or simply to be eaten by impoverished locals desperate for food.

The tragic irony is that a lemur in the hand is worth much less than two in the bush. Like lions in Zimbabwe, lemurs are a huge tourism attraction for Madagascar and will always make more profit for more people alive than dead. Not to mention the fact that NO ONE SHOULD BE KILLING LEMURS ANYWAY.
6. Gorillas
Still clinging on to a scrap of faith in humanity? Prepare to drop it, quick. We humans are slaughtering the greatest of our fellow great apes, the gorilla.

Gorillas used to be protected from our murderous appetite by the huge tracts of unspoiled forest in Central Africa that they lived in. But then - oopsy! - we spoiled it. Logging, new roads and the migrations caused by successive wars brought people within firing range of gorillas. You can guess what happened next. What began as subsistence hunting quickly grew into an illicit commercial trade in gorilla meat that sees the animals butchered, transported and sold on. An increasing number of them make it as far as cities, where restaurants serve up "bushmeat" to wealthy clientele who like their dinner endangered.

If that weren't enough, poachers have begun to target gorillas for their body parts, to be used in folk remedies or simply as trophies. Heads, hands and feet are said to be particularly popular.

Other gorillas are casualties of other crimes in their protected habitat. In the Democratic Republic of Congo's historic Virunga National Park, mountain gorillas have been found shot through the back of the head, execution-style, in attacks blamed on traders who illegally harvest wood to make charcoal from the protected forest.

All species of gorilla are suffering, including the critically endangered western lowland gorilla. Combined with habitat loss, climate change and disease, numbers are now so low and reproduction so limited that the deaths of even a few animals at the hands of poachers stand to have a major impact on the population. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, by the middle of this century we may well have wiped out more than 80 percent of all western gorillas in just three generations.

Good job, humankind.

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6 endangered animals that poaching might take from us forever

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Do you want the bad news or the even worse news? The bad news you probably already know: Cecil the lion, one of Zimbabwe's best loved wild animals, was slain last week at the hands of unscrupulous safari guides and, it's claimed, a crossbow-happy dentist from Minnesota.

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how rhino poaching works

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Rhino horn is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but increasingly common is its use as a status symbol to display success and wealth. Poaching is now a threat in all rhino range states, however, as South Africa is home to the majority of rhinos in the world, it is being heavily targeted. More than ever, our partners are investing heavily in anti-poaching activities.

Poachers are now being supplied by international criminal gangs with sophisticated equipment to track and kill rhinos. Frequently a tranquiliser gun is used to bring the rhino down, before its horn is hacked off, leaving the rhino to wake up and bleed to death very painfully and slowly. Poachers are often armedwith guns themselves, making them very dangerous for the anti-poaching teams who put their lives on the line to protect rhinos.

The scarcity of rhinos today and the corresponding intermittent availability of rhino horn only drives the price of horn higher and higher, intensifying pressure on declining rhino populations. For people whose annual income is often far below the subsistence level, the opportunity to change one's life by killing an animal that they don't value is overwhelming. Find out the latest poaching statistics.

What is rhino horn?

Rhino horns are similar in structure to horses' hooves, turtle beaks, and cockatoo bills. They are made of keratin - in rhinoceros horn, it is chemically complex and contains large quantities of sulphur-containing amino acids, particularly cysteine, as well as tyrosine, histidine, lysine, and arginine, and the salts calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

According to traditional Chinese texts, such as Li Shih-chen's 1597 medical text "Pen Ts' ao Kang Mu", rhino horn has been used in Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years and is used to treat fever, rheumatism, gout, and other disorders. It also states that the horn could also cure snakebites, hallucinations, typhoid, headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning, and "devil possession." While it is commonly believed to be prescribed as an aphrodisiac, this is not the case.

When used, the horn is shaved or ground into a powder, before being dissolved in boiling water and consumed.

As Richard Ellis, author of "Tiger bone and rhino horn" wrote in 2005 for the EAZA Rhino Campaign's Info Pack: "It is not clear that rhino horn serves any medicinal purpose whatsoever, but it is a testimony to the power of tradition that millions of people believe that it does. Of course, if people want to believe in prayer, acupuncture or voodoo as a cure for what ails them, there is no reason why they shouldn't, but if animals are being killed to provide nostrums that have been shown to be useless, then there is a very good reason to curtail the use of rhino horn. There are five species of rhinoceros and, with the exception of one subspecies of African White rhino, all are in danger of being hunted to extinction for their horns. Rhinos, as we know them, have been around for millions of years, but Dr H. Spaiens has created a predicament from which they might never recover. It is heartbreaking to realise that the world's rhinos are being eliminated from the face of the earth in the name of medications that probably don't work."

Aphrodisiac

There is a belief in Western countries that rhino horn is used as an aphrodisiac and sexual stimulant, but this is not correct and seems to have been misunderstood or misinterpreted by Western media. However, research has shown that people in Viet Nam are starting to believe this rumour as they are consuming it for new reasons.

Even without aphrodisiacal properties, however, rhino horn is one of the mainstays of Traditional Chinese Medicines, and its collection has been responsible for the death of tens of thousands of rhinos around the world.

Make no mistake: those people using rhino horn to cure medical ailments really believe it works. That's what drives up the demand on which the poachers thrive. As Ann and Steve Toon commented in 2002, "For practitioners of traditional Asian medicine, rhino horn is not perceived as a frivolous love potion, but as an irreplaceable pharmaceutical necessity."

Viet Nam - new uses for rhino horn

There has been a recent surge in demand for rhino horn in Viet Nam. A survey, carried out by TRAFFIC in 2013, identified that the motivation for consumers buying rhino horn is the emotional benefit rather than medicinal, as it reaffirms their social status among their peers. Image and status are important to these consumers, as they tend to be highly educated and successful people who have a powerful social network and no affinity to wildlife. Rhino horns are sometimes bought for the sole purpose of being gifted to others; to family members, business colleagues or people in positions of authority.

TRAFFIC identified three main consumer groups. You can read their report here.

Trade

The international trade in rhino horn has been banned under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora) since 1977. In South Africa it is possible to trade rhino horn domestically (within the country), after a legal battle to overturn the ban took place in 2017. There are wider calls from within the country to legalise the international trade in rhino horn.

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Poaching | Rhino Threats | Save the Rhino International

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Rhino poaching has escalated in recent years, driven by the demand for rhino horn. Learn more about poaching and how we are working to combat this illegal trade.

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Animals going extinct in South East Asia

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"This is what an extinction crisis looks like," says Dr Simon Attwood, Conservation Head at WWF-Singapore. Here, his honest take on Southeast Asia's role in stopping it. LATEST UPDATE: The last female Sumatran rhino Iman died of cancer on Saturday morning (23 Nov) - just five months after the last male of the species passed on in May. This would make Iman the last of her kind to have existed in Malaysia.
As you're reading this, I'll assume that you already care about nature and wildlife. Or maybe you've seen the many recent news articles about the 'biodiversity extinction crisis' or the ' 6 mass extinction ', or you want to know why thousands of school children across the globe are going on strike for planetary health, and in trying to find out more you landed here.

Let's get one thing cleared up - biodiversity, nature, wildlife, call it what you will is in rapid decline across the whole planet. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) makes this very clear.

So do the thousands of scientific journal papers that are reporting species loss, population declines, habitat destruction, and chronic overfishing across the world.

A walk through a silent forest, peering into a bleached coral reef, a night-time drive through a countryside emptied of flying insects. You might also come across articles written by commentators who are distinctly unqualified in this area, but who claim that biodiversity is not declining -it's a comforting thought in difficult times, but alas for us all, they're wrong.

Many scientists, including the 450 or so who wrote the IPBES report, say that lots of the species we are losing haven't even been discovered (by people that is) and named yet! Their extinctions are predicted on the confirmed declines and extinctions of species that we DO know about.

Does that really matter? How are we going to miss them if we don't know them?

Just leave nature and wildlife alone

Well, each and every one us is dependent on nature, whether we realise it or not, and losing it means losing the many benefits it brings. Nature comprises the food we eat (it even has its own name, agrobiodiversity), purifies our water, pollinates our crops, eats our agricultural pests, forms soil for crops to grow in, is the fish we eat, maintains our climate, and makes us feel good. All for free...and all we have to do is not destroy it. But destroying it we most certainly are.

But what does extinction actually look like? Yesterday we heard the news that the last male Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia has died in Sabah. A sad day indeed, but what does this actually mean?

What it means is that here is a species that used to live throughout much of Southeast Asia but has now become restricted to tiny, imperiled fragments of its former range and captive populations. It means that largely due to habitat destruction and poaching, this species has been reduced to a few tens of individuals anywhere in the world.

It means that humanity is failing to conserve Sumatran rhino. But it's just one species, right?

If such a large and charismatic species is allowed to disappear due to lack of funds, lack of efforts and lack of political will - what about the non-photogenic species, the species that are not yet classified or named, the species that drive the ecological processes upon which we depend?

Poor stewards of the world's richest treasures: Southeast Asia

The Indochinese tiger can only be found in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia.
© Connie Lemperle / WWF-Greater Mekong

Here in Southeast Asia, we are particularly blessed with nature. Several of the most biodiverse countries in the world are situated here, supporting the significant populations of wildlife species. Indonesia is third only to Brazil and Colombia, with the highest proportion of endemic bird and mammal species of any tropical region, and new species are being discovered whenever scientists look for them.

All this shows that Southeast Asia is one of the most incredible 'hotspots' of nature and wildlife in the world. This brings significant benefit for people in the region.

Two fishermen with a day's catch of flying fishes, who are benefitting from protecting Philippine waters.

An example would be this incredibly important marine environment in Northern Palawan, Philippines.

It has one of the richest coral reefs in the Southeast Asian region and used to be important fishing grounds that provides food to people living there.

Communities living in this area are reaping the benefits from protecting 1 million hectares of oceans that helped secure food security for future generations and improve livelihoods for more than 5000 fishermen living in 112 villages.

However, Southeast Asia is also a hotspot of decline and extinction, and is an epicenter of threats and negative human impacts on wildlife.

Emergency over threats to wildlife, nature and people

Not to scare you, but here is just a small selection:

In Southeast Asia alone, annual forest cover has decreased by 1.45 million hectares from 2000-2010 due to huge rates of deforestation and habitat loss.

113 mammal species threatened by hunting in Southeast Asia alone. 109,217 wildlife snares found in a single park in Cambodia. Yet, rampant illegal hunting and wildlife trade continues to thrive.

Patrolling, uncovering and dismantling a snare intended to catch wildlife in a protected woodland in Cambodia.
© Ola Jennersten / WWF-Sweden

The population of Southeast Asia has grown by approximately 24%, from 525 to 649 million, between 2000-2017. While we are overexploiting nature to its limits, how much longer can we support the rapid population growth from 2019 to beyond?

With an issue most of us are familiar with (read: waste and plastic pollution) - five of the top ten contributors of global marine plastic debris are Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia).

Serious lack of funding to protect the planet's richest biodiversity

So, with all of this, why is Southeast Asia often overlooked in discussions, policies and funding about the most important areas for conservation? Malaysia was ranked in the top 10 and Indonesia in the top 40 of the most underfunded countries in the world for biodiversity conservation relative to conservation needs. In addition, the effectiveness of protected areas in the region for actually conserving biodiversity is repeatedly being questioned.

The lack of funds translates to limited research that could lead to better government policies, responsible business practices. Southeast Asia is poorly represented in biodiversity research science publications, despite the region supporting high biodiversity that is under threat. Moreover, regional governments have placed biodiversity research in low priority.

Under current rates of decline, it is anticipated that many species will become extinct in the region.

The solutions are as many as the threats, but among these need to be i) a rethink of how conservation funds are prioritised to regions of high biodiversity and critical threats, ii) policy change and increased enforcement for illegal land clearing and poaching and illegal wildlife trade, and iii) fundamentally raising the profile of biodiversity and alerting all stakeholders (governments, businesses, the general public, the media) to its importance, uniqueness and the benefits that it provides to us all.

As you're reading this, I'll assume that you already care about nature and wildlife. Under current rates of decline, it is anticipated that many species will become extinct in the region. But the clock is ticking, we all have to act and there is no time to waste.
If you like reading this, find out why the haze could be much worse it is how collaring wild elephants could save their lives helped disrupt wildlife crime by closing down 4 Golden Triangle shops in Asia

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How Did We Fail to Save the Last Male Sumatran Rhino in Malaysia?

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"This is what an extinction crisis looks like," says Dr Simon Attwood, Conservation Head at WWF-Singapore. Here, his honest take on Southeast Asia's role in stopping it. LATEST UPDATE: The last female Sumatran rhino Iman died of cancer on Saturday morning (23 Nov) - just five months after the last male of the species passed on in May.

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death of poacher

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When the news broke that a poacher had been trampled to death by an elephant, social media had something to say about it. But the issue isn't so black and white.
Wildlife photographer George Turner has spent much of his time in different parts of Africa, working closely with poachers-turned-safari-guides. When the news broke that a poacher had been killed in the field, he wanted to respond to the celebratory outcry that followed on social media.
In April of this year, five men illegally snuck into South Africa's Kruger National Park with a single, sole intent: kill a rhinoceros. Their plan failed and only four returned home. The fifth was charged and trampled by an elephant, his body eaten by a pride of lions. Only his skull and torn trousers were found.

Two sub-species of rhino are now extinct in the wild in Africa due to poaching; the western black and rhino and northern white rhino. © George Turner

While poachers are often killed, maimed, or go missing, this particular case put the magnifying glass over poaching and our understanding of an extremely complex issue.

In an unprecedented move, the managing executive of Kruger National Park (KNP) Glen Phillips, extended his condolences to the family of the man, saying, "It's very sad to see the daughters of the deceased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains."

Phillips' statement was an unusual one. Historically, KNP - and indeed, all other park and reserve authorities - report facts and facts only. The perpetrators would be referred to as 'individuals' or by gender, with no attempt to humanise their actions or indeed, cause reason to reflect on why they've committed such terrible crimes.

Some rhino conversancies shave down the rhino's horn to deter poachers.

Such a simple statement of condolences was made with purpose: to drive conversation and question motives. Yet, social media was devoid of such sympathy.

"Karma is a btch"; "There must be a God"; "It's a shame all five didn't die"; "The animals are fighting back!"; "Great job Dumbo and Simba"; "I hope they [the lions] had seconds!"; "Get recked!"; "They deserved it"; "Best news ever, I'm rejoicing". All real comments, made by real people.

At a surface level, the negative and at times violent comments are understandable; the demand for ivory, rhino horn, pangolin scales, lion and tiger bones, and so much more is causing the widespread decline of hundreds of species. Moreover, poaching has driven two sub-species to extinction in the wild: the western black rhino and the northern white rhino.

The key here is that poaching cannot be taken at face-value.

Individuals like the man killed in Kruger are not the instigators. They're not the smuggling syndicate leaders whose greed results in them commissioning horrific crimes against wildlife. They're not reveling in the profits of the demand coming from East Asia. These poachers are generally poor individuals, living in impoverished conditions and indeed, who gain little-to-nothing from the burgeoning eco-tourism businesses that operate near their homes.

Aside from the occasional low-paid jobs in national parks or lodges, many of those living near protected areas continue to live off the land. They live in a reality where their livestock - cows, sheep, goats - are killed by big cats and hyenas, where crops are trampled or eaten by elephants and other grazers, and where their children are at risk from death or injury by simply walking to school.

It isn't just rhinos that are targeted by poachers. Elephants in the area are also killed for ivory or in human-wildlife conflict. © George Turner

The man who was trampled was no different. He, like many in South Africa's Eastern Cape (the country's poorest province) are surviving on an income of less than $3,700USD per year. One rhino horn could have paid for his entire family's medical fees, sent his daughters to school, and greatly increased living stands for an entire year. One horn. One. With that in mind, it's hardly surprising that he, like so many others, are being drawn into the poaching business.

It never ends well. They risk being shot, killed by animals and best case scenario, face lengthy prison sentences. This will not deter other poachers. The middlemen simply increase the bounty and once again, more young men will appear to either kill wildlife, or die trying.

Local communities are being exploited to feed the East Asia market and in turn, enabling illegal crime syndicates to profit massively. In some extreme circumstances, these syndicates have even been known to kidnap or financially disable families to coerce them into following their orders.

These syndicates aren't led by locals, they are fuelled by the East Asian market that's worth up to $23 billion annually (according to TRAFFIC). The layers and layers of middlemen between the source - criminal networks primarily in China and Vietnam - mean that the original instigators, the kingpins, rarely face justice. On the rare occasions that they do, their financial resources and connections within the police and judiciary, mean that their cases rarely even make it to court. Instead, it's those at the lowest rung of a very long funnel who see violent ends. They're disposable objects. Where's the "karma" here?

Poaching is abhorrent, there's no other way to view it. Therein lies the key: it's how you view it and the intricacies within an incredibly complex weave of threads. The poorest communities deserve help. Instead of being shamed, they need to be incentivised. Educated, not threatened.

The Naboisho Conservancy - part of the Greater Maasai Mara in Kenya - is an amazing example of humans and wildlife living in harmony. Maasai people, working with the Kenya Wildlife Service, pooled together their land and 'rent' it out to various eco-tourism businesses. The deal allows them to continue grazing their cattle - integral to the Maasai culture - in certain sections of Naboisho, as well as every tourist visiting paying a "conservancy fee" that goes directly to the Maasai.

This community conservancy model has essentially eradicated poaching in Naboisho, putting a stop to revenge killings against predators (instead, they receive monetary compensation), and dramatically changed the way wildlife is viewed by locals.

Anti-poaching authorities work tirelessly to prevent animals being killed. © George Turner

Young adults aspire to study at the Koiyaki Guiding School situated within the conservancy, with their fees covered by eco-tourism companies in Naboisho. Every lodge operates charitable programmes, fuelling and funding initiatives led by locals - from bead and jewellery businesses through to cultural visits - where they receive all income. This model has been so successful that it's now being deployed across countless other projects in Africa and Asia.

By empowering and enabling local communities, the poaching kingpins' power is completely severed. The true value of wildlife is enabling it to flourish, not grinding it into fake medicines, carvings, and clothing.

Humans and wildlife can work together in a perfect symbiosis, each benefitting from the presence of the other. It's how it once was... and how it should be.

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When the news broke that a poacher had been trampled to death by an elephant, social media had something to say about it. But the issue isn't so black and white. Wildlife photographer George Turner has spent much of his time in different parts of Africa, working closely with poachers-turned-safari-guides.

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about poaching

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Toggle the table of contents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.[1][2] Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets.[3] It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.[4]

Since the 1980s, the term "poaching" has also been used to refer to the illegal harvesting of wild plant species.[5][6] In agricultural terms, the term 'poaching' is also applied to the loss of soils or grass by the damaging action of feet of livestock, which can affect availability of productive land, water pollution through increased runoff and welfare issues for cattle.[7] Stealing livestock, as in cattle raiding classifies as theft, not as poaching.[8]

In 1998, environmental scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst proposed the concept of poaching as an environmental crime and defined as any illegal activity that contravenes the laws and regulations established to protect renewable natural resources, including the illegal harvest of wildlife with the intention of possessing, transporting, consuming or selling it and using its body parts. They considered poaching as one of the most serious threats to the survival of plant and animal populations.[6] Wildlife biologists and conservationists consider poaching to have a detrimental effect on biodiversity both within and outside protected areas as wildlife populations decline, species are depleted locally, and the functionality of ecosystems is disturbed.[10]

Austria and Germany refer to poaching not as theft but as intrusion into third-party hunting rights.[12] While ancient Germanic law allowed any free man, including peasants, to hunt, especially on common land, Roman law restricted hunting to the rulers. In medieval Europe rulers of feudal territories from the king downward tried to enforce exclusive rights of the nobility to hunt and fish on the lands that they ruled. Poaching was deemed a serious crime punishable by imprisonment, but enforcement was comparably weak until the 16th century. Peasants were still allowed to continue small game hunting, but the right of the nobility to hunt was restricted in the 16th century and transferred to land ownership. The low quality of guns made it necessary to approach the game as close as 30 m (100 ft). Poachers in the Salzburg region were typically unmarried men around 30 years of age and usually alone on their illegal trade.[13]

The development of modern hunting rights is closely connected to the comparatively modern idea of exclusive private ownership of land. In the 17th and the 18th centuries, the restrictions on hunting and shooting rights on private property were enforced by gamekeepers and foresters. They denied shared usage of forests, such as resin collection and wood pasture and the peasants right to hunt and fish. However, by end of the 18th century, comparably-easy access to rifles increasingly allowed peasants and servants to poach.[14] Hunting was used in the 18th century as a theatrical[clarification needed ] demonstration of the aristocratic rule of the land and also had a strong impact on land use patterns.[15] Poaching not only interfered with property rights but also clashed symbolically with the power of the nobility. Between 1830 and 1848, poaching and poaching-related deaths increased in Bavaria.[16] The German revolutions of 1848-49 were interpreted as a general permission for poaching in Bavaria. The reform of the hunting law in 1849 restricted legal hunting to rich landowners and middle classes who could pay hunting fees, which led to disappointment among the general public, who continued to view poachers favourably.[dubious ][16] Some of the frontier regions, where smuggling was important, showed especially strong resistance to that development. In 1849, the Bavarian military forces were asked to occupy a number of municipalities on the frontier with Austria. Both in Wallgau (now part of Garmisch-Partenkirchen) and in Lackenhäuser, in the Bavarian forest, each household had to feed and accommodate one soldier for a month as part of a military mission to quell the disturbance. The people of Lackenhäuser had several skirmishes with Austrian foresters and military that started due to poached deer. The well-armed people set against the representatives of the state were known as bold poachers ( kecke Wilderer).[4] Some poachers and their violent deaths, like Matthias Klostermayr (1736-1771), Georg Jennerwein (1848-1877) and Pius Walder (1952-1982) gained notoriety and have had a strong cultural impact, which has persisted until today.[13] Poaching was used as a dare. It had a certain erotic connotation, as in Franz Schubert's Hunter's love song, (1828, Schubert Thematic Catalogue 909). The lyrics of Franz von Schober connected unlimited hunting with the pursuit of love. Further poaching related legends and stories ranged from the 1821 opera Freischütz to Wolfgang Franz von Kobell's 1871 story about the Brandner Kasper, a Tegernsee locksmith and poacher who struck a special deal with the Grim Reaper.[5]

Poaching, like smuggling, has a long history in United Kingdom. The verb poach is derived from the Middle English word pocchen literally meaning bagged, enclosed in a bag, which is cognate with "pouch".[17][18] Poaching was dispassionately reported for England in "Pleas of the Forest", transgressions of the rigid Anglo-Norman forest law.[19] William the Conqueror, who was a great lover of hunting, established and enforced a system of forest law. That operated outside the common law and served to protect game animals and their forest habitat from hunting by the common people of England and reserved hunting rights for the new French-speaking Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Henceforth, hunting of game in royal forests by commoners, or in other words poaching, was invariably punishable by death by hanging. In 1087, the poem " The Rime of King William", contained in the Peterborough Chronicle, expressed English indignation at the severe new laws. Poaching was romanticised in literature from the time of the ballads of Robin Hood, as an aspect of the "greenwood" of Merry England. In one tale, Robin Hood is depicted as offering King Richard the Lion Heart venison from deer that was illegally hunted in the Sherwood Forest, the King overlooking the fact that this hunting was a capital offence. The widespread acceptance of the common criminal activity is encapsulated in the observation Non est inquirendum, unde venit venison ("It is not to be inquired, whence comes the venison") that was made by Guillaume Budé in his Traitte de la vénerie.[20] However, the English nobility and land owners were in the long term extremely successful in enforcing the modern concept of property, such as expressed in the enclosures of common land and later in the Highland Clearances, both of which were forced displacement of people from traditional land tenancies and erstwhile-common land. The 19th century saw the rise of acts of legislation, such as the Night Poaching Act 1828 and the Game Act 1831 in the United Kingdom, and various laws elsewhere.

In North America, the blatant defiance of the laws by poachers escalated to armed conflicts with law authorities, including the Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake Bay and the joint US-British Bering Sea Anti-Poaching Operations of 1891 over the hunting of seals.

Violations of hunting laws and regulations concerning wildlife management, local or international wildlife conservation schemes constitute wildlife crimes that are typically punishable.[21][22] The following violations and offenses are considered acts of poaching in the US:

Hunting, killing or collecting wildlife that is listed as endangered by the IUCN and protected by law such as the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and international treaties such as CITES.[21]

Fishing and hunting without a license.[22][23]

Capturing wildlife outside legal hours and outside the hunting season;[21][22] usually the breeding season is declared as the closed season during which wildlife is protected by law.

Prohibited use of machine guns, poison, explosives, snare traps, nets and pitfall traps.[21]

Other offenses of incorrect weaponry, such as the use of cartridge rifles in muzzleloader or archery season or in shotgun-only areas, or the killing of big game animals with insufficient firepower such as .22 Long Rifle rounds.

Prohibited use of baiting with food, decoys or recorded calls in order to increase chances for shooting wildlife.[21]

Hunting from a moving vehicle or aircraft.[21]

Scouting game animals from an aircraft.

Shining deer with a spotlight at night to impair its natural defenses and thus facilitate an easy kill is considered animal abuse.[24] This hunting method is illegal in California, Virginia, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, and Tennessee.[21]

Taking wildlife on land that is restricted, owned by, or licensed to somebody else.

The animal or plant has been tagged by a researcher.

Shooting an animal in a confined area (canned hunting).

Stephen Corry, the director of the human rights group Survival International, has argued that the term "poaching" has at times been used to criminalize the traditional subsistence techniques of indigenous peoples and to bar them from hunting on their ancestral lands when they are declared as wildlife-only zones.[25] Corry argues that parks such as the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are managed for the benefit of foreign tourists and safari groups at the expense of the livelihoods of tribal peoples such as the Kalahari bushmen.[26]

Sociological and criminological research on poaching indicates that in North America people poach for commercial gain, home consumption, trophies, pleasure, and thrill in killing wildlife or because they disagree with certain hunting regulations, claim a traditional right to hunt, or have negative dispositions toward legal authority.[6] In rural areas of the United States, the key motives for poaching are poverty.[27] Interviews conducted with 41 poachers in the Atchafalaya River basin in Louisiana revealed that 37 of them hunt to provide food for themselves and their families; 11 stated that poaching is part of their personal or cultural history; nine earn money from the sale of poached game to support their families; and eight feel exhilarated and thrilled by outsmarting game wardens.[28]

In rural areas in Africa, the key motives for poaching are the lack of employment opportunities and a limited potential for agriculture and livestock production. Poor people rely on natural resources for their survival and generate cash income through the sale of bushmeat, which attracts high prices in urban centres. Body parts of wildlife are also in demand for traditional medicine and ceremonies.[10] The existence of an international market for poached wildlife implies that well-organised gangs of professional poachers enter vulnerable areas to hunt, and crime syndicates organise the trafficking of wildlife body parts through a complex interlinking network to markets outside the respective countries of origin.[29][30] Armed conflict in Africa has been linked to intensified poaching and wildlife declines within protected areas,[31] likely reflecting the disruption of traditional livelihoods, which causes people to seek alternative food sources.

Results of an interview survey conducted in several villages in Tanzania indicate that one of the major reasons of poaching is for consumption and sale of bushmeat. Usually, bushmeat is considered a subset of poaching because of the hunting of animals regardless of the laws that conserve certain species of animals. Many families consume more bushmeat if there are no alternative sources of protein available such as fish. The further the families were from the reserve, the less likely they were to illegally hunt wildlife for bushmeat. They were more likely to hunt for bushmeat right before the harvest season and during heavy rains, as before the harvest season, there is not much agricultural work, and heavy rainfall obscures human tracks and makes it easier for poachers to get away with their crimes.[32]

In China, there are problems with wildlife conservation, specifically relating to tigers. Several authors collaborated on the piece "Public attitude toward tiger farming and tiger conservation in Beijing, China", and explored the option of whether it would be a better policy to raise tigers on a farm or put them in a wildlife conservation habitat to preserve the species. Conducting a survey on 1,058 residents of Beijing, China, with 381 being university students and the other 677 being regular citizens, they tried to gauge public opinion about tigers and conservation efforts for them. They were asked questions regarding the value of tigers in relations to ecology, science, education, aestheticism, and culture. However, one reason emerged as to why tigers are still highly demanded in illegal trading: culturally, they are still status symbols of wealth for the upper class, and they are still thought to have mysterious medicinal and healthcare effects.[35]

The detrimental effects of poaching can include:

Defaunation of forests: predators, herbivores and fruit-eating vertebrates cannot recover as fast as they are removed from a forest; as their populations decline, the pattern of seed predation and dispersal is altered; tree species with large seeds progressively dominate a forest, while small-seeded plant species become locally extinct.[36]

Reduction of animal populations in the wild and possible extinction.[37]

The effective size of protected areas is reduced as poachers use the edges of these areas as open-access resources.[38]

Wildlife tourism destinations face a negative publicity; those holding a permit for wildlife-based land uses, tourism-based tour and lodging operators lose income; employment opportunities are reduced.[10]

Emergence of zoonotic diseases caused by transmission of highly variable retrovirus chains:

The body parts of many animals, such as tigers and rhinoceroses, are traditionally believed in some cultures to have certain positive effects on the human body, including increasing virility and curing cancer. These parts are sold in areas where these beliefs are practiced - mostly Asian countries particularly Vietnam and China - on the black market.[43] Such alternative medicial beliefs are pseudoscientific and are not supported by evidence-based medicine.[44][45]

Traditional Chinese medicine often incorporates ingredients from all parts of plants, the leaf, stem, flower, root, and also ingredients from animals and minerals. The use of parts of endangered species (such as seahorses, rhinoceros horns, binturong, pangolin scales and tiger bones and claws) has created controversy and resulted in a black market of poachers.[46][47][48] Deep-seated cultural beliefs in the potency of tiger parts are so prevalent across China and other east Asian countries that laws protecting even critically endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger fail to stop the display and sale of these items in open markets, according to a 2008 report from TRAFFIC.[49] Popular "medicinal" tiger parts from poached animals include tiger genitals, believed to improve virility, and tiger eyes.

Rhino populations face extinction because of demand in Asia (for traditional medicine and as a luxury item) and in the Middle East (where horns are used for decoration).[50] A sharp surge in demand for rhino horn in Vietnam was attributed to rumors that the horn cured cancer, though this has no basis in science.[51][52] In 2012, one kilogram of crushed rhino horn has sold for as much as $60,000, more expensive than a kilogram of gold.[53] Vietnam is the only nation which mass-produces bowls made for grinding rhino horn.[54]

Ivory, which is a natural material of several animals, plays a large part in the trade of illegal animal materials and poaching. Ivory is a material used in creating art objects and jewelry where the ivory is carved with designs. China is a consumer of the ivory trade and accounts for a significant amount of ivory sales. In 2012, The New York Times reported on a large upsurge in ivory poaching, with about 70% of all illegal ivory flowing to China.[55][56]

Fur is also a natural material which is sought after by poachers. A Gamsbart, literally chamois beard, a tuft of hair traditionally worn as a decoration on trachten-hats in the alpine regions of Austria and Bavaria formerly was worn as a hunting (and poaching) trophy. In the past, it was made exclusively from hair from the chamois' lower neck.[57]

There are different anti-poaching efforts around the world.

Members of the Rhino Rescue Project have implemented a technique to combat rhino poaching in South Africa by injecting a mixture of indelible dye and a parasiticide into the animals' horns, which enables tracking of the horns and deters consumption of the horn by purchasers. Since rhino horn is made of keratin, advocates say the procedure is painless for the animal.[60]

Another strategy being used to counter rhino poachers in Africa is called RhODIS, which is a database that compiles rhino DNA from confiscated horns and other goods that were being illegally traded, as well as DNA recovered from poaching sites. RhODIS cross-references the DNA as it searches for matches; if a match is found, it is used to track down the poachers.

Africa's Wildlife Trust seeks to protect African elephant populations from poaching activities in Tanzania. Hunting for ivory was banned in 1989, but poaching of elephants continues in many parts of Africa stricken by economic decline. The International Anti-Poaching Foundation has a structured military-like approach to conservation, employing tactics and technology generally reserved for the battlefield. Founder Damien Mander is an advocate of the use of military equipment and tactics, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, for military-style anti-poaching operations.[61][62][63] Such military-style approaches have been criticised for failing to resolve the underlying reasons for poaching, but to neither tackle "the role of global trading networks" nor the continued demand for animal products. Instead, they "result in coercive, unjust and counterproductive approaches to wildlife conservation".[64]

Chengeta Wildlife is an organization that works to equip and train wildlife protection teams and lobbies African governments to adopt anti-poaching campaigns.[65]Jim Nyamu's elephant walks are part of attempts in Kenya to reduce ivory poaching.[66]

In 2013, the Tanzanian Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism urged that poachers be shot on sight in an effort to stop the mass killing of elephants.[67] Since December 2016, anti-poaching police units in Namibia are permitted to return fire on poachers if fired upon.[68] The government of Botswana adopted a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers in 2013 as a "legitimate conservation strategy" and "a necessary evil", which has reduced poaching to the point it is thought to be "virtually non-existent" in the country, and that neighbouring countries like South Africa should also adopt similar measures in order to save wildlife from extinction.[69][70] In May 2018, the Kenyan government announced that poachers will face the death penalty, as fines and life imprisonment have "not been deterrence enough to curb poaching, hence the proposed stiffer sentence".[71] Human rights organizations oppose the move, but wildlife advocates support it. Save the Rhino, a UK-based wildlife advocacy organization notes that in Kenya, 23 rhinos and 156 elephants were killed by poachers between 2016 and 2017. As of March 2019, the measure is being put on the fast track to implementation by Kenyan lawmakers.[72]

Large quantities of ivory are sometimes destroyed as a statement against poaching, a.k.a. " ivory crush".[73] In 2013 the Philippines were the first country to destroy their national seized ivory stock.[74] In 2014, China followed suit and crushed six tons of ivory as a symbolic statement against poaching.[75][76]

There are two main solutions according to Frederick Chen that would attack the supply side of this poaching problem to reduce its effects: enforcing and enacting more policies and laws for conservation and by encouraging local communities to protect the wildlife around them by giving them more land rights.[35]

Nonetheless, Frederick Chen wrote about two types of effects stemming from demand-side economics: the bandwagon and snob effect. The former deals with people desiring a product due to many other people buying it, while the latter is similar but with one distinct difference: people will clamour to buy something if it denotes wealth that only a few elites could possibly afford. Therefore, the snob effect would offset some of the gains made by anti-poaching laws, regulations, or practices: if a portion of the supply is cut off, the rarity and price of the object would increase, and only a select few would have the desire and purchasing power for it. While approaches to dilute mitigate poaching from a supply-side may not be the best option as people can become more willing to purchase rarer items, especially in countries gaining more wealth and therefore higher demand for illicit goods-Frederick Chen still advocates that we should also focus on exploring ways to reduce the demand for these goods to better stop the problem of poaching.[77] Indeed, there is some evidence that interventions to reduce consumer demand may be more effective for combatting poaching than continually increased policing to catch poachers.[78] However, almost no groups deploying interventions that attempt to reduce consumer demand evaluate the impact of their actions.[79]

Another solution to alleviate poaching proposed in Tigers of the World was about how to implement a multi-lateral strategy that targets different parties to conserve wild tiger populations in general. This multi-lateral approach include working with different agencies to fight and prevent poaching since organized crime syndicates benefit from tiger poaching and trafficking; therefore, there is a need to raise social awareness and implement more protection and investigative techniques. For example, conservation groups raised more awareness amongst park rangers and the local communities to understand the impact of tiger poaching-they achieved this through targeted advertising that would impact the main audience. Targeting advertising using more violent imagery to show the disparity between tigers in nature and as a commodity made a great impact on the general population to combat poaching and indifference towards this problem. The use of spokespeople such as Jackie Chan and other famous Asian actors and models who advocated against poaching also helped the conservation movement for tigers too.[33]

In July 2019, rhino horns encased in plaster were seized in Vietnam that were being trafficked from the United Arab Emirates. Despite the ban on trade since the 1970s, poaching level of rhino horns has risen over the last decade, leading the rhino population into crisis.[80]

Poaching has many causes in both Africa and China. The issue of poaching is not a simple one to solve as traditional methods to counter poaching have not taken into the account the poverty levels that drive some poachers and the lucrative profits made by organized crime syndicates who deal in illegal wildlife trafficking. Conservationists hope the new emerging multi-lateral approach, which would include the public, conservation groups, and the police, will be successful for the future of these animals.[81][82]

Some game wardens have made use of robotic decoy animals placed in high visibility areas to draw out poachers for arrest after the decoys are shot.[83] Decoys with robotics to mimic natural movements are also in use by law enforcement.[84] The Marine Monitor radar system watches sensitive marine areas for illicit vessel movement.[85]

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Toggle the table of contents From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.[1] [2] Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets.[3] It was set against the

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where poaching appears...

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Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, China, Thailand and the Philippines, some of the world's worst countries for poaching and illegal trade in ivory have been allowed to exit a key international initiative set up to curb the mass slaughter of elephants.

They have been allowed to exit the National Ivory Action Plan (NIAP) process at a recent meeting of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), because they have supposedly substantially achieved their National Ivory Action Plans.

However, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) strongly disagrees with the so-called success. It says key gaps remain in terms of implementation on the ground and insists that the notion of progress is skewed. "The decision to allow these Parties to exit the NIAP process is particularly problematic because it took place without any consultation with independent experts, nor was it based on an assessment of actual impact on the ground," in. An EIA report on the process which highlights major gaps such as lack of prosecutions and deterrent convictions.

NIAP was set up as a blueprint for key countries involved in poaching or illegal ivory trade to adopt. It consists of country-specific plans, outlining urgent legislative and enforcement measures to be taken to combat the illegal ivory trade, each unique NIAP includes specified time frames and milestones for implementation and requires regular reporting to CITES.

According to the EIA report, China is the world's largest destination for ivory, Uganda is in the top 10 countries in terms of the number of large-scale ivory seizures, Tanzania has suffered one of the most dramatic declines in its elephant populations, Thailand plays a key role as a transit point for ivory trafficking and Kenya is a key exit point for illegal ivory destined for Asia.

The report also alludes to rampant corruption, a lack of prosecution and widespread organised criminal elements. "These countries still face significant challenges in tackling elephant poaching and ivory trafficking," says the EIA.

"Together (excluding the Philippines), they represent 40% of the number of worldwide reported ivory seizures and more than 50% of the total weight of ivory seized worldwide between 2007 and 2017," says a joint statement issued by top wildlife NGOs. The statement also indentifies Japan, Singapore and South as countries of concern, calling for them to also participate in the NIAP process.

These two countries are amongst a handful that still allow a domestic trade in ivory despite a recommendation from CITES that these domestic trade markets be closed as a matter of urgency. In an IUCN conference in 2016 they opposed a ban on the domestic trade in ivory. A report by TRAFFIC on Japan's ivory trade shows clearly how Japan's domestic market is fuelled by an absence of high-level commitment to end the ivory trade, leading to a poorly regulated market that in fact invites the illegal export of ivory. There have been high numbers of illegal exports from Japan to China, with the country regarded as one of Asia's largest ivory markets.

At the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES held in Johannesburg in 2016, South Africa proposed reopening the international trade, requesting that they be allowed to sell their national stockpiles of ivory. However, this joint proposal by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia was not approved.

Read original article: https://www.iol.co.za/news/world/cites-lets-worlds-worst-elephant-poaching-countries-off-the-hook-17397491

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CITES lets world's worst elephant poaching countries off the hook - Conservation Action Trust

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Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, China, Thailand and the Philippines, some of the world's worst countries for poaching and illegal trade in ivory have been allowed to exit a key international initiative set up to curb the mass slaughter of elephants.

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Animals extinct

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Our planet, Earth, hosts more than 30 million animal species. However, a number of those species are at a risk of extinction due to man's intervention for consumption or entertainment. Endangered species are found throughout the world.

Endangered means that the animal is nearly extinct. Many different reasons are in place for the extinction of these animals, whether it is to use for their fur, the oil they produce or as a food source. There are several different types of endangered species. Here we will take a look at some of the most endangered species out there.

1. Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is the most critically endangered species out there. It lives in the Southeastern US and parts of Cuba. It is a huge woodpecker that was extinct until 2004. World Wildlife Fund issued the statement following reports that the ivory-billed woodpecker has been found in Arkansas, 60 years after it was believed to have gone extinct.

Even now, there are only a handful of the woodpeckers that are still around. It is a very vulnerable animal. The Nature Conservancy, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and local communities have worked tirelessly for years to keep these magnificent landscapes intact and help the bird survive.

2. The Amur Leopard

The Amur Leopard is a rare leopard found only in northern Russia's Primorye region. This region is very snowy and cold. At one time, the leopard was also found in Korea and China, but the leopard is obsolete in those areas. The Amur leopard is also known as the Far East leopard, the Manchurian leopard or the Korean leopard.

The Amur leopard can run at speeds of up to 37 miles per hour and has been reported to leap more than 19 feet horizontally and up to 10 feet vertically.

The critically endangered Amur leopard is solitary. Nimble-footed and strong, it carries and hides unfinished kills so that they are not taken by other predators. Some males stay with females after mating, and may even help with rearing the young. Several males sometimes follow and fight over a female.

They live for 10-15 years, and in captivity up to 20 years. According to Census records, there are only 84 and some more adult Amur leopards in existence in the world today.

3. The Javan Rhinoceros

The Javan Rhinoceros is another of the top endangered species out of the five rhino species. This species is dusky grey color and has a single horn of up to about 10 inches. Its skin has a number of loose folds and looks like the armor plating. The Javan rhino looks very similar to the closely-related greater one-horned rhinoceros, but their head is much smaller, and skin folds are less apparent.

There is an estimated 58-68 rhinos still alive today, those residing in Indonesia in the Ujung Kulon National Park. This animal once lived throughout northeast India and Southeast Asia. Vietnam's last Javan rhino was poached in 2010. The animal is so desired because of its horn.

Lemurs are easily recognized by their long, bushy tails and translucent eyes, and found only on Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. This area is found on the southeast coast of Africa.

These unique creatures are the most threatened of all primates. More than 100 different species of Lemur are found, all of which are endangered. There is almost no Lemur remaining today, of any species. Although they are not on the list of critically endangered species, there are few of these animals found at any place.

5. Northern Right Whale

The Northern right whale is the most endangered of the whale species. The North Atlantic right whale can easily be identified by the white calluses on its head, which are very noticeable against the whale's dark gray body. It has a broad back without a dorsal fin and a long arching mouth that begins above the eye. A baleen whale usually feeds by swimming through a swarm of plankton with its mouth open and the head slightly above the surface.

It is found around the Atlantic coasts of Canada as well as the US, with approximately 300-350 different whales still found. This whale is needed for its oil as well as its easy production process. It is a protected whale. Right whales are found more often in coastal waters, especially during the breeding season.

Vaquita is a family of porpoise and the world's rarest marine mammal, on the edge of extinction. Its top or dorsal surface is dark gray, sides are pale gray, and its underside or the ventral surface is white with long, light gray markings. The vaquita has a large dark ring around its eyes and dark patches on its lips that form a thin line from the mouth to the pectoral fins. They are most often found close to shore in the Gulf's shallow waters, although they quickly swim away if a boat approaches.

Only about 10 individuals are remaining. This little porpoise discovered in 1958, and a little over half a century later, they are on the brink of extinction. Vaquitas are often caught and drowned in gillnets used by illegal fishing operations in protected marine areas within Mexico's Gulf of California, specifically, in the stretch of water between Mexico and Baja California.

Climate change is one of the reasons which affects their food availability and habitat. The population has dropped drastically in the last few years.

7. Black Rhinoceros

Black Rhinoceros is another species that is in the list of endangered species that are going to be extinct forever. In the 20th century, populations of black rhino declined dramatically at the hands of European hunters and settlers. Between 1960 and 1995, black rhino numbers dropped by a sobering 98%, to less than 2,500.

However, the species has made a tremendous comeback from the brink of extinction. The persistent conservation efforts across Africa made the black rhino numbers doubled from their historic low 20 years ago to between 5,042 and 5,455 today.

However, the black rhino is still considered critically endangered. Climate change and poaching to sell their horn for extremely high profits are believed to be two major reasons for the drop in the count of this species. A lot of work remains to bring the numbers up to even a fraction of what it once was.

8. Mountain Gorilla

Mountain gorillas are found in forests high in the mountains, at elevations of 8,000 to 13,000 feet. More than 50% live in the Virunga Mountains, a range of extinct volcanoes bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, and the rest can be found in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.

They have thicker fur than other great apes. The fur helps them to survive in a habitat where temperatures often drop below freezing.

It is estimated that more than 1000 mountain gorillas are left in this world, making it another species among the group of the endangered species list. Due to their aggressive behavior, people started having the misconception that they pose a great risk to their safety. They started hunting them down, and despite repeated conservation initiatives, their population is still not secured from poachers.

Baiji and Vaquita are two aquatic animals that have been listed among the most endangered species list. The Baiji is found in the Yangtze River in China and therefore is called the Yangtze River Dolphin. However, in 2006 the Baiji dolphin was declared "functionally extinct". Yet, only three Yangtze River Dolphins were found in an expedition done in 2007.

Despite various initiatives like the creation of natural reserves along the middle and lower areas of the Yangtze River, they have not been effective in preventing incidental deaths of the Yangtze River Dolphins. This was the first time in history that an entire species of dolphins had been wiped off the planet because of human activity.

10. The Saola

The Saola or sow-la is also known as the Asian unicorn. It is rarely seen these days. The animal is quite large and has been around since 1992, though seen only on rare occasions. It is considered a critically endangered animal and is found only in the Annamite Mountains of Laos and Vietnam.

Saolacabn can be identified by two parallel horns with sharp ends on both males and females, which can reach 20 inches in length. Known by "spindle horns" in Vietnamese, it resembles a cattle or an antelope and have striking white patches on its face and large maxillary glands on the muzzle, which could be used to mark territory or attract mates.

11. Cross River Gorilla

Cross River Gorilla is mostly found along the southern Cameroon-Nigerian border. There are only around 200-300 Cross River Gorillas left. This subspecies of the western gorilla looks very similar in appearance to the more numerous western lowland gorilla, but subtle differences can be found in the skull and tooth dimensions.

Cross River gorillas live in a region where many humans live. Humans encroached upon the gorilla's territory, clearing forests for timber and creating fields for agriculture and livestock. Illegal hunting, poaching occurs in the forests as well as changing climate are major reasons for the extinction and loss of habitat of Cross River Gorillas. The loss of even a few of these gorillas has a detrimental effect on such a small population.

12. Leatherback Sea Turtle

The Leatherback Sea Turtle is the largest sea turtle species found on the earth named for their leather-like rather than hardshell, unlike other turtles. It is found all over the globe but is prone to areas of the tropic.

Globally, leatherback status, according to IUCN, is listed as Vulnerable, but many subpopulations (such as in the Pacific and Southwest Atlantic) are Critically Endangered. There were once more than 120,000 adult female leatherback sea turtles, but today the number is down to just about 20,000, and that number continues to decline.

Their distribution is wide; still, numbers of leatherback turtles have seriously declined during the last century due to intense egg collection and fisheries bycatch. Theft of eggs by humans and illegal hunting are perhaps the two most common reasons this turtle is going to be extinct.

13. Siberian Tiger

The Siberian Tiger is the largest cat found in the world. The Siberian tiger was also called "Amur tiger", "Manchurian tiger", "Korean tiger", and "Ussurian tiger", depending on the region where individuals were observed. It can weigh as much as 650 pounds. This species of tiger can be found in the birch forest of Russia and Far East China and Korea. These tigers often live in areas with wintertime temperatures extremely cold, some as much as -50 degrees F.

This tiger is becoming extinct due to hunting. A more detailed census revealed a total population of 562 wild Siberian tigers in Russia. It is illegal to hunt a Siberian tiger.

14. Giant Chinese Salamander

The Giant Chinese Salamander is the world's biggest amphibian. It can grow to be as long as 6 feet in length and weighs over 140 pounds. It is fully aquatic and is endemic to rocky mountain streams and lakes in central China's Yangtze river basin.

They lay as many as 500 eggs at once. Their eggs are found in underwater burrows. It is considered critically endangered in the wild due to habitat loss, pollution, and overcollection. As it is considered a delicacy, people use the Chinese Giant Salamander as food, and they are also used in traditional Chinese medicine.

15. The Little Dodo Bird

The tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculusstrigirostris), also known as the manumea and the genus name Didunculus means "little dodo". The Little Dodo Bird or tooth-billed pigeon is a dark pigeon with reddish feet and red bare skin around the eye. This bird is native to Samoa and is rather small, measuring just 12 inches in length.

It has been shown to be genetically close to the dodo. The tooth-billed pigeon is evaluated as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Surveys suggest 70 to 380 individuals survive in the wild, and there is currently no captive population.

Did you know that all of the animals listed above were on the endangered species list? Although they are the most common of the endangered species, there are certainly many others that are also out there, including the topmost endangered species listed above.

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15 Most Endangered Species on Earth That Are Nearly Extinct - Conserve Energy Future

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Endangered species are found throughout the world. Endangered means that the animal is nearly extinct. Many different reasons are in place for the extinction of these animals, whether it is to use for their fur, the oil they produce or as a food source.

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The problem

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Between 1979 and 1989, the worldwide demand for ivory caused elephant populations to decline to dangerously low levels. During this time period, poachings fueled by ivory sales cut Africa's elephant population in half. Since they were big targets and sported the largest tusks, savannah elephants took the worst hit. But as soon as these elephants began to vanish, hunters moved into the forests in search of the elephants' smaller kin. In 1977, 1.3 million elephants lived in Africa; by 1997, only 600,000 remained.

Recently, that number has stabilized, due in large part to the 1990 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ban on international ivory sales.
But in June, 1997, CITES voted partially to lift trade sanctions and to allow Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to sell stockpiled ivory to Japan, where there is a major ivory market. Many conservation groups fear that this slight loosening of the ivory ban will rekindle poaching throughout the elephants' range.

Even though it is illegal to kill an elephant in Africa, people continue to slaughter the mammoth beasts - if not for ivory, then for revenge. Whether forest or savannah dwellers, roaming elephant herds have begun butting up against sprawling human populations in most regions. While Masai herdsmen coexist with elephants by leaving their livestock unfenced and letting the animals walk through their land, farmers who try to barricade their crops from migrating wildlife create trouble for themselves. To a farmer, an elephant can be an irritating five-ton garden pest - or an active danger to his life. If a hungry beast destroys the season's crop, the culprit (or sometimes just the nearest elephant, guilty or not) may be hunted down and forced to pay the price of the damage with its life.
Scientists are working on remedies to suit both parties. One has developed a pepper-spray bomb that wards off elephants by attacking their sensitive eyes with airborne pepper molecules. The elephant recovers soon after, having learned to stay clear of the fields.
Still, elephant poaching remains a problem in some parts of Africa. In September, 1996, Michael Fay, an elephant researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Society, was flying his small airplane over a remote forest clearing just outside the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in northern Congo when he spotted a cluster of elephant carcasses. Deciding to investigate further, Fay returned the next day by helicopter, accompanied by a television camera crew.

Fay, who had worked with Cynthia Moss and the African Wildlife Foundation to help establish the park in 1993, found a scene of slaughter: there lay more than 300 elephant bodies, all with their tusks hacked off. Cows, calves, and juveniles had been indiscriminately left to die by poachers supplying the illegal ivory trade. Two months later, Fay found the remains of 1,000 more dead elephants nearby.

Taking action into his own hands, Fay chased poachers out of the forest by destroying their camps. He also met with the local village leaders to solicit their help in ending the killings. By the spring of 1997, Fay and his colleagues had stopped illegal hunting of elephants in the Nouabale-Ndoki region. He and Andrea Turkalo, another researcher for the Wildlife Conservation Society, continue to monitor and protect elephants in the Congo basin.
As urban sprawl continues to block migration routes in and out of these protected areas, elephants rely on the open corridors provided by traditional Masai land use. Dr. David Western, director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, believes the best way to alleviate human-wildlife conflicts is to give people a reason to keep the local wildlife alive and healthy. For instance, eco-tourism in Amboseli National Park and its neighbor Nairobi National Park puts money directly back into the local Masai communities. Rather than a burden, the elephants become an important part of the local economy.

Photos: Diane C. Ross.

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Elephants of Africa | The Poaching Problem | Nature | PBS

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Between 1979 and 1989, the worldwide demand for ivory caused elephant populations to decline to dangerously low levels. During this time period, poachings fueled by ivory sales cut Africa's elephant population in half. Since they were big targets and sported the largest tusks, savannah elephants took the worst hit.

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Levels of extinction animals

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Poaching in Africa

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But illegal poaching might destroy it forever.

Where do we stand?

BLACK RHINO: POPULATION DOWN 97.6% SINCE 1960

MOUNTAIN GORILLA: FEWER THAN 900 REMAIN

AFRICAN ELEPHANT: UP TO 35,000 KILLED LAST YEAR

LION: EXTINCT IN SEVEN AFRICAN COUNTRIES

GREVY'S ZEBRA: APPROXIMATELY 2,000 REMAIN

Why are these animals killed?

Endangered animals are slaughtered so that a single body part - like tusks, pelt, or bones - can be illegally sold for huge sums of money.

RHINO HORN is believed to treat: hangovers, ipotence, fever, cancer

proven to cure: none of the above

the demand for rhino horn is exceedingly high on the black market; and is even valued more than gold.

ivory is carved into: jewlery, utensils, religious figurines, trinkets. worth the life of an elephant? no. Illegal ivory can fetch a high price on the black market and can make a quick profit if the products can be traded in volume.

Zebras are hunted for their skins. They are also occasionally used for meat or medicine.

Wildlife officials have observed a recent surge in trafficking of infant gorillas. They are sold for up to $40,000.

Due to recent habitat loss, many lions live close to humans and are killed by farmers in retaliation for preying on livestock.

How did this happen?

The vast majority of poaching is caused by organized crime syndicates that use high-powered technology and weaponry to track and kill many animals at once without being detected.

ak-47s, grenade launchers, night-vision goggles, gps & low-flying helicopters

What does this mean for Africa?

vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered

at current paching rates, elephants, rhinos, and other iconic African wildlife may be gone within our lifetime.

what we're doing:

Protect Wildlife: We recruit, train, and equip our scouts with advanced tools like satellite phones, GPS, and all-terrain vehicles to help them safeguard animals.

Conserve Land: In tandem with anti-poaching efforts, we establish wildlife corridors - large sections of land that allow animals to move from one national park to another.

Educate the Public: We work with conservation groups and governments to raise awareness of poaching, illegal trading, and dwindling wildlife populations.

Provide Livelihood Alternatives: We work to provide alternative means of livelihood to local communities so wildlife is not harmed in order to sustain the local economy.

That's not all. To learn about our many ongoing efforts to protect Africa, visit: www.awf.org

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But illegal poaching might destroy it forever. Where do we stand? BLACK RHINO: POPULATION DOWN 97.6% SINCE 1960 MOUNTAIN GORILLA: FEWER THAN 900 REMAIN AFRICAN ELEPHANT: UP TO 35,000 KILLED LAST YEAR LION: EXTINCT IN SEVEN AFRICAN COUNTRIES GREVY'S ZEBRA: APPROXIMATELY 2,000 REMAIN Why are these animals killed?

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How do people know a animal is extinct

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For decades people thought it was extinct. It's one of the most curious animals on earth - a mammal, but highly unusually, a venomous one. The strange and shrew-like Cuban solenodon resembles mammal species that lived almost as long ago as the dinosaurs.

Between 1890 and 1970 there hadn't been a single specimen found. Then, unexpectedly three were caught a few years later. Subsequent sightings were extremely rare but one, captured in 2003, was positively identified and nicknamed "Alejandrito" - only the 37th Cuban solenodon in history ever to be caught and recorded. The "extinct" species lived on.

Sometimes we hear about animals going extinct in the news. But who does the work to determine that a species has actually died out? What methods, exactly, do scientists use for the job? And can we ever be sure that the animal in question isn't still around, like the Cuban solenodon, hiding in the bush?

There is a popular myth that conservationists use a very simple rule to declare an animal extinct: if it hasn't been sighted for 50 years or more, it's gone forever. "It's a thing that keeps getting perpetuated that there's a 50 year rule," says Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the Red List unit at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In truth, biologists go to much greater lengths to determine that a species is extinct - and the process begins with careful monitoring of the species while it still exists.

The IUCN's Red List unit that Hilton-Taylor heads plays a pivotal role in the process. For more than 50 years it has recorded information on the conservation status of species. The IUCN gathers data from a huge range of sources - biologists, conservationists, statisticians - about many different species to try and build a picture of how each is faring. A thriving species might have a Red List status of "least concern" while struggling creatures might be listed as "vulnerable" or "threatened".

To work out which Red List category a species falls into, it's useful to know how large its population is, and how large it was in the past. For example, if a population reduction of 70% or more was observed in the last ten years, the species is considered "endangered". If the reduction was 90% or more over the same period it becomes "critically endangered".

It's crucial, then, to be able to establish the population size of the species you are interested in tracking. Only with that information will you know if and when it becomes so rare that is threatened with extinction.

Biologists use all sorts of techniques to work out that figure. They may look for signs of animal activity - tracks and droppings, for example - which is a particularly useful approach if the animal in question is hard to spot. With some evidence that the species is present in a given area, it might then be a good idea to do some kind of more comprehensive survey, perhaps by walking through the habitat in transects. These are fixed paths dividing up a territory along which the observer may note down sightings of the species itself. But sometimes even this isn't enough.

Nocturnal animals which live in densely forested areas, for example, might evade even the most eagle-eyed biologist. Camera traps can help in these circumstances. They take pictures when something moves in front of a motion sensor attached to the device. Such traps have been used to successfully record images of endangered pygmy hippos in the middle of the night.

Aerial drones with cameras are useful too. They have been used to monitor marine species from the air - including dugongs around Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

Information on a species doesn't always come from biologists using bespoke equipment, though, says Hilton-Taylor. The Yangtze River dolphin - listed as critically endangered - is rumoured to still survive in the waters of the huge Yangtze river in China. While there is no hard evidence for this, occasionally possible sightings do come through.

"We keep getting odd reports from different people. Fuzzy photographs, Loch Ness [monster] type photographs that come through," says Hilton-Taylor. All of these reports must be carefully considered.

And data can also come from industry. Those who catch or hunt animals for people to eat may also provide information about how well the populations of certain species are doing. A good example of this can be found with fish such as Atlantic cod, whose numbers are closely monitored.

In other words, it often takes an extensive network of researchers, professionals and even amateurs to work out the conservation status. UK birds, for example, are monitored by scientists, conservation reserve employees and trained enthusiasts, all of who contribute to annual surveys by the nationwide Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The RSPB then reports to the global organisation Bird Life International which in turn provides data to the IUCN.

"We liaise with all these different specialist groups around the world, we train them how to apply the methodology, help them to run workshops, guide them through the process, and then they gather the data and feed it through to us," explains Hilton-Taylor. "That's what goes into the IUCN Red List."

So much for establishing that a species has become vulnerable: how do we decide it has actually gone extinct? The 50 years with no sighting rule might be a myth, but some of the ways scientists define extinction are actually broadly similar. For example, the RSPB updates its own red list of bird species. It declares a species extinct in the UK if it no longer breeds there. Last year, three species were declared extinct in the UK: the wryneck, the European serin and Temminck's stint.

"They were all considered breeding birds when we last did the [assessment] six years ago but they haven't bred in the last five years so they join our list," says Richard Gregory, head of species monitoring and research at the RSPB.

But all three of these birds do have populations in other European countries and may from time to time come and go in Britain. They are only locally extinct. It is more of a challenge to declare something globally extinct, particularly since individuals of a critically threatened species will be incredibly rare and might be difficult to find.

In fact, even when the last individual of a species is right in front of you, you might not always be able to guarantee an accurate record of its extinction. In the case of the blue-feathered Spix's macaw, a parrot native to Brazil, the very last wild specimen (a male) was paired with a female from another species. But in the year 2000 both birds disappeared and were never seen again. It's been 15 years and no sightings of the creature have been made in the wild - but the IUCN hasn't officially declared it extinct just yet because we don't know for sure what happened to it.

Surveying alone, then, isn't enough. Biologists must turn to clever data analysis to help them estimate how really rare species are doing. Ben Collen at University College London has been working on a method for doing exactly that - and it's one which is changing our understanding of endangered animals around the world.

He and his team at UCL have been developing calculations which, given a certain species and the number of times it has been sighted in the wild, can output a probability of whether it has or hasn't died out. The formulae may take into account the certainty of past sightings as well as other knowledge about the animal's habitat - how that has changed over time, for example.

What researchers get when they compute the numbers is a good estimate of whether that specific animal is likely to still be present in the wild.

A good example of how this was used recently is in the evaluation of several uncertain sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker - which is considered critically endangered. The last confirmed sighting was in 1944, but since then there have been 29 sightings which weren't definite.

Collen's model considered the time since the last certain sighting and weighed up the probability that the subsequent, uncertain sightings were reliable. In the end the results supported the hypothesis that the ivory-billed woodpecker is, in fact, extinct.

Such models can never provide conclusive evidence of extinction. Even so, analyses like this - only possible in recent years thanks to the power of modern computers - are now impacting the decision-making of those who are tasked with officially declaring whether or not a species is gone.

For instance, University of Oxford zoologist Tim Coulson has been developing statistical techniques to judge how reliable techniques like camera traps might be for assessing the health of, say, a population of big cats.

Because conservationists are very sure about how many lions are believed to be living in Africa's Serengeti, Coulson and his team were able to study how well a system of 200 camera traps across the region were able to represent the health of the population. Essentially, they were testing the camera traps to find out just how good they were at their job. In this case, the researchers found that the camera traps were more accurate when they were used at times such as overnight, when the movements of lions were more random.

"That information can obviously be of interest to people trying to assess whether a population or a species has gone extinct because they tell us about how good the methods are that people use in the field to answer the extinction question," he explains.

Earlier last year, a team of researchers at the University of Oxford published a paper which examined existing methods used by the Indian government to estimate the total number of tigers in the wild based on individual sightings in small study areas.

The results suggested that the current methods were overly optimistic about tiger numbers and that even small amounts of uncertainty in detection rates could have a big impact on what scientists should infer about the population at large.

What Collen's and Coulson's studies show is that the very techniques for surveying endangered species mentioned above are now subject to statistical analysis, in order to find out just how reliable they are at estimating population size - and how confident we can be if they suggest that a species is extinct.

Why all of this nit-picking? Well, the consequences of declaring something extinct are not trivial. As Collen points out, saying that something is gone would mean giving up on protecting it.

"Scientists are very understandably reticent to declare a species extinct if there's still some chance that it might be out there," he says. "If you declare a species extinct, no-one's going to put funding towards its conservation."

Perhaps that's why the Yangtze River dolphin is still listed as critically endangered even though the best evidence we have that it is still alive comes in the form of the odd fuzzy photograph. "We're just reluctant to say yes, it is now extinct," says Hilton-Taylor.

And errors in judgement are far from uncommon. Every few years a species like the Cuban solenodon, thought to be extinct or even officially declared as such, turns up unexpectedly in the wild. This makes it a so-called "Lazarus" species - and there are many examples of this.

These pleasant surprises aside, though, Hilton-Taylor at the IUCN says his group's overall view of the situation is not rosy. Globally, more species are moving towards extinction than away from it.

That's why all of this work, although complicated and often infuriatingly inconclusive is nonetheless so important. Discovering that a species has gone extinct - to the extent that one can truly know for sure - is always unfortunate.

But making the effort to find out either way often offers a glimmer of hope. Hope that the animal in question, however rare, however vulnerable, is still out there. If we know that, then we also know that we, as the only species on the planet with the ability and the resources to do so, have a chance of saving it.

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Can you be sure that an endangered species has gone extinct?

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For decades people thought it was extinct. It's one of the most curious animals on earth - a mammal, but highly unusually, a venomous one. The strange and shrew-like Cuban solenodon resembles mammal species that lived almost as long ago as the dinosaurs. Between 1890 and 1970 there hadn't been a single specimen found.

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Animals found extinct

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How do we decide if an animal is extinct?

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Sightings of thought-to-be-extinct animals like the Fernandina giant tortoise call into question how we define extinction and what the future might hold for some of our rarest animals.

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Endangered animals

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Species List | Endangered, Vulnerable, and Threatened Animals | WWF

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WWF is committed to saving endangered species. Learn more about the species we are working to protecting from becoming endangered or extinct.

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List of extinct animals

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Various species of animals are poached around the world. Their remains are used in various ways, often for luxury or medicinal purposes.
Elephants: Poached for their ivory tusks which have "great aesthetic value". They are intimidating into traps or pitfalls and the tusks are painfully detached. The elephant is then left to die.
: Their bones have medicinal value and powdered tiger bones are prescribed in for strengthening muscles. Their skin is used to make bags and coats.
Rhinoceros : Their horns are believed to have aphrodisiac properties and are widely used in traditional medicines. Like elephants, they are driven into traps for their ivory horns.
They are poached for their fur, which is commonly used as a light wool, and is in great demand world-wide. 20,000 Chirus, as they are called, are killed each year.
: Often poached for their eggs to make caviar.
: Gorilla poaching isn't commonly heard about. They are poached for their meat, capture for collections, and and trophies. Collectors and trophie holders are after gorilla hands, feet, skins, skulls, as well as gorilla infants.
Porbeagle : The Porbeagle is a type of shark that lives in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are poached for their meat and fertilizer uses.
This species of shark is for it's valuable meat. They live in world coastal waters and usually travel in schools.
This is the most valuable type of coral, known for its use in jewelry and decorations. Not only does the poaching of coral effect coral population but it also effects the population of coral reefs and fish.
They are poached because of their valuable meat and large international demand.
: Great Apes include gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. They are killed for their meat, illegal trade, disturbance and destruction of land, and disease and habitat control.
Sea Turtles are often poached for their meat and eggs. Poachers trick the turtles into nesting on the beach, while they are actually walking right into a trap.
: Blue Whales have almost been hunted to extinction. They are poached for their blubber and oil, which are then used in candles and fuel.

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Various species of animals are poached around the world. Their remains are used in various ways, often for luxury or medicinal purposes. Elephants: Poached for their ivory tusks which have "great aesthetic value". They are intimidating into traps or pitfalls and the tusks are painfully detached.

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List of extinct animals

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Animal extinctions may be caused by natural occurrences such as climatic heating or cooling or changes in sea levels. In more modern times, however, human activity has been to blame. Habitat destruction as farming land expands and forests are cut-down is the main cause of modern extinctions, along with pollution, the introduction of alien species, and over fishing or hunting. Increasingly, however, climate change is thought to be driving extinctions.

Here are 10 incredible animals that are now extinct. Read on to find out what happened.

10. West African Black Rhinoceros

The West African Black Rhinoceros was found in several countries towards the southeast region of Africa. Measuring 3-3.8 metres long and 1.4-1.7 metres in height, this rhino would have weighed 800-1,300 kg. It had two horns, one measuring 0.5-1.3 metres and the other between 2-55cm. Their diet included leafy plants and shoots. Some believe their horns had medicinal properties - though this had no grounding in scientific fact - which lead to heavy poaching. In the 1930's preservation action was taken to protect the species, but the numbers continued to decline. The last West African Black Rhino was seen in Cameroon in 2006. It was declared officially extinct in 2011.
Read More

Picture credit: Africa Review

3. Dodo

An extinct flightless bird that inhabited Mauritius, the Dodo was about one metre tall and may have weighed 10-18 kg. The only account we have of the Dodo's appearance is through varied illustrations and written accounts from the 17 th century so its exact appearance remains unresolved. It is presumed the bird became flightless due to the availability of abundant food sources (seeds, roots and fallen fruits) and a relative absence of predators. Dutch sailors first recorded a mention of the dodo in 1598. The bird was hunted to extinction by sailors and their domesticated animals, and invasive species. The last widely accepted sighting of a Dodo was in 1662.

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10 Animals That Are Now Extinct | OneKindPlanet

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Animal extinctions may be caused by natural occurrences such as climatic heating or cooling or changes in sea levels. In more modern times, however, human activity has been to blame. Habitat destruction as farming land expands and forests are cut-down is the main cause of modern extinctions, along with pollution, the introduction of alien species, and over fishing or hunting.

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It's often said that extinction is the rule, rather than the exception-after all, 99.9 percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth have gone extinct. In a sense, that adage is true. Life on this planet has toughed it out through five mass extinction events, in which huge numbers of species disappeared during relatively short periods of time. After each, life eventually rebounded.

The keyword in that last sentence is eventually, though. Many scientists say we're in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, with species dying off 100 times faster than they have in the past. And, according to a new study, it'll take several million years for mammals to bounce back from the extinctions that have been occurring because of us.

"No matter how you look at it, it is going to take a long time for mammals to recover," explains Matt Davis, a paleontologist with Aarhus University's Centre for Biodiversity in A Changing World (BIOCHANGE) in Denmark and lead author on the paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Davis, with the help of ecologists Søren Faurby and Jens-Christian Svenning, using funding from the Carlsberg Foundation, set out to determine just how much evolutionary history has been lost in the mammal lineage alone since the rise of modern humans after the last ice age (roughly, in the past 130,000 years). In addition to counting the number of mammal species that have gone extinct (about 300, in case you were curious), they determined how evolutionarily distinct each species is-that is, the amount of time it spent evolving independently, or in other words, its phylogenetic diversity.

If you think of life like a tree, then this evolutionary uniqueness is akin to the length of the branch for each species or group of species. The longer the branch, the more the species have changed since splitting of from their shared ancestors. According to the team's models, in the past couple hundred thousand years, we've lost about two and a half billion years of evolutionary history.

"With the extinction of so many megafauna, we've lost both a whole chunk of functional space and some of the longest branches on the evolutionary tree," Davis explains. "This kind of pattern isn't common in the extinctions we know of from the fossil record, so we are entering uncharted territory."

The authors calculated that given the current rate of extinctions, we'll lose even more mammals in the next 50 years, and it'll take 3 to 5 million years to once again reach today's biodiversity levels. If we want to go back to the level of mammal diversity that existed before our species, that'll take 5 to 7 million years. Plus, since big body sizes develop more slowly than small ones, it will take even longer to recover the loss of diversity in large mammals like mammoths that occurred between 2,000 and 50,000 years ago. And those are the "best case scenarios," Svenning says.

"Any study like this is always something of a 'back of the envelope' study because there are so many moving parts, but the authors pulled it all together wonderfully," says evolutionary ecologist Will Pearse from Utah State University, who was not associated with the research. The findings aren't all that surprising to him, but he's still upset by them and says he "shuddered" when he read the part about how long recovery could take. "This study shows we're on the brink of losing so much diversity it may not even recover within the lifetime of our own species," he says. "And if that isn't cause for concern, I don't know what is."

Evolutionary biologist Arne Mooers from Simon Fraser University in Canada, too, found the paper unsurprising but sobering, and wonders how the findings will inform conservation policy going forward. "That is the 20,000-dollar question, because it gets to the heart of what conservation biologists are actually trying to conserve," Mooers says.

Still, it's unclear how to bridge the divide between research and conservation policy. "So far, phylogenetic diversity has mostly been an academic issue and hasn't been used much with conservationists on the ground," Davis explains, and he feels that should change. "Phylogenetic diversity isn't the only metric we should be using, but it is one we should be using a lot more."

Still, there's only so much time and money to go around, so studies like this inevitably raise questions about how those resources should be allocated says Christopher Lean, a philosopher of science at Australian National University who was not a part of the research team. He says the paper is "critical" for conservation science, as it highlights the importance of preserving evolutionary diversity.

"We are currently losing lineages with unique evolutionary history at a devastating rate," he says. "When we lose distinct species we lose evolutionary heritage and unique possibilities held within this heritage."

Pearse says he doesn't see these findings as changing how conservation is conducted so much as underscoring the urgency and magnitude of the task. "For me, the saddest part of this is all the history we are losing," he says. "When we kill off a species, we are depriving our children of millions of years of unique, unbroken history."

We're much less flippant about the protection of ancient human artifacts, he points out. "Stonehenge is about 5,000 years old, and so we would never destroy that, but 5,000 years barely registers in comparison with the shortest twigs on the mammalian tree of life that we are so willing to snap off."

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Human-caused extinctions have set mammals back millions of years

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It's often said that extinction is the rule, rather than the exception-after all, 99.9 percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth have gone extinct. In a sense, that adage is true. Life on this planet has toughed it out through five mass extinction events, in which huge numbers of species disappeared during relatively short periods of time.

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What is poaching

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Poaching is the illegal taking of wildlife, in violation of local, state, federal, or international law. Activities that are considered poaching include killing an animal out of season, without a license, with a prohibited weapon, or in a prohibited manner such as jacklighting. Killing a protected species, exceeding one's bag limit, or killing an animal while trespassing is also considered poaching.

Key Takeaways: Poaching

* Unlike hunting, poaching is the illegal killing of wildlife.

* One of the most common drivers of poaching is the desire for rare animal products such as ivory and furs.

* Poaching does not necessarily involve the killing of threatened or endangered animals. Any animal can be poached if it is killed unlawfully.

People who poach do so for a variety of reasons, including for food, pleasure, and trophies. In some areas, such as China, poaching is driven by demand for highly valued animal products such as ivory and furs. In other places, poaching is driven by poverty or disregard for hunting regulations.

One example of poaching is the taking of eggs from the nest of loggerhead turtles. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, loggerheads arrive on Florida beaches in April and continue to arrive and lay eggs through September. Anyone caught stealing these eggs and convicted may be sentenced up to five years in federal prison and/or required to pay a $250,000 fine.

Effects of Poaching

One of the most dangerous and lasting effects of poaching is the decimation of native animal populations. When a certain animal, such as the African elephant, is targeted by poachers, it can take decades for the animal's population to recover. This, in turn, affects the ecosystem to which the animal belongs. A reduction in predators like tigers, for example, may cause prey populations to grow out of hand, while a reduction in fruit-eating mammals may affect seed dispersal, altering the fauna of an ecosystem.

Demand for elephant ivory has had negative effects in sub-Saharan Africa, where poaching has increased since 2008. Between 2011 and 2017, for example, poachers in Mozambique killed 90 percent of the country's elephants. In 2018, nearly 90 elephants were found dead near a sanctuary in Botswana, which had recently ended a strict anti-poaching policy. There were a few million elephants living in Africa in the early 1900s, but today there are believed to be fewer than 700,000.

Africa's lion populations have also been affected by poaching. Since 1994, they have been reduced by 42 percent, and the species is now "vulnerable to extinction." Some of the decline is the result of habitat ross (which reduces access to prey), but much of it is due to poaching and commercial hunting. In the early 1900s, there were about 200,000 lions living in Africa. As of 2017, scientists estimate that only about 20,000 remain.

Poaching does not only affect wildlife. Park rangers and game wardens are also victims of violence. In Virunga National Park, an animal sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 170 rangers have been killed between 1998 and 2018.

One of the misconceptions about poaching is that it must involve endangered animals. This is not the case. In North America, for example, poaching can involve animals as common as lobster. The big event known as "mini lobster season" takes place every summer in the Florida Keys. During that time, which precedes commercial lobster season, anyone can take to the water and snatch a spiny lobster from its "hide hole" and toss it in a cooler. When it comes time to head back home, though, officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are sometimes present to inspect the catch.

When an officer does an inspection, he uses a standard measuring device. Placing the lobsters side by side on a table, he measures each one in the legally prescribed manner, placing the device on the lobster's carapace to check the size. That state puts a limit on the size of each lobster that can be taken during "mini lobster season." According to this state mandate, a "lobster with a carapace or body measuring at least 3 inches would be 2-3 years old and old enough to have reproduced at least one season." The penalty for taking such a lobster is a serious one: "Upon a first conviction, by imprisonment for a period of not more than 60 days or by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500, or by both such fine and imprisonment."

Many state wildlife management agencies have hotlines that the public can call to report poaching. It's not always someone in uniform who will catch you, either-there are undercover cops everywhere.

Hunting vs. Poaching

Unlike poaching, hunting-the killing of wild animals for food or sport-is protected by law. In the United States, meat and sport hunting regulations vary from state to state. In Montana, general deer hunting season takes place between October 20 and November 25. Hunting without a license or out of season is not permitted and is therefore considered a form of poaching.

Hunting regulations ensure that hunting is done safely and responsibly, without causing harm to threatened or endangered species and without affecting commercial and recreational activity.

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Poaching is the illegal taking of wildlife, in violation of local, state, federal, or international law. Activities that are considered poaching include killing an animal out of season, without a license, with a prohibited weapon, or in a prohibited manner such as jacklighting.

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Poaching law & history

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

poaching, in law, the illegal shooting, trapping, or taking of game, fish, or plants from private property or from a place where such practices are specially reserved or forbidden. Poaching is a major existential threat to numerous wild organisms worldwide and is an important contributor to biodiversity loss.

History

Until the 20th century most poaching was subsistence poaching-i.e., the taking of game or fish by impoverished peasants to augment a scanty diet. In medieval Europe feudal landowners from the king downward stringently enforced their exclusive rights to hunt and fish on the lands they owned, and poaching was a serious crime punishable by imprisonment. Large stretches of forested countryside were subject to special laws to preserve the deer, wild boars, and other beasts of the chase who provided the nobles and royalty with sport. With the destruction of forests over the centuries and the taking of communal or royally owned lands into private use, laws were passed in the 17th and 18th centuries restricting hunting and shooting rights on private property to the landowner and his sons, and the practice of hiring gamekeepers to protect the wildlife on privately held land became common. Given these obstacles, subsistence poaching necessarily became a more specialized activity; during the 18th and 19th centuries gangs of organized poachers often engaged in fierce battles against gamekeepers, and mantraps and spring guns were hidden in the underbrush to catch intruders.

Modern poaching

Poaching is now usually done for sport or commercial profit, both in legal and black markets. Poaching can be a serious threat to many wild species, particularly those protected in wildlife preserves or national parks. Many animal species have been limited in range or depleted in numbers, sometimes to the point of extinction, by the depredations of market hunters and unregulated sportsmen.

In Africa the difficulty of enforcing game codes has led to the critical depletion of the rhinoceros, which is hunted for its horn, and of the African elephant, which is slaughtered for its ivory. The Bengal tiger of India and the gorilla of central Africa have similarly been threatened with extinction by hunters operating illegally. Asian and African pangolins are heavily poached for their meat and for the organs, skin, scales, and other parts of the body that are valued for use in traditional medicine; as a result, populations of all eight species have fallen dramatically during the early 21st century, and they are listed as endangered or critically endangered species. Many species of parrots are in danger because of the pet trade, as are many tropical fish collected illegally for aquaria. River poaching has been a problem in some countries, causing the depletion of stocks of fish in many areas.

Plants are also susceptible to poaching. For example, even when forests are not completely cleared, particularly valuable trees such as rosewood or mahogany may be illegally logged from an area, eliminating both the tree species and all the animals that depend on it. Some species are illegally collected not to be killed but to be kept alive and sold as ornamental plants, and the survival of various carnivorous plants, cycads, cacti, and orchid species is threatened by collectors.

Efforts to reduce poaching

Game management and other conservation programs throughout the world have been instituted to counteract the effects of poaching and other threats to wildlife, reinforced by the patrolling of game wardens to restrain poaching for commercial profit. Sometimes conflicts can be violent, and wardens, environmentalists, and poachers have been killed in confrontations over especially valuable animals and poaching operations.

International agreements, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), seek to reduce poaching incentives by regulating worldwide commercial trade in wild animal and plant species. International border customs can also serve to deter the smuggling of poached wildlife and wildlife products. Many governments have made public displays of the destruction of confiscated wildlife products, such as pangolin scales or elephant tusks, to signal that the preservation of the animals depends on the end of the sale of their products.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Melissa Petruzzello.

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Poaching | Description, History, Examples, & Control

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poaching, in law, the illegal shooting, trapping, or taking of game, fish, or plants from private property or from a place where such practices are specially reserved or forbidden. Poaching is a major existential threat to numerous wild organisms worldwide and is an important contributor to biodiversity loss.

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Common birds are loosing home and are in extinction

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Across parts of Australia, vast areas of native vegetation have been cleared and replaced by our cities, farms and infrastructure. When native vegetation is removed, the habitat and resources that it provides for native wildlife are invariably lost.

Our environmental laws and most conservation efforts tend to focus on what this loss means for species that are threatened with extinction. This emphasis is understandable - the loss of the last individual of a species is profoundly sad and can be ecologically devastating.

Read more: An end to endings: how to stop more Australian species going extinct

But what about the numerous other species also affected by habitat loss, that have not yet become rare enough to be listed as endangered? These animals and plants - variously described as "common" or of " least concern " - are having their habitat chipped away. This loss usually escapes our attention.

These common species have intrinsic ecological value. But they also provide important opportunities for people to connect with nature - experiences that are under threat.

Dan Peled/AAP

The "loss index": tracking the destruction

We developed a measure called the loss index to communicate how habitat loss affects multiple Australian bird species. Our measure showed that across Victoria, and into South Australia and New South Wales, more than 60% of 262 native birds have each lost more than half of their original natural habitat. The vast majority of these species are not formally recognised as being threatened with extinction.

It is a similar story in the Brigalow Belt of central New South Wales and Queensland. The picture is brighter in the northern savannas across the top of Australia, where large tracts of native vegetation remain - notwithstanding pervasive threats such as inappropriate fire regimes.

Read more: Fixing Australia's extinction crisis means thinking bigger than individual species

We also found that in some areas, such as Southeast Queensland and the Wet Tropics region of north Queensland, the removal of a single hectare of forest habitat can affect up to 180 different species. In other words, small amounts of loss can affect large numbers of (mostly common) species.

Our index allowed us to compare how different groups of birds are impacted by habitat loss. Australia's iconic parrots have been hit hard by habitat loss, because many of these birds occur in the places where we live and grow our food. Birds of prey such as eagles and owls have, as a group, been less affected. This is because many of these birds occur widely across Australia's less developed arid interior.

Conservation Biology

Habitat loss means far fewer birds

Our study shows many species have lost lots of habitat in certain parts of Australia. We know habitat loss is a major driver of population declines and freefalling numbers of animals globally. A measure of vertebrate population trends - the Living Planet Index - reveals that populations of more than 4,000 vertebrate species around the world are on average less than half of what they were in 1970.

In Australia, the trend is no different. Populations of our threatened birds declined by an average of 52% between 1985 and 2015. Alarmingly, populations for many common Australian birds are also trending downwards, and habitat loss is a major cause. Along Australia's heavily populated east coast, population declines have been noted for many common species including rainbow bee-eater, double-barred finch, and pale-headed rosella.

Jim Bendon, G. Winterflood, Aviceda

Read more: Cats are not scared off by dingoes. We must find another way to protect native animals

This is a major problem for ecosystem health. Common species tend to be more numerous and so perform many roles that we depend on. Our parrots, pigeons, honeyeaters, robins, and many others help pollinate flowers, spread seeds, and keep pest insects in check. In both Europe and Australia, declines in common species have been linked to a reduction in the provision of these vital ecosystem services.

Common species are also the ones that we most associate with. Because they are more abundant and familiar, these animals provide important opportunities for people to connect with nature. Think of the simple pleasure of seeing a colourful robin atop a rural fence post, or a vibrant parrot dashing above the treetops of a suburban creek. The decline of common species may contribute to diminished opportunities for us to interact with nature, leading to an " extinction of experience ", with associated negative implications for our health and well-being.

We mustn't wait until it's too late

Our study aims to put the spotlight on common species. They are crucially important, and yet the erosion of their habitat gets little focus. Conserving them now is sensible. Waiting until they have declined before we act will be costly.

These species need more formal recognition and protection in conservation and environmental regulation. For example, greater attention on common species, and the role they play in ecosystem health, should be given in the assessment of new infrastructure developments under Australia's federal environment laws (formally known as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999).

We should be acting now to conserve common species before they slide towards endangerment. Without dedicated attention, we risk these species declining before our eyes, without us even noticing.

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Most native bird species are losing their homes, even the ones you see every day

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Across parts of Australia, vast areas of native vegetation have been cleared and replaced by our cities, farms and infrastructure. When native vegetation is removed, the habitat and resources that it provides for native wildlife are invariably lost. Our environmental laws and most conservation efforts tend to focus on what this loss means for species that are threatened with extinction.

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Animal poaching

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Poaching is the illegal hunting and killing of protected species. Because poaching endagners so many species, governments should crack down on illegal poachers and issue harsher penalties to poachers.

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Poaching is the illegal hunting and killing of protected species. Because poaching endagners so many species, governments should crack down on illegal poachers and issue harsher penalties to poachers.

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nat geo poaching

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Wild animals are being poached on a massive scale, with millions of individual animals of thousands of species worldwide killed or captured from their native habitats. Poaching poses a growing threat to elephants, rhinos, and other charismatic animals, as well as to smaller and more obscure creatures, like certain lizards and monkeys.

Why animals are poached

Poachers sometimes kill or capture animals to sell them locally or for the global trade in wildlife. Wildlife trading is a major black market that has increased alongside rising wealth in Asia-a major consumer of wildlife-and the advent of e-commerce and social media websites.

Some animals, such as birds, reptiles, and primates, are captured live so that they can be kept or sold as exotic pets. Slaughtered animals, on the other hand, have commercial value as food, jewelry, decor, or traditional medicine. The ivory tusks of African elephants, for example, are carved into trinkets or display pieces. The scales of pangolins, small animals that eat ants, are ground into powder and consumed for their purported healing powers. The meat of apes, snakes, and other bush animals is considered a delicacy in parts of Africa.

In addition to killing for direct profit, poachers target animals to prevent them from destroying crops or attacking livestock. This happens to lions and elephants in Africa, as well as to wolves, coyotes, and other predators in North America and beyond.

The effects of poaching

Poaching has devastating consequences for wildlife. In some instances, it's the primary reason why an animal faces a risk of extinction. This is the case with the African elephant, more than 100,000 of which were killed between 2014 and 2017 for ivory. Poaching has also had a catastrophic impact on rhinos, with more than a thousand slaughtered a year for their horns.

Poaching for the exotic pet trade affects an animal's welfare in addition to its numbers in the wild. Most wild animals eat specialized diets found in nature, and they need space to fly, roam, and swing from branches. Captured animals are stuffed into boxes, suitcases, or sacks, and even if they survive transport, they often suffer in their new, unnatural situations.

Then there's the tragic ways poaching affects people. In Africa, nearly 600 rangers charged with protecting wildlife were gunned down by poachers between 2009 and 2016 while in the line of duty. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park, one of the continent's most dangerous, at least 170 rangers have been killed during the past two decades.

What's more, poaching has been linked to armed militia groups in Africa suspected of trafficking ivory to fund their operations, and it often occurs alongside other crimes including corruption and money laundering. And poached animals can spread disease, such as Ebola and SARS.

Efforts to stop poaching

In addition to providing on-the-ground protection for animals, many countries make poaching an offense punishable by prison or monetary fees. Because poachers in Africa and Asia are often impoverished local people who make small profits in comparison to traders and kingpins, penalties for poaching wildlife are generally less severe than those for trafficking wildlife.

There are also numerous nonprofits around the world working to end wildlife poaching. Some of these groups have helped to promote alternative, more sustainable ways for poachers to earn a living. Another way people are working to end poaching is by trying to decrease demand for illegal wildlife and wildlife parts. If no one's buying the products, there will be no need to kill the animals.

Read more about poaching and wildlife crime at National Geographic's Wildlife Watch. See all of National Geographic's videos about poaching here.

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Wild animals are being poached on a massive scale, with millions of individual animals of thousands of species worldwide killed or captured from their native habitats. Poaching poses a growing threat to elephants, rhinos, and other charismatic animals, as well as to smaller and more obscure creatures, like certain lizards and monkeys.

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Extinction

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This story appears in the October 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.

LIFE, BESIEGED

Most of the animals shown here are among the more than 28,000 species of animals and plants that the International Union for Conservation of Nature says are threatened with extinction. That number actually understates the risk. Since 1964, when the IUCN established a " red list" of threatened species and began compiling data gathered worldwide, the list has become the preeminent global database of endangered life and an essential tool for conservation policy. Yet the IUCN has been able to assess only about 106,000 species of the more than 1.5 million species of animals and more than 300,000 plants that scientists have described and named-which they estimate is less than a quarter of what's really out there. A recent intergovernmental report on the biodiversity crisis estimated that extinction threatens up to a million animal and plant species, known and unknown. The IUCN hopes to raise the number of species assessments to 160,000 by 2020. Next up on its agenda: a " green list " of conservation successes. It will be much shorter than the red one.

THE BIGGEST THREAT: HUMANS

Habitat loss-driven primarily by human expansion as we develop land for housing, agriculture, and commerce-is the biggest threat facing most animal species, followed by hunting and fishing. Even when habitat is not lost entirely, it may be changed so much that animals cannot adapt. Fences fragment a grassland or logging cuts through a forest, breaking up migration corridors; pollution renders a river toxic; pesticides kill widely and indiscriminately. To those local threats one must increasingly add global ones: Trade, which spreads disease and invasive species from place to place, and climate change, which eventually will affect every species on Earth-starting with the animals that live on cool mountaintops or depend on polar ice. All of these threats lead, directly or indirectly, back to humans and our expanding footprint. Most species face multiple threats. Some can adapt to us; others will vanish.

If we lived in an ordinary time- time here being understood in the long, unhurried sense of a geologic epoch-it would be nearly impossible to watch a species vanish. Such an event would occur too infrequently for a person to witness. In the case of mammals, the best-studied group of animals, the fossil record indicates that the "background" rate of extinction, the one that prevailed before humans entered the picture, is so low that over the course of a millennium, a single species should disappear.

But of course we don't live in an ordinary time. Everywhere we look, species are winking out. Just in the past decade, two mammal species have gone extinct: a bat known as the Christmas Island pipistrelle and a rat, the Bramble Cay melomys.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists more than 200 mammal species and subspecies as critically endangered. In some cases, like the Sumatran rhino or the vaquita-a porpoise native to the Gulf of California-there are fewer than a hundred individuals left. In others, like the baiji (also known as the Yangtze River dolphin), the species, though not yet officially declared extinct, has probably died out.

And unfortunately, what goes for mammals goes for just about every other animal group: reptiles, amphibians, fish, even insects. Extinction rates today are hundreds-perhaps thousands-of times higher than the background rate. They're so high that scientists say we're on the brink of a mass extinction.

The last mass extinction, which did in the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago, followed an asteroid impact. Today the cause of extinction seems more diffuse. It's logging and poaching and introduced pathogens and climate change and overfishing and ocean acidification.

But trace all these back and you find yourself face-to-face with the same culprit. The great naturalist E.O. Wilson has noted that humans are the "first species in the history of life to become a geophysical force." Many scientists argue that we have entered a new geologic epoch-the Anthropocene, or age of man. This time around, in other words, the asteroid is us.

What's lost when an animal goes extinct?

One way to think of a species, be it of ape or of ant, is as an answer to a puzzle: how to live on planet Earth. A species' genome is a sort of manual; when the species perishes, that manual is lost. We are, in this sense, plundering a library-the library of life. Instead of the Anthropocene, Wilson has dubbed the era we are entering the Eremozoic-the age of loneliness.

Joel Sartore has been photographing animals for his Photo Ark project for 13 years. In an ever growing number of cases, animals housed in zoos or special breeding facilities are among the last remaining members of their species. In some instances, they are the only members.

Toughie, a Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog from central Panama, lived at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He became the last known of his kind when a fungal disease swept through his native habitat and a captive-breeding program failed. Toughie died in 2016, and it's likely the Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog is now extinct.

Romeo, a Sehuencas water frog that lives at the natural history museum in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was likewise believed to be a sole survivor. Scientists created an online dating profile for him. It linked to a donation page, and the $25,000 raised helped fund expeditions in the eastern Andes, where the species was once abundant.

Amazingly, the search has revealed five more Sehuencas water frogs, two males and three females. All were taken to Cochabamba; the one female mature enough to breed with Romeo was named Juliet. Whether she will prove a worthy mate and perpetuate the species, no one knows.

Was the Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog beautiful? Not in the flashy way of, say, the Spix's macaw (which is believed to be extinct in the wild) or the Gee's golden langur (which is endangered). But with its expressive brown eyes and gangly limbs, it had its own kind of charm.

Sartore treats all creatures-great and small, handsome and homely-with reverence. His photos capture what's singular and, I'd also like to say, soulful about every living thing. One of my favorite images of Joel's is of a Partula nodosa, or niho tree snail, laying down a trail of slime. There used to be dozens of Partula species in the South Pacific, occupying different islands and different ecological niches. Much like Darwin's finches, they are the darlings of evolutionary biologists-living, slime-producing illustrations of the power of natural selection. The introduction of carnivorous snails from Florida drove nearly a third of the Partula species extinct; several survive solely thanks to captive-breeding programs.

Precisely because extinction takes place so frequently now, it's possible to become inured to it. This desensitizing is what makes Sartore's images so crucial: They show us just how remarkable each species is that's being lost.

We live in an extraordinary time. Perhaps by recognizing this, we can begin to imagine creating a different one-one that preserves, as much as is still possible, the wonderful diversity of life.

THREAT: DISEASE

Since the 1980s, a fungal disease called chytridiomycosis, likely spread through direct contact and by infected water, has ravaged global amphibian populations. More than 500 species have been affected; 90 of these may be extinct. The fungus disrupts transmission of electrolytes through the skin of a frog or toad, ultimately stopping its heart.

THREAT: INVASIVE SPECIES

THREAT: FRAGMENTATION

THREAT: HABITAT LOSS

Butterflies can fly long distances and feed on many types of flowers, but caterpillars are locavores, eating plants they hatch on or near. As those plants are lost to development or farming, butterflies disappear. The ones here aren't listed by the IUCN-which has evaluated only 8,100 insect species-but are considered at risk by other authorities.

THREAT: POACHING

THREAT: DEFORESTATION

For tree-dwelling lemurs, there's no life without the forest-or Madagascar, their only home. Yet the island nation has lost 80 percent of its trees to development, charcoal production, and slash-and-burn agriculture. Lemurs are squeezed into limited protected areas; 38 species are critically endangered. Fuel-efficient stoves are being introduced to encourage people to reduce wood use and protect forest habitat.

Elizabeth Kolbert's most recent book, The Sixth Extinction, won the Pulitzer Prize. Photographer Joel Sartore has been called a modern-day Noah for building the Photo Ark, the world's largest collection of animal studio portraits.

Photo Ark is a joint project of National Geographic and Joel Sartore. Learn more at natgeophotoark.org.

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Animals are disappearing at hundreds of times the normal rate, primarily because of shrinking habitats. Their biggest threat: humans.

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Here’s how to help stop insect extinction

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Are you planning a big garden clean-up this summer, or stocking up on fly spray to keep bugs at bay? Before you do, it's worth considering the damage you might cause to the insects we share the planet with.

Australia's insect populations are under pressure. The problem is better known in the Northern Hemisphere, where over the past few years scientific studies have reported alarming declines in insect numbers.

We don't yet have a true understanding of what is happening in Australia. This week, scientists gathered in Brisbane at the Australian Entomological Society conference to discuss the extent of the problem. Evidence suggests several species and populations are under threat.

Some might see insects as small and insignificant, but they perform functions crucial to sustaining life on Earth. There are several simple steps you can take to address insect decline in your area, or even help scientists keep tabs on the problem.

We need to know more

In Australia, we know iconic species such as the bogong moth, green carpenter bee and Key's matchstick grasshopper are in decline. There is documented evidence for the extinction of two Australian insect species, but this is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

A research review published this year suggested more than 40% of insect species globally are threatened with extinction over the next few decades. However, this estimate was based on limited studies of a few iconic insect groups in western Europe and the US.

Read more: Scientists re-counted Australia's extinct species, and the result is devastating

Such findings should be taken with caution. We do not have enough evidence to extrapolate to the whole planet.

Despite this, factors affecting insect populations overseas - such as habitat loss, climate change and insecticide use - most likely also apply in Australia. Bushfires and drought on this continent can also affect insect populations.

There are no published studies documenting insect decline in Australia, but anecdotal reports from entomologists suggest lower than average populations across a number of species. However, very few of our estimated 250,000 insect species are being formally monitored.

Why you should care

Insects pollinate plants, dispose of waste and control pests, among other functions. The planet would cease to support life without the services insects provide.

If insect populations are in decline, so are the populations of larger animals such as birds and lizards that feed on them.

Read more: You can help track 4 billion bogong moths with your smartphone - and save pygmy possums from extinction

In NSW, bogong moths are a staple food for mountain pygmy possums. A collapse in the moth population would lead to possums going hungry, which affects their breeding success.

Australia's threatened species strategy prioritises action to protect 20 bird species - 14 of which feed partially or solely on insects.

Tim Bawden

Six ways to help insects

Insects are small and can inhabit hidden places, so you may not realise how many exist around you. Here are a few ways to help prevent insect decline in your home and elsewhere:

1. Entice insects to your garden: Lawn is a virtual desert for insects, so if you don't really need it, cultivate insect-friendly native plants instead. Plan to have something flowering most of the year and aim for a variety of plant heights and structures, such as tall trees, thick shrubs and ground cover.

2. Put the fly spray away: Insecticides have become very efficient in recent years. They indiscriminately kill all insects, not just the ones you're trying to get rid of. If you have to use insect spray, do so sparingly.

And whenever you can, choose food produced without lots of pesticides. These products are sold with labels such as organic, biodynamic, or chemical-free.

3. Turn off the lights: If you don't need that outdoor light on all night, turn it off: the moths in your area will thank you. Many nocturnal insects can't resist the light, but it disrupts their navigation system. This plays havoc with their ability to feed and reproduce.

4. Build them a home: Think about installing an insect hotel - a small structure of hollows for insects to rest and lay eggs in. Or simply leave dead wood or small areas of bare ground for insects to build nests in. If you don't have a garden, join a local tree-planting group, or convince your council to plant more natives.

Read more: How many species on Earth? Why that's a simple question but hard to answer

5. Resist the urge to clean up: If there is a section of your garden, local park or nature strip that is unkempt, leave it that way. What looks untidy to you is a great place for insects to live.

6. Track insects on your smart phone: Scientists need help to better understand what is happening to our insects. Citizen science apps such as iNaturalist Australia, Wild Pollinator Count, the Atlas of Living Australia and Butterflies Australia help gather valuable information about insect biodiversity, so solutions can be targeted to problem areas.

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Scientists fear insect populations are shrinking. Here are six ways to help

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Are you planning a big garden clean-up this summer, or stocking up on fly spray to keep bugs at bay? Before you do, it's worth considering the damage you might cause to the insects we share the planet with. Australia's insect populations are under pressure.

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Causes of poaching

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Animal Extinction list

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Species List | Endangered, Vulnerable, and Threatened Animals | WWF

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WWF is committed to saving endangered species. Learn more about the species we are working to protecting from becoming endangered or extinct.

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Poachers in Botswana

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New data leave little doubt that the illegal ivory trade has reached the country, scientists say.

A dead elephant inspected by a soldier in Chobe, northern Botswana, in September. Poachers, mostly from Zambia, now are operating in Botswana, conservationists report. Credit... Monirul Bhuiyan/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

In September, conservationists in Botswana discovered 87 dead elephants, their faces hacked off and tusks missing. Poaching, the researchers warned, was on the rise.

The news had international repercussions. Botswana had been one of the last great elephant refuges, largely spared the poaching crisis that has swept through much of Africa over the past decade.

The country is home to some 126,000 savanna elephants, about a third of Africa's remaining population - plentiful enough that they are increasingly in conflict with villagers in the northern part of the country.

Following the announcement in September, Botswana's ministry of the environment denied that there was a poaching crisis of any sort, and in May the government lifted a ban on trophy hunting that had been in place for five years, provoking worldwide condemnation.

Even some scientists wondered whether the illegal ivory trade really had found its way to Botswana. Now, the researchers have published data in the journal Current Biology that seems to confirm their initial findings.

Based on aerial surveys and field visits, the authors report that fresh elephant carcasses in Botswana increased by nearly 600 percent from 2014 to 2018.

Samuel Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the research, said that "there's no question" about the authors' findings.

"The work was exceptional in every way," he said. "There were so many features they carefully and meticulously documented. And they also looked at alternative hypotheses, and none were supported by data."

Such careful documentation of poaching is sorely needed across Africa, Dr. Wasser added: "This is an example of how to do it right, and hopefully others will learn from it."

Reached by phone, Cyril Taolo, director of research at Botswana's Department of Wildlife and National Parks, said that he and his colleagues "are still interrogating this paper and coming up with a response" to the concerns raised by the conservationists.

The survey was led by Michael Chase, founder and director of Elephants Without Borders, a nonprofit conservation organization based in Kasane, Botswana.

Squeezed into a fixed-wing Cessna, Dr. Chase and his colleagues crisscrossed 36,300 square miles of habitat, counting and photographing all living and dead elephants they spotted 300 feet below.

They recorded 156 carcasses they believed to be poached, clustered at five hot spots.

One criticism of the earlier report had been that an elephant's cause of death is impossible to determine from the air. Scott Schlossberg, a data analyst at Elephants Without Borders and co-author of paper, disagreed: "When an elephant's face has been chopped off, you can often see that from the plane."

But to assuage such concerns, he and his colleagues used a helicopter to make field visits to 148 carcasses. About half were fresh, the rest at least a year old.

With close inspections, the researchers confirmed that recent carcasses were exclusively poached animals; roughly 80 percent of the older carcasses had been poached, as well. Older bulls accounted for all of the remains that the scientists were able to age, indicating that poachers, for now, are targeting individuals with the largest tusks.

The findings revealed a 593 percent increase in the number of freshly killed carcasses, compared to survey results from 2014. Extrapolating the numbers, the researchers estimated that a minimum of 385 elephants had been poached in Botswana between 2017 and 2018.

"Those scientists and colleagues who cast doubt on our initial findings I hope now find that the science and evidence that we describe in our paper is indeed convincing," Dr. Chase said.

The results of this "state of the art" study speak for themselves, putting to rest any doubt that Botswana has a poaching problem, said Keith Lindsay, a collaborating researcher at the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, a nonprofit research group in Kenya, who was not involved in the study.
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"The few people who did speak against Mike's original results were researchers who have a history working in Botswana and who want to be seen as supporting the government," Dr. Lindsay said. "My own interpretation is that they wanted to support their future position in Botswana."

While 400 elephants killed out of a population of 126,000 does not sound like a lot, the study authors warn that the situation could quickly escalate. Small increases in poaching - similar to the rates now being seen in Botswana - have preceded dramatic elephant declines in other places.

"Poaching doesn't go away on its own," Dr. Schlossberg said. "Based on scenarios from other countries, it starts small and gets bigger and bigger."

From 2009 to 2014, Tanzania's elephant population fell by 60 percent, while Mozambique's Niassa National Reserve lost 78 percent of its elephants over the same period. The illegal trade in ivory is driven by nearly insatiable demand in China and elsewhere in Asia.

Conservationists have been warning for years that poaching would eventually reach Botswana, said Mary Rice, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit group in London that has worked to combat illegal ivory trade for decades.

"My feeling is that this has been a long time coming and that Botswana is still not taking the information seriously," she said. "A country won't be judged by the fact that it has a poaching problem, but it will be judged by how it responds to the problem."

At the end of June, poachers killed at least three more elephants with poison, the government confirmed. More than 500 endangered vultures that fed off the carcasses also died - the largest mass poisoning of vultures in Africa, Dr. Chase said.

Arrest records and seizure data indicate that poachers behind the recent elephant killings in Botswana mostly originate from Zambia. But while organized criminal networks may be established outside Botswana, Ms. Rice pointed out, poachers cannot operate in isolation.

"Usually there's local support," she said.

For rural villagers in Botswana, the temptation may be rising. Unsafe conditions in neighboring countries have caused elephants to gather in the north, increasing conflict and breeding animosity, said Neil Fitt, an independent conservation consultant in Botswana.

Recently, he said, three Botswanans were killed by elephants in one week.

"I'm not saying that poaching is O.K., but whilst we have these problems, it is difficult to get the communities on board to assist in protecting wildlife," Mr. Fitt said. "Addressing poverty and unemployment in the rural areas would go a long way in protecting our wildlife."

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Poachers Are Invading Botswana, Last Refuge of African Elephants

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New data leave little doubt that the illegal ivory trade has reached the country, scientists say. In September, conservationists in Botswana discovered 87 dead elephants, their faces hacked off and tusks missing. Poaching, the researchers warned, was on the rise. The news had international repercussions.

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2019 extinct animals ):

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Three bird species, two frogs, a shark, a famous snail and one of the world's largest freshwater fish were among those declared extinct this year.

We lost a lot of species in 2019.

The year started with the extinction of a tiny Hawaiian snail and ended with the loss of one of the world's largest freshwater fishes.

Along the way we also said goodbye to three bird species, a shark, two frogs, several plants, and a whole lot more.

About two dozen species were declared extinct (or nearly so) in 2019, although the total number of species lost this year probably numbers in the thousands. Scientists typically wait years or even decades before declaring a species well and truly extinct, and even then only after conducting extensive searches.

Of course, you can only count what you know exists. Most extinctions, sadly, occur among species that have never been officially observed or named. These plants and animals often live in extremely narrow habitats, making them particularly vulnerable to habitat destruction, pollution, extreme weather events, invasive species or other threats. That doesn't mean they'll never be identified - several recently reported extinctions represent species that were discovered among museum samples long after the plants or animals were gone - but you can't save what you don't know needs saving in the first place.

Although it may take some time to truly understand this year's effect on the world's biodiversity, here are the species that scientists and the conservation community declared lost during 2019, culled from the IUCN Red List, scientific publications, a handful of media articles and my own reporting. Only one of these extinctions was observed in real time, when an endling (the last of its kind) died in public view. Most haven't been seen in decades and were finally added to the list of extinct species. A few represent local extinctions where a species has disappeared from a major part of its range, an important thing to watch since habitat loss and fragmentation are often the first steps toward a species vanishing. Finally, some of these extinctions are tentative, with scientists still looking for the species - an indication that hope remains.

Achatinella apexfulva - The last individual of this Hawaiian tree snail, known as "Lonesome George," died in captivity on New Year's Day. Disease and invasive predators drove it to extinction. This tiny creature's disappearance probably generated the most media attention of any lost species in 2019.

- A plant species collected just one time in 1921 near Jakarta, on Java, the world's most populous island. The IUCN listed it as extinct in 2019, noting that "practically all natural land in Jakarta has been developed."

Fissidens microstictus - This Portuguese plant species lived in what is now a highly urbanized area and was last seen in 1982. (Scientists declared it extinct back in 1992, but the IUCN didn't list it as such until this year.)

- A moss species last seen in Portugal in 1946 and declared extinct in 2019 (based on a 2014 survey).

Poo-uli (Melamprosops phaeosoma) - Invasive species and diseases wiped out this Hawaiian bird, which was last seen in 2004 and declared extinct in 2019.

- A plant species from New Caledonia collected just once in 1901. Its only home on tiny Art Island has been extensively mined and subject to brushfires.

- A rare legume tree possibly driven extinct by sand mining and other habitat destruction.

In addition to these extinctions, the IUCN last year declared several species "extinct in the wild," meaning they now only exist in captivity. They include the Spix's Macaw ( Cyanopsitta spixii), Ameca shiner ( Notropis amecae), banded allotoca ( Allotoca goslinei), marbled swordtail ( Xiphophorus meyeri), Charo Palma pupfish ( Cyprinodon veronicae), kunimasu ( Oncorhynchus kawamurae) and Monterrey platyfish ( Xiphophorus couchianus).

What will the future hold for these and other lost species? Some could be rediscovered (the Miss Waldron's red colobus seems the most likely candidate), but the rest should serve as a stark reminder of what we're losing all around us every day - and a clarion call to save what's left.
Main image photo credits: Alagoas Foliage-gleaner © Ciro Albano, courtesy IUCN. Poo-uli © Paul E. Baker, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Public Domain). A relative of the Victorian grasslands earless dragon, photographed in 1991 by John Wombey/CSIRO (CC BY 3.0). Bramble Cay melomys via State of Queensland, Environmental Protection Agency (uncredited).

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The Faces of Extinction: The Species We Lost in 2019 * The Revelator

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Three bird species, two frogs, a shark, a famous snail and one of the world's largest freshwater fish were among those declared extinct this year. We lost a lot of species in 2019. The year started with the extinction of a tiny Hawaiian snail and ended with the loss of one of the world's largest freshwater fishes.

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Animal Extinction

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It’s an unprecedented extinction crisis — a million species facing extinction. Learn about our Saving Life on Earth campaign.

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Illegal poaching in Africa

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Illegal poaching and trade of endangered animals has been a huge issue in Africa for many years. Even today, despite great efforts by African wildlife authorities and environmental groups, the killing goes on. Earlier this year, over 1,200 tusks were discovered in Tanzania, a sign that the situation is still nowhere near where it should be. It is therefore understandable that conservation groups such as IFAW should be outraged at the recent proposals being put forward by governments for a limited legal trade in certain animal products. However, as is so often the case, the argument is a complicated one, and it's difficult to judge what is best. The two most poignant cases concern the elephant and the rhino, both species that were severely threatened during the poaching era of the 1980s.

The Elephant Issue

The elephant population of South Africa has grown steadily thanks to the great efforts employed by conservation groups and wildlife authorities in Africa. Nevertheless massive numbers of elephants are killed every year illegally to feed the ever-hungry black market in ivory.
Recently the South African government made a proposal concerning the sale of ivory and elephant hides stockpiled by their national parks through natural mortality and problem animal control. The money from these sales would be put back into their parks and would help fund activities such as elephant management programmes, control of illegal hunting of elephants, and creating more and larger protected areas for the elephants to be re-established in. The items sold would come from legitimate sources - materials seized from illegal traders would not be included in the trades. The proponents of this proposal claim it would provide a sustainable way of maintaining the conservation efforts of the African elephant.
Conservationists take a different view. They warn that opening up a legal ivory trade would encourage 'the proliferation of illegal activities such as poaching, and thus associated illegal markets.' They reason that creating a legal ivory market would serve only to support the growth of current markets in poached ivory. This would undermine the efforts that the governments are attempting to support through the proposed legal market. Instead, the groups suggest that the governments invest in creating a healthy eco-tourism industry, which would benefit everyone, both financially and ecologically.

Rhino Reservations

The same debate is rife over the protected Rhinos of South Africa - the black rhino, whose overall population in Africa has decreased by 83% since 1980, and the white rhino, whose numbers had been reduced to just 20 at the turn of the century. Again there are two opinions regarding the market for these animals' assets.
Some believe that trade in rhino horn and other by-products should be made legal, as it would in fact encourage people to breed them for commercial purposes, which would allow the wild populations to thrive. Making it legal and more widely available would also decrease its value, and lessen the attraction for poaching and trading in the substances, as they become less precious. A legal market would be much easier to control and regulate, and the money gained could go towards funding further conservation efforts.
Again the argument has two sides, and conservationists believe that such a market would be disastrous in terms of its effects on the rhino population and the popularity of poaching. Similar to the proposals concerning ivory and other elephant derived materials, the groups insist that once a legal market is opened, it would become almost impossible to control or regulate the illegal trade through poaching of the animals.

The proposals in question primarily involve down listing the animals in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendix from Appendix I - whereby trade in products or live animals is illegal - to Appendix II, which would allow for trade in live animals, leather goods and 'the non-commercial trade of sporting trophies'. The move is opposed by Kenya and India, who both maintain an anti-trade stance.
To some it seems a difficult choice but the benefits and costs are clear and poignant. Most arguable is the point that ivory and rhino horn are products which should be removed from the world market altogether. No-one needs them for survival, and those who benefit from the sales could benefit equally from a developed and established eco-tourism industry which would bring wealth and business interests to the countries while benefiting and supporting the wildlife and local people. Yet R25.91 million worth of ivory and hide stockpiles remain in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Should these be used to support further developments of conservational programmes, at the risk of worsening the threat of death to the very animals they protect? Or should they be left untouched in support of the zero-quota principle, at the loss of the precious financial help which their sale could provide for the cause? Let us know what you think.

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Illegal Poaching in Africa, Elephant Poaching

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Illegal poaching and trade of endangered animals has been a huge issue in Africa for many years. Even today, despite great efforts by African wildlife authorities and environmental groups, the killing goes on. Earlier this year, over 1,200 tusks were discovered in Tanzania, a sign that the situation is still nowhere near where it should be.

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Poaching around the world

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Poaching News, Research and Analysis - The Conversation

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Browse Poaching news, research and analysis from The Conversation

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Poaching

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Overcoming the Challenges of Studying Endangered Animals

From the difficulty of tracking rare populations to the danger of poachers exploiting distribution data, the complications of studying endangered species require creative solutions from researchers.

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Poaching News, Articles | The Scientist Magazine®

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Overcoming the Challenges of Studying Endangered Animals From the difficulty of tracking rare populations to the danger of poachers exploiting distribution data, the complications of studying endangered species require creative solutions from researchers.

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Stop poaching

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How to Stop Poaching and Protect Endangered Species? Forget the ‘Kingpins’ (Published 2018)

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Authorities keep arresting people said to be bosses of wildlife trafficking, but that isn’t making a dent in the problem.

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The start of extinction

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When a species disappears, biologists say that the species has become extinct. By making room for new species, extinction helps drive the evolution of life. Over long periods of time, the number of species becoming extinct can remain fairly constant, meaning that an average number of species go extinct each year, century, or millennium. However, during the history of life on Earth, there have been periods of mass extinction, when large percentages of the planet's species became extinct in a relatively short amount of time. These extinctions have had widely different causes.

About 541 million years ago, a great expansion occurred in the diversity of multicellular organisms. Paleobiologists, scientists who study the fossils of plants and animals to learn how life evolved, call this event the Cambrian Explosion. Since the Cambrian Explosion, there have been five mass extinctions, each of which is named for the geological period in which it occurred, or for the periods that immediately preceded and followed it.

The first mass extinction is called the Ordovician-Silurian Extinction. It occurred about 440 million years ago, at the end of the period that paleontologists and geologists call the Ordovician, and followed by the start of the Silurian period. In this extinction event, many small organisms of the sea became extinct. The next mass extinction is called Devonian extinction, occurring 365 million years ago during the Devonian period. This extinction also saw the end of numerous sea organisms.

The largest extinction took place around 250 million years ago. Known as the Permian-Triassic extinction, or the Great Dying, this event saw the end of more than 90 percent of Earth's species. Although life on Earth was nearly wiped out, the Great Dying made room for new organisms, including the first dinosaurs. About 210 million years ago, between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, came another mass extinction. By eliminating many large animals, this extinction event cleared the way for dinosaurs to flourish. Finally, about 65.5 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period came the fifth mass extinction. This is the famous extinction event that brought the age of the dinosaurs to an end.

In each of these cases, the mass extinction created niches or openings in the Earth's ecosystems. Those niches allowed for new groups of organisms to thrive and diversify, which produced a range of new species. In the case of the Cretaceous extinction, the demise of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to thrive and grow larger.

Scientists refer to the current time as the Anthropocene period, meaning the period of humanity. They warn that, because of human activities such as pollution, overfishing, and the cutting down of forests, the Earth might be on the verge of-or already in-a sixth mass extinction. If that is true, what new life would rise up to fill the niche that we currently occupy?

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Extinction is the dying out of a species. Extinction plays an important role in the evolution of life because it opens up opportunities for new species to emerge.

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About extinction

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In biology, extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds ( taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence.

More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species,[1] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to have died out.[2][3][4] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million,[5] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described.[6] In 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one thousandth of one percent described.[7]

Through evolution, species arise through the process of speciation-where new varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche-and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition. The relationship between animals and their ecological niches has been firmly established.[8] A typical species becomes extinct within 10 million years of its first appearance,[4] although some species, called living fossils, survive with little to no morphological change for hundreds of millions of years.

Mass extinctions are relatively rare events; however, isolated extinctions are quite common. Only recently have extinctions been recorded and scientists have become alarmed at the current high rate of extinctions.[9][10][11][12] Most species that become extinct are never scientifically documented. Some scientists estimate that up to half of presently existing plant and animal species may become extinct by 2100.[13] A 2018 report indicated that the phylogenetic diversity of 300 mammalian species erased during the human era since the Late Pleistocene would require 5 to 7 million years to recover.[14]

According to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by IPBES, the biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%, natural ecosystems have lost about half their area and a million species are at risk of extinction-all largely as a result of human actions. Twenty-five percent of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.[15][16][17]

In June 2019, one million species of plants and animals were at risk of extinction. At least 571 species are lost since 1750 but likely many more. The main cause of the extinctions is the destruction of natural habitats by human activities, such as cutting down forests and converting land into fields for farming.[18]

A dagger symbol (†) placed next to the name of a species or other taxon normally indicates its status as extinct.

A species is extinct when the last existing member dies. Extinction therefore becomes a certainty when there are no surviving individuals that can reproduce and create a new generation. A species may become functionally extinct when only a handful of individuals survive, which cannot reproduce due to poor health, age, sparse distribution over a large range, a lack of individuals of both sexes (in sexually reproducing species), or other reasons.

Pinpointing the extinction (or pseudoextinction) of a species requires a clear definition of that species. If it is to be declared extinct, the species in question must be uniquely distinguishable from any ancestor or daughter species, and from any other closely related species. Extinction of a species (or replacement by a daughter species) plays a key role in the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis of Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge.[20]

In ecology, extinction is often used informally to refer to local extinction, in which a species ceases to exist in the chosen area of study, but may still exist elsewhere. This phenomenon is also known as extirpation. Local extinctions may be followed by a replacement of the species taken from other locations; wolf reintroduction is an example of this. Species which are not extinct are termed extant. Those that are extant but threatened by extinction are referred to as threatened or endangered species.

Currently an important aspect of extinction is human attempts to preserve critically endangered species. These are reflected by the creation of the conservation status "extinct in the wild" (EW). Species listed under this status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are not known to have any living specimens in the wild, and are maintained only in zoos or other artificial environments. Some of these species are functionally extinct, as they are no longer part of their natural habitat and it is unlikely the species will ever be restored to the wild.[22] When possible, modern zoological institutions try to maintain a viable population for species preservation and possible future reintroduction to the wild, through use of carefully planned breeding programs.

The extinction of one species' wild population can have knock-on effects, causing further extinctions. These are also called "chains of extinction".[23] This is especially common with extinction of keystone species.

A 2018 study indicated that the sixth mass extinction started in the Late Pleistocene could take up to 5 to 7 million years to restore 2.5 billion years of unique mammal diversity to what it was before the human era.[14][24]

Extinction of a parent species where daughter species or subspecies are still extant is called pseudoextinction or phyletic extinction. Effectively, the old taxon vanishes, transformed ( anagenesis) into a successor,[25] or split into more than one ( cladogenesis).[26]

Pseudoextinction is difficult to demonstrate unless one has a strong chain of evidence linking a living species to members of a pre-existing species. For example, it is sometimes claimed that the extinct Hyracotherium, which was an early horse that shares a common ancestor with the modern horse, is pseudoextinct, rather than extinct, because there are several extant species of Equus, including zebra and donkey; however, as fossil species typically leave no genetic material behind, one cannot say whether Hyracotherium evolved into more modern horse species or merely evolved from a common ancestor with modern horses. Pseudoextinction is much easier to demonstrate for larger taxonomic groups.

The coelacanth, a fish related to lungfish and tetrapods, was considered to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous Period until 1938 when a specimen was found, off the Chalumna River (now Tyolomnqa) on the east coast of South Africa.[27] Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered the fish among the catch of a local angler, Captain Hendrick Goosen, on December 23, 1938.[27] A local chemistry professor, JLB Smith, confirmed the fish's importance with a famous cable: "MOST IMPORTANT PRESERVE SKELETON AND GILLS = FISH DESCRIBED".[27]

Far more recent possible or presumed extinctions of species which may turn out still to exist include the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger ( Thylacinus cynocephalus), the last known example of which died in Hobart Zoo in Tasmania in 1936; the Japanese wolf ( Canis lupus hodophilax), last sighted over 100 years ago; the American ivory-billed woodpecker ( Campephilus principalis), with the last universally accepted sighting 1944; and the slender-billed curlew ( Numenius tenuirostris), not seen since 2007.[28]

As long as species have been evolving, species have been going extinct. It is estimated that over 99.9% of all species that ever lived are extinct. The average lifespan of a species is 1-10 million years,[29] although this varies widely between taxa. There are a variety of causes that can contribute directly or indirectly to the extinction of a species or group of species. "Just as each species is unique", write Beverly and Stephen C. Stearns, "so is each extinction ... the causes for each are varied-some subtle and complex, others obvious and simple".[30] Most simply, any species that cannot survive and reproduce in its environment and cannot move to a new environment where it can do so, dies out and becomes extinct. Extinction of a species may come suddenly when an otherwise healthy species is wiped out completely, as when toxic pollution renders its entire habitat unliveable; or may occur gradually over thousands or millions of years, such as when a species gradually loses out in competition for food to better adapted competitors. Extinction may occur a long time after the events that set it in motion, a phenomenon known as extinction debt.

Assessing the relative importance of genetic factors compared to environmental ones as the causes of extinction has been compared to the debate on nature and nurture.[31] The question of whether more extinctions in the fossil record have been caused by evolution or by catastrophe is a subject of discussion; Mark Newman, the author of Modeling Extinction, argues for a mathematical model that falls between the two positions.[4] By contrast, conservation biology uses the extinction vortex model to classify extinctions by cause. When concerns about human extinction have been raised, for example in Sir Martin Rees' 2003 book Our Final Hour, those concerns lie with the effects of climate change or technological disaster.

Currently, environmental groups and some governments are concerned with the extinction of species caused by humanity, and they try to prevent further extinctions through a variety of conservation programs.[9] Humans can cause extinction of a species through overharvesting, pollution, habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species (such as new predators and food competitors), overhunting, and other influences. Explosive, unsustainable human population growth is an essential cause of the extinction crisis.[32][33][34] According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 784 extinctions have been recorded since the year 1500, the arbitrary date selected to define "recent" extinctions, up to the year 2004; with many more likely to have gone unnoticed. Several species have also been listed as extinct since 2004.[35]

If adaptation increasing population fitness is slower than environmental degradation plus the accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations, then a population will go extinct.[36] Smaller populations have fewer beneficial mutations entering the population each generation, slowing adaptation. It is also easier for slightly deleterious mutations to fix in small populations; the resulting positive feedback loop between small population size and low fitness can cause mutational meltdown.

Limited geographic range is the most important determinant of genus extinction at background rates but becomes increasingly irrelevant as mass extinction arises.[37] Limited geographic range is a cause both of small population size and of greater vulnerability to local environmental catastrophes.

Extinction rates can be affected not just by population size, but by any factor that affects evolvability, including balancing selection, cryptic genetic variation, phenotypic plasticity, and robustness. A diverse or deep gene pool gives a population a higher chance in the short term of surviving an adverse change in conditions. Effects that cause or reward a loss in genetic diversity can increase the chances of extinction of a species. Population bottlenecks can dramatically reduce genetic diversity by severely limiting the number of reproducing individuals and make inbreeding more frequent.

Extinction can threaten species evolved to specific ecologies[38] through the process of genetic pollution-i.e., uncontrolled hybridization, introgression genetic swamping which leads to homogenization or out-competition from the introduced ( or hybrid) species.[39] Endemic populations can face such extinctions when new populations are imported or selectively bred by people, or when habitat modification brings previously isolated species into contact. Extinction is likeliest for rare species coming into contact with more abundant ones;[40] interbreeding can swamp the rarer gene pool and create hybrids, depleting the purebred gene pool (for example, the endangered wild water buffalo is most threatened with extinction by genetic pollution from the abundant domestic water buffalo). Such extinctions are not always apparent from morphological (non-genetic) observations. Some degree of gene flow is a normal evolutionarily process, nevertheless, hybridization (with or without introgression) threatens rare species' existence.[41][42]

The gene pool of a species or a population is the variety of genetic information in its living members. A large gene pool (extensive genetic diversity) is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection. Meanwhile, low genetic diversity (see inbreeding and population bottlenecks) reduces the range of adaptions possible.[43] Replacing native with alien genes narrows genetic diversity within the original population,[40][44] thereby increasing the chance of extinction.

Habitat degradation is currently the main anthropogenic cause of species extinctions. The main cause of habitat degradation worldwide is agriculture, with urban sprawl, logging, mining and some fishing practices close behind. The degradation of a species' habitat may alter the fitness landscape to such an extent that the species is no longer able to survive and becomes extinct. This may occur by direct effects, such as the environment becoming toxic, or indirectly, by limiting a species' ability to compete effectively for diminished resources or against new competitor species.

Habitat degradation through toxicity can kill off a species very rapidly, by killing all living members through contamination or sterilizing them. It can also occur over longer periods at lower toxicity levels by affecting life span, reproductive capacity, or competitiveness.

Habitat degradation can also take the form of a physical destruction of niche habitats. The widespread destruction of tropical rainforests and replacement with open pastureland is widely cited as an example of this;[13] elimination of the dense forest eliminated the infrastructure needed by many species to survive. For example, a fern that depends on dense shade for protection from direct sunlight can no longer survive without forest to shelter it. Another example is the destruction of ocean floors by bottom trawling.[45]

Diminished resources or introduction of new competitor species also often accompany habitat degradation. Global warming has allowed some species to expand their range, bringing unwelcome[according to whom? ] competition to other species that previously occupied that area. Sometimes these new competitors are predators and directly affect prey species, while at other times they may merely outcompete vulnerable species for limited resources. Vital resources including water and food can also be limited during habitat degradation, leading to extinction.

Predation, competition, and disease Edit

In the natural course of events, species become extinct for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: extinction of a necessary host, prey or pollinator, inter-species competition, inability to deal with evolving diseases and changing environmental conditions (particularly sudden changes) which can act to introduce novel predators, or to remove prey. Recently in geological time, humans have become an additional cause of extinction (many people[who? ] would say premature extinction[citation needed ]) of some species, either as a new mega-predator or by transporting animals and plants from one part of the world to another. Such introductions have been occurring for thousands of years, sometimes intentionally (e.g. livestock released by sailors on islands as a future source of food) and sometimes accidentally (e.g. rats escaping from boats). In most cases, the introductions are unsuccessful, but when an invasive alien species does become established, the consequences can be catastrophic. Invasive alien species can affect native species directly by eating them, competing with them, and introducing pathogens or parasites that sicken or kill them; or indirectly by destroying or degrading their habitat. Human populations may themselves act as invasive predators. According to the "overkill hypothesis", the swift extinction of the megafauna in areas such as Australia (40,000 years before present), North and South America (12,000 years before present), Madagascar, Hawaii (AD 300-1000), and New Zealand (AD 1300-1500), resulted from the sudden introduction of human beings to environments full of animals that had never seen them before, and were therefore completely unadapted to their predation techniques.[46]

Coextinction refers to the loss of a species due to the extinction of another; for example, the extinction of parasitic insects following the loss of their hosts. Coextinction can also occur when a species loses its pollinator, or to predators in a food chain who lose their prey. "Species coextinction is a manifestation of one of the interconnectedness of organisms in complex ecosystems ... While coextinction may not be the most important cause of species extinctions, it is certainly an insidious one".[47] Coextinction is especially common when a keystone species goes extinct. Models suggest that coextinction is the most common form of biodiversity loss. There may be a cascade of coextinction across the trophic levels. Such effects are most severe in mutualistic and parasitic relationships. An example of coextinction is the Haast's eagle and the moa: the Haast's eagle was a predator that became extinct because its food source became extinct. The moa were several species of flightless birds that were a food source for the Haast's eagle.[48]

Extinction as a result of climate change has been confirmed by fossil studies.[49] Particularly, the extinction of amphibians during the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse, 305 million years ago.[49] A 2003 review across 14 biodiversity research centers predicted that, because of climate change, 15-37% of land species would be "committed to extinction" by 2050.[50][51] The ecologically rich areas that would potentially suffer the heaviest losses include the Cape Floristic Region, and the Caribbean Basin. These areas might see a doubling of present carbon dioxide levels and rising temperatures that could eliminate 56,000 plant and 3,700 animal species.[52] Climate change has also been found to be a factor in habitat loss and desertification.[53]

There have been at least five mass extinctions in the history of life on earth, and four in the last 350 million years in which many species have disappeared in a relatively short period of geological time. A massive eruptive event is considered to be one likely cause of the " Permian-Triassic extinction event" about 250 million years ago,[54] which is estimated to have killed 90% of species then existing.[55] There is also evidence to suggest that this event was preceded by another mass extinction, known as Olson's Extinction.[54] The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (K-Pg) occurred 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, and is best known for having wiped out non-avian dinosaurs, among many other species.

According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York's American Museum of Natural History, nearly 70% believed that the Earth is currently in the early stages of a human-caused mass extinction,[56] known as the Holocene extinction. In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20% of all living populations could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). A 2014 special edition of Science declared there is widespread consensus on the issue of human-driven mass species extinctions.[57]

Biologist E. O. Wilson estimated[13] in 2002 that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere continue, one-half of all plant and animal species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years.[58] More significantly, the current rate of global species extinctions is estimated as 100 to 1,000 times "background" rates (the average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth),[59][60] while future rates are likely 10,000 times higher.[60] However, some groups are going extinct much faster. Biologists Paul R. Ehrlich and Stuart Pimm, among others, contend that human population growth and overconsumption are the main drivers of the modern extinction crisis.[61][62][33][63]

In January 2020, the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity drafted a plan to mitigate the contemporary extinction crisis by establishing a deadline of 2030 to protect 30% of the earth's land and oceans and reduce pollution by 50%, with the goal of allowing for the restoration of ecosystems by 2050.[64][34]

For much of history, the modern understanding of extinction as the end of a species was incompatible with the prevailing worldview. Prior to the 19th century, much of Western society adhered to the belief that the world was created by God and as such was complete and perfect.[66] This concept reached its heyday in the 1700s with the peak popularity of a theological concept called the great chain of being, in which all life on earth, from the tiniest microorganism to God, is linked in a continuous chain.[67] The extinction of a species was impossible under this model, as it would create gaps or missing links in the chain and destroy the natural order.[66][67] Thomas Jefferson was a firm supporter of the great chain of being and an opponent of extinction,[66][68] famously denying the extinction of the woolly mammoth on the grounds that nature never allows a race of animals to become extinct.[69]

A series of fossils were discovered in the late 17th century that appeared unlike any living species. As a result, the scientific community embarked on a voyage of creative rationalization, seeking to understand what had happened to these species within a framework that did not account for total extinction. In October 1686, Robert Hooke presented an impression of a nautilus to the Royal Society that was more than two feet in diameter,[70] and morphologically distinct from any known living species. Hooke theorized that this was simply because the species lived in the deep ocean and no one had discovered them yet.[67] While he contended that it was possible a species could be "lost", he thought this highly unlikely.[67] Similarly, in 1695, Thomas Molyneux published an account of enormous antlers found in Ireland that did not belong to any extant taxa in that area.[68][71] Molyneux reasoned that they came from the North American moose and that the animal had once been common on the British Isles.[68][71] Rather than suggest that this indicated the possibility of species going extinct, he argued that although organisms could become locally extinct, they could never be entirely lost and would continue to exist in some unknown region of the globe.[71] The antlers were later confirmed to be from the extinct deer Megaloceros.[68] Hooke and Molyneux's line of thinking was difficult to disprove. When parts of the world had not been thoroughly examined and charted, scientists could not rule out that animals found only in the fossil record were not simply "hiding" in unexplored regions of the Earth.[72]

Georges Cuvier is credited with establishing the modern conception of extinction in a 1796 lecture to the French Institute,[65][69] though he would spend most of his career trying to convince the wider scientific community of his theory.[73] Cuvier was a well-regarded geologist, lauded for his ability to reconstruct the anatomy of an unknown species from a few fragments of bone.[65] His primary evidence for extinction came from mammoth skulls found in the Paris basin.[65] Cuvier recognized them as distinct from any known living species of elephant, and argued that it was highly unlikely such an enormous animal would go undiscovered.[65] In 1812, Cuvier, along with Alexandre Brongniart and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, mapped the strata of the Paris basin.[67] They saw alternating saltwater and freshwater deposits, as well as patterns of the appearance and disappearance of fossils throughout the record.[68][73] From these patterns, Cuvier inferred historic cycles of catastrophic flooding, extinction, and repopulation of the earth with new species.[68][73]

Cuvier's fossil evidence showed that very different life forms existed in the past than those that exist today, a fact that was accepted by most scientists.[66] The primary debate focused on whether this turnover caused by extinction was gradual or abrupt in nature.[73] Cuvier understood extinction to be the result of cataclysmic events that wipe out huge numbers of species, as opposed to the gradual decline of a species over time.[74] His catastrophic view of the nature of extinction garnered him many opponents in the newly emerging school of uniformitarianism.[74]

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a gradualist and colleague of Cuvier, saw the fossils of different life forms as evidence of the mutable character of species.[73] While Lamarck did not deny the possibility of extinction, he believed that it was exceptional and rare and that most of the change in species over time was due to gradual change.[73] Unlike Cuvier, Lamarck was skeptical that catastrophic events of a scale large enough to cause total extinction were possible. In his geological history of the earth titled Hydrogeologie, Lamarck instead argued that the surface of the earth was shaped by gradual erosion and deposition by water, and that species changed over time in response to the changing environment.[73][75]

Charles Lyell, a noted geologist and founder of uniformitarianism, believed that past processes should be understood using present day processes. Like Lamarck, Lyell acknowledged that extinction could occur, noting the total extinction of the dodo and the extirpation of indigenous horses to the British Isles.[67] He similarly argued against mass extinctions, believing that any extinction must be a gradual process.[65][69] Lyell also showed that Cuvier's original interpretation of the Parisian strata was incorrect. Instead of the catastrophic floods inferred by Cuvier, Lyell demonstrated that patterns of saltwater and freshwater deposits, like those seen in the Paris basin, could be formed by a slow rise and fall of sea levels.[68]

The concept of extinction was integral to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, with less fit lineages disappearing over time. For Darwin, extinction was a constant side effect of competition.[76] Because of the wide reach of On the Origin of Species, it was widely accepted that extinction occurred gradually and evenly (a concept now referred to as background extinction).[69] It was not until 1982, when David Raup and Jack Sepkoski published their seminal paper on mass extinctions, that Cuvier was vindicated and catastrophic extinction was accepted as an important mechanism. The current understanding of extinction is a synthesis of the cataclysmic extinction events proposed by Cuvier, and the background extinction events proposed by Lyell and Darwin.

Extinction is an important research topic in the field of zoology, and biology in general, and has also become an area of concern outside the scientific community. A number of organizations, such as the Worldwide Fund for Nature, have been created with the goal of preserving species from extinction. Governments have attempted, through enacting laws, to avoid habitat destruction, agricultural over-harvesting, and pollution. While many human-caused extinctions have been accidental, humans have also engaged in the deliberate destruction of some species, such as dangerous viruses, and the total destruction of other problematic species has been suggested. Other species were deliberately driven to extinction, or nearly so, due to poaching or because they were "undesirable", or to push for other human agendas. One example was the near extinction of the American bison, which was nearly wiped out by mass hunts sanctioned by the United States government, to force the removal of Native Americans, many of whom relied on the bison for food.[77]

Biologist Bruce Walsh states three reasons for scientific interest in the preservation of species: genetic resources, ecosystem stability, and ethics; and today the scientific community "stress[es] the importance" of maintaining biodiversity.[78][79]

In modern times, commercial and industrial interests often have to contend with the effects of production on plant and animal life. However, some technologies with minimal, or no, proven harmful effects on Homo sapiens can be devastating to wildlife (for example, DDT).[80] Biogeographer Jared Diamond notes that while big business may label environmental concerns as "exaggerated", and often cause "devastating damage", some corporations find it in their interest to adopt good conservation practices, and even engage in preservation efforts that surpass those taken by national parks.[81]

Governments sometimes see the loss of native species as a loss to ecotourism,[82] and can enact laws with severe punishment against the trade in native species in an effort to prevent extinction in the wild. Nature preserves are created by governments as a means to provide continuing habitats to species crowded by human expansion. The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity has resulted in international Biodiversity Action Plan programmes, which attempt to provide comprehensive guidelines for government biodiversity conservation. Advocacy groups, such as The Wildlands Project[83] and the Alliance for Zero Extinctions,[84] work to educate the public and pressure governments into action.

People who live close to nature can be dependent on the survival of all the species in their environment, leaving them highly exposed to extinction risks. However, people prioritize day-to-day survival over species conservation; with human overpopulation in tropical developing countries, there has been enormous pressure on forests due to subsistence agriculture, including slash-and-burn agricultural techniques that can reduce endangered species's habitats.[85]

Antinatalist philosopher David Benatar concludes that any popular concern about non-human species extinction usually arises out of concern about how the loss of a species will impact human wants and needs, that "we shall live in a world impoverished by the loss of one aspect of faunal diversity, that we shall no longer be able to behold or use that species of animal." He notes that typical concerns about possible human extinction, such as the loss of individual members, are not considered in regards to non-human species extinction.[86]

Completed Edit

The smallpox virus is now extinct in the wild,[87] although samples are retained in laboratory settings.

The rinderpest virus, which infected domestic cattle, is now extinct in the wild.[88]

The poliovirus is now confined to small parts of the world due to extermination efforts.[89]

Dracunculus medinensis, a parasitic worm which causes the disease dracunculiasis, is now close to eradication thanks to efforts led by the Carter Center.[90]

Treponema pallidum pertenue, a bacterium which causes the disease yaws, is in the process of being eradicated.

Biologist Olivia Judson has advocated the deliberate extinction of certain disease-carrying mosquito species. In a September 25, 2003 article in The New York Times, she advocated "specicide" of thirty mosquito species by introducing a genetic element which can insert itself into another crucial gene, to create recessive " knockout genes".[91] She says that the Anopheles mosquitoes (which spread malaria) and Aedes mosquitoes (which spread dengue fever, yellow fever, elephantiasis, and other diseases) represent only 30 of around 3,500 mosquito species; eradicating these would save at least one million human lives per annum, at a cost of reducing the genetic diversity of the family Culicidae by only 1%. She further argues that since species become extinct "all the time" the disappearance of a few more will not destroy the ecosystem: "We're not left with a wasteland every time a species vanishes. Removing one species sometimes causes shifts in the populations of other species-but different need not mean worse." In addition, anti-malarial and mosquito control programs offer little realistic hope to the 300 million people in developing nations who will be infected with acute illnesses this year. Although trials are ongoing, she writes that if they fail: "We should consider the ultimate swatting."[91]

Biologist E. O. Wilson has advocated the eradication of several species of mosquito, including malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. Wilson stated, "I'm talking about a very small number of species that have co-evolved with us and are preying on humans, so it would certainly be acceptable to remove them. I believe it's just common sense."[92]

Some, such as Harvard geneticist George M. Church, believe that ongoing technological advances will let us "bring back to life" an extinct species by cloning, using DNA from the remains of that species. Proposed targets for cloning include the mammoth, the thylacine, and the Pyrenean ibex. For this to succeed, enough individuals would have to be cloned, from the DNA of different individuals (in the case of sexually reproducing organisms) to create a viable population. Though bioethical and philosophical objections have been raised,[93] the cloning of extinct creatures seems theoretically possible.[94]

In 2003, scientists tried to clone the extinct Pyrenean ibex ( C. p. pyrenaica). This attempt failed: of the 285 embryos reconstructed, 54 were transferred to 12 mountain goats and mountain goat-domestic goat hybrids, but only two survived the initial two months of gestation before they too died.[95] In 2009, a second attempt was made to clone the Pyrenean ibex: one clone was born alive, but died seven minutes later, due to physical defects in the lungs.[96]

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24. Ceballos, Gerardo; Ehrlich, Paul R; Dirzo, Rodolfo (23 May 2017). "Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines". PNAS. 114 (30): E6089-E6096. doi:10.1073/pnas.1704949114. PMC 5544311. PMID 28696295. Much less frequently mentioned are, however, the ultimate drivers of those immediate causes of biotic destruction, namely, human overpopulation and continued population growth, and overconsumption, especially by the rich. These drivers, all of which trace to the fiction that perpetual growth can occur on a finite planet, are themselves increasing rapidly.

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31. ^ "Genetic diversity" (PDF). 2003. p. 104. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-03-13. In other words, greater genetic diversity can offer greater resilience. In order to maintain the capacity of our forests to adapt to future changes, therefore, genetic diversity must be preserved

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38. ^ Handwerk, Brian; Hendwerk, Brian (April 2006). "Global Warming Could Cause Mass Extinctions by 2050, Study Says". National Geographic News.

39. ^ Gibbon, J. Whitfield; Scott, David E.; Ryan, Travis J.; Buhlmann, Kurt A.; Tuberville, Tracey D.; Metts, Brian S.; Greene, Judith L.; Mills, Tony; Leiden, Yale (2000-08-01). "The Global Decline of Reptiles, Déjà Vu Amphibians". BioScience. 50 (8): 653-666. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2000)050[0653:TGDORD]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0006-3568.

40. Sahney, S.; Benton, M.J. (2008). "Recovery from the most profound mass extinction of all time" (PDF). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 275 (1636): 759-765. doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1370. PMC 2596898. PMID 18198148.

41. ^ American Museum of Natural History. "National Survey Reveals Biodiversity Crisis - Scientific Experts Believe We are in the Midst of the Fastest Mass Extinction in Earth's History". Retrieved September 20, 2006.

42. ^ Vignieri, S. (25 July 2014). "Vanishing fauna (Special issue)". Science. 345 (6195): 392-412. doi:10.1126/science.345.6195.392. PMID 25061199.

43. ^ Wilson, E.O. (April 30, 2012). ""E. O. Wilson wants to know why you're not protesting in the streets"". Grist (Interview). Interviewed by Lisa Hymas. E.O. Wilson repeats his estimation in 2012.

44. J.H.Lawton and R.M.May, ^ Extinction rates, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK

45. De Vos; et al. (2014). "Estimating the Normal Background Rate of Species Extinction" (PDF). Conservation Biology. 29 (2): 452-462. doi:10.1111/cobi.12380. PMID 25159086.

46. ^ Pimm, S.L.; Jenkins, C.N.; Abell, R.; Brooks, T.M.; Gittleman, J.L.; Joppa, L.N.; Raven, P.H.; Roberts, C.M.; Sexton, J.O. (30 May 2014). "The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection" (PDF). Science. 344 (6187): 1246752. doi:10.1126/science.1246752. PMID 24876501. The overarching driver of species extinction is human population growth and increasing per capita consumption.

47. ^ Rowland, Stephen (2009). "Thomas Jefferson, extinction, and the evolving view of Earth history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries". GSA Memoirs. 203: 225-246.

48. Lyells, Charles (1854). The Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology. New York: Appleton Co.

49. ^ Vidal, Fernando; Dias, Nélia (2015). Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-53807-3.

50. ^ Inwood, Stephen (2005). The Forgotten Genius: The Biography of Robert Hooke, 1635-1703. MacAdam/Cage Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59692-115-3.

51. ^ Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud (Peter Watson Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0-297-60726-X)

52. Trevor., Palmer (2003). Perilous planet earth : catastrophes and catastrophism through the ages. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81928-2. OCLC 912273245.

53. S., Rudwick, M.J. (1998). Georges Cuvier, fossil bones, and geological catastrophes : new translations & interpretations of the primary texts. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-73106-3. OCLC 45730036.

54. ^ Renato), Mandelbaum, Jonathan (Jonathan (1988). The age of Lamarck : evolutionary theories in France, 1790-1830. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05830-9. OCLC 898833548.

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56. Walsh, Bruce. ^ Extinction Archived 1997-08-02 at the Wayback Machine. Bioscience at University of Arizona. Retrieved July 26, 2006.

57. ^ Diamond, Jared (2005). "A Tale of Two Farms". Collapse. Penguin. pp. 15-17. ISBN 978-0-670-03337-9.

58. Drewry, Rachel. "^ Ecotourism: Can it save the orangutans? Archived February 16, 2007, at the Wayback Machine" Inside Indonesia. Retrieved January 26, 2007.

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61. ^ Benatar, David (2008). Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Oxford University Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-19-954926-9. It is noteworthy that human concern about human extinction takes a different form from human concern (where there is any) about the extinction of non-human species. Most humans who are concerned about the extinction of non-human species are not concerned about the individual animals whose lives are cut short in the passage to extinction, even though that is one of the best reasons to be concerned about extinction (at least in its killing form). The popular concern about animal extinction is usually concern for humans-that we shall live in a world impoverished by the loss of one aspect of faunal diversity, that we shall no longer be able to behold or use that species of animal. In other words, none of the typical concerns about human extinction are applied to non-human species extinction.

62. ^ "Smallpox". WHO Factsheet. Archived from the original on 2007-09-21.

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65. ^ "Why a famous biologist wants to eradicate killer mosquitoes". PRI.

66. ^ The cell could be converted into an embryo and brought to term by an elephant, a project he estimated would cost some $10 million. "This is something that could work, though it will be tedious and expensive,"

67. ^ Gray, Richard; Dobson, Roger (31 Jan 2009). "Extinct ibex is resurrected by cloning". Telegraph. London.

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In biology, extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds ( taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point.

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Lion poaching

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Lion poaching: the brutal new threat to Africa's prides

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The big cats are horribly easy to kill with poisoned meat, allowing poachers to hack off their faces and paws - but rangers are now on their trail

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Animal Extinction

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The bonds that hold nature together may be at risk of unraveling from deforestation, overfishing, development, and other human activities, a landmark United Nations report warns. Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction in the next few years, with serious consequences for human beings as well as the rest of life on Earth.

"The evidence is crystal clear: Nature is in trouble. Therefore we are in trouble," said Sandra Díaz, one of the co-chairs of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. A 40-page "Summary for Policy Makers" of the forthcoming full report (expected to exceed 1,500 pages) was released May 6 in Paris.

Based on a review of about 15,000 scientific and government sources and compiled by 145 expert authors from 50 countries, the global report is the first comprehensive look in 15 years at the state of the planet's biodiversity. This report includes, for the first time, indigenous and local knowledge as well as scientific studies. The authors say they found overwhelming evidence that human activities are behind nature's decline. They ranked the major drivers of species decline as land conversion, including deforestation; overfishing; bush meat hunting and poaching; climate change; pollution; and invasive alien species.

The tremendous variety of living species-at least 8.7 million, but possibly many more -that make up our "life-supporting safety net" provide our food, clean water, air, energy, and more, said Díaz, an ecologist at the National University of Cordoba in Argentina, in an interview. "Not only is our safety net shrinking, it's becoming more threadbare and holes are appearing."

In parts of the ocean, little life remains but green slime. Some remote tropical forests are nearly silent as insects have vanished, and grasslands are increasingly becoming deserts. Human activity has resulted in the severe alteration of more than 75 percent of Earth's land areas, the Global Assessment found. And 66 percent of the oceans, which cover most of our blue planet, have suffered significant human impacts. This includes more than 400 dead zones -where scant life can survive-that collectively would cover the state of Oregon or Wyoming.

The new report paints "an ominous picture" of the health of ecosystems rapidly deteriorating, said Sir Robert Watson, Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which conducted the global assessment. IPBES is often described as the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change for biodiversity and does scientific assessments on the status of the non-human life that makes up the Earth's life-support system.

"We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide," Watson said in a statement.

"My biggest personal concern is the state of the oceans," Watson told National Geographic. " Plastics, dead zones, overfishing, acidification... We're really screwing up the oceans in a big way."

Protecting nature and saving species is all about securing the land and water plants and animals need to survive, said Jonathan Baillie, executive vice president and chief scientist of the National Geographic Society. Protecting half of the planet by 2050, with an interim target of 30 percent by 2030, is the only way to meet the Paris climate targets or achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals for the world, Baillie said.

Forests, oceans, and other parts of nature soak up 60 percent of global fossil fuel emissions every year, the report found. "We need to secure the biosphere to protect the climate and help buffer us from extreme weather events," Baillie said.

Coral reefs and mangroves protect coastal areas from storms such as hurricanes. Wetlands reduce flooding by absorbing heavy rainfall. Yet each of these ecosystems has declined dramatically, with wetlands down to less than 15 percent of what they were 300 years ago and coral reefs facing a global bleaching crisis.

Nearly 100 groups around the world (including the National Geographic Society and the Wyss Campaign for Nature) have endorsed the goal of protecting half of the planet by 2050. Recently, 19 of the world's leading scientists published a study to make a science-backed plan for an interim step that would protect 30 percent by 2030 under what's called a Global Deal for Nature. The proposed protection does not mean "no go" areas, but rather areas protected from resource extraction and land conversion. Sustainable uses would be permitted in all but the most sensitive areas, the groups wrote.

"The international community has both the time and the tools to safeguard nature and slow the ongoing wildlife extinction crisis," Brian O'Donnell, director of the Wyss Campaign for Nature, said in a statement.

National Geographic Society and the Wyss Campaign for Nature are working together to inspire the protection of 30 percent of the planet by 2030.

Such tools were under discussion during the week-long negotiations by IPBES country members who debated the key messages and policy options to be published in the "Summary for Policymakers." The full Global Assessment report will be published later this year.

"The main message of our report is that transformative change is urgently needed. There are no other options" said David Obura, a marine biologist at the Coastal Oceans Research and Development - Indian Ocean in Mombasa, Kenya. "There's so little time left to save corals. If we can save corals we could save everything."

In order to safeguard a healthy planet, society needs to shift from a sole focus on chasing economic growth, the summary report concludes. That won't be easy, the report acknowledges. But it could get easier if countries begin to base their economies on an understanding that nature is the foundation for development. Shifting to nature-based planning can help provide a better quality of life with far less impact.

Putting that concept into practical terms, the report says countries need to reform hundreds of billions in dollars in subsidies and incentives that are currently given to the energy, fishing, agricultural, and forestry sectors. Instead of driving additional exploitation of the world's natural resources, those monies should be shifted to incentivize protection and restoration of nature-such as underwriting new reserves or reforestation programs, the report said.

"We need to change what we value: nature, ecosystems, social equity, not growing the GDP," Obura said.

The other evidence gathered by IPBES shows that nature managed by indigenous peoples and local communities is in generally better health than nature managed by national or corporate institutions, despite increasing pressures, said Joji Cariño, a senior policy advisor at the Forest Peoples Programme, a human rights organization.

At least a quarter of the global land area is traditionally owned, managed, used, or occupied by indigenous peoples. However, their land tenure and other rights are not always protected or recognized by all countries. Nor is their deep knowledge of the land and their values often considered in policies and decisions by governments. That needs to change, the Global Assessment noted.

"Indigenous peoples are key partners in the global transformation that's needed," said Cariño.

Yet countries still are slow to recognize this, she adds. As an example, she points to the Philippines. Forty years ago, indigenous people there stopped construction of dams on the Chico River because they were concerned about impacts on their land. Yet those dams are now being built by China under their trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

China has an important role to play in global discussions around biodiversity, because the country will host a major United Nations conference called the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in late 2020. Scientists hope a new, ambitious international agreement to protect the planet could happen there, akin to the Paris agreement around climate.

Assessment co-chair Díaz doesn't yet know if a global agreement will arise as bold as protecting 30 percent by 2030. "If it were easy it would have already happened," Diaz said.

"However, the evidence is clear: the future will be bad for us if we don't act now. There is no future for us without nature."

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One million species at risk of extinction, UN report warns

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The bonds that hold nature together may be at risk of unraveling from deforestation, overfishing, development, and other human activities, a landmark United Nations report warns. Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction in the next few years, with serious consequences for human beings as well as the rest of life on Earth.

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The devastating effects of wildlife poaching

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Wildlife poaching has negative side effects that affect local communities, wildlife populations, and the environment. It is a crime fueled by a lucrative black market trade of animal parts. The animal parts are sold as novelty items and are sold for their "medicinal" properties. Environmental groups, animal rights groups, government agencies, and even the Duke of Cambridge are calling for an end to wildlife poaching. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), and The International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF) are leading international efforts to end wildlife poaching.

Poachers kill for profit. For example, bear gall bladders and big horned sheep antlers are worth top dollar for their so-called medicinal properties. This past November, at the National Wildlife Property Repository in Colorado, the wildlife service destroyed six tons of ivory confiscated at U.S. borders. Elephants are killed for their tusks because, while it is possible to remove the tusks without killing the elephant, they are too dangerous to remove when they are alive. The international community is responding. China recently increased its prosecutions of ivory smugglers, sentencing eight citizens to jail for bringing in over 3 tons of ivory between 2010 and 2012.

Effects on Local Communities

The United States is second to China in its desire for illegal wildlife parts. According to an On Earth article, poachers killed over 30,000 elephants last year. Experts believe that elephants will go extinct within the next decade if the killing continues at this rate.

The extinction of a species can have a negative economic effect on a local community's tourism industry. A community that relies on its wildlife to attract tourists is at great risk for economic hardship if the prevalence of poaching is high. Furthermore, a tourist boycott due to local poaching is a real threat. A boycott could have a detrimental effect on a community's economy since restaurants, hotels, rentals, and other attractions would suffer.

Effects on Animals

Extinction is the greatest threat to animals that are victims of wildlife poaching. In 2011, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUNC) declared the Western Black Rhinoceros extinct. This subspecies of the critically endangered Black Rhino was poached due to the belief in the healing properties of its horn.

The Sumatran Tiger is a critically endangered species right now. It is poached and sold for its parts (skin, teeth, bones, and claws) which sell for up to $5,000. Poaching is more lucrative than other jobs that are available in the region; a harsh reality faced by many individuals and communities.

Effects on the Environment

Poaching is also dangerous to the environment. When the North American Gray Wolf was on the brink of extinction, due to trophy hunting and poaching, the elk populations in Yellowstone National Park soared. With no natural predator, the elk nearly ate the aspen tree to extinction. Now, because of the increasing populations of gray wolves in the park, elk populations are balancing out and the aspen tree is recovering.

Our ecosystems are sensitive and must be preserved. The economic challenges of a community can lead to poaching, which in turn can lead to endangerment (and in the worst cases, extinction) of different species. We need various species of flora and fauna in our environmental ecosystems so that they can maintain healthy and balanced. The survival of our own species depends on it.

Get Involved

If you suspect poaching, use this list to contact the proper authorities. If you are a witness to poaching, dial 911 and report it. Wildlife poaching is a crime and should be treated as such.

Also, arm yourself with additional information, like from the sources below, and share it wide and far!

Easy Ways to Help the Planet:

Eat Less Meat: Download Food Monster , the largest plant-based recipe app on the App Store to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy. You can also buy a hard or soft copy of our favorite vegan cookbooks .

Do What You Can: Reduce waste, plant trees, eat local, travel responsibly, reuse stuff, say no to single-use plastics, recycle, vote smart, switch to cold water laundry, divest from fossil fuels, save water, shop wisely, donate if you can, grow your own food, volunteer, conserve energy, compost, and don't forget about the microplastics and microbeads lurking in common household and personal care products!

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The Devastating Effects of Wildlife Poaching

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Wildlife poaching has negative side effects that affect local communities, wildlife populations, and the environment. It is a crime fueled by a lucrative black market trade of animal parts. The animal parts are sold as novelty items and are sold for their "medicinal" properties.

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Do you know anyone who would appreciate a personalized pet portrait of THEIR pet? Read below how you can make their day!

To be an artist, whether that's a painter, a writer, a musician, an entertainer, takes a certain type of personality and a certain type of mind. You find value in experiences, not money. You want to show the world what the world means to you and what the world could be.

An artist is nothing but a storyteller, telling the world as they see it. Trying to find beauty in something many people might miss, and tell the world about it. Without this feeling, their work would be nothing. To be an artist is to be full of life, full of love, and full of emotions.

Thats why I really, REALLY love working with personalized portraits. It's like a little line of connection to someone else's heart, and something they truly love.

Getting a picture of a furry little family member from a proud pet parent, hearing about them, what they mean, their unique personality and finally composing this into an artwork that hopefully will be enjoyed for years to come... not only by them but anyone who will come in their home. It's nothing but an amazing feeling and gives each and every artwork I make such a unique purpose.

So if you're interested, let me tell the world YOUR story! Do you know anyone who would appreciate a pet portrait of THEIR own pet, feel free to tag them in this post!

Of course they don't have to follow this page, but it's hugely appreciated if they like what they see!

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Do you know anyone who would appreciate a personalized pet portrait of THEIR pet? Read below how you can make their day! To be an artist, whether that's a painter, a writer, a musician, an entertainer, takes a certain type of personality and a certain type of mind.

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Animal Extinction

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The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. It uses a set of criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world. With its strong scientific base, the IUCN Red List is recognized as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity.

Explore

Search for species on The IUCN Red List: www.iucnredlist.org

Browse the new IUCN Red List website

Learn More

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The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. It uses a set of criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world.

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Sean.F

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What characterises a rhino? Some might say its huge size, immense power, thick legs, or prehistoric appearance, but I am sure the majority would say their horn. It is what symbolises a rhino, so why the sudden increase in dehorning over the past few years?

20 Aug 2017

By: Save The Rhino

Hornless rhinos?

Over the past few years there has been a shocking increase in rhino poaching. In 2011, in South Africa alone, 448 rhino were poached for their horns and as of mid-2012 over 300 have been poached. These horrific figures indicate the urgent need for both proactive and preventative measures to curtail the rhino poaching crisis. At a first glance, it would appear that by simply removing the horn the problem is solved; rhinos should be worthless to poachers. However, the issue is a lot more complicated than it first appears.

Namibia was the first country to use dehorning to protect rhinos from poaching. Between 1989 and the early 1990s, dehorning coupled with rapid improvements in security and funding for anti-poaching was perceived by stakeholders to have contributed significantly to reducing poaching losses. In Namibia, not a single dehorned rhino was poached.

There have been several other successful cases across Africa. Rhinos dehorned in recent years in certain Zimbabwe Lowveld conservancies appear to have 29.1% higher chance of surviving than horned animals. In Mpumalanga, South Africa, just over one-third of all the reserves' rhinos (excluding Kruger NP) have been dehorned, and out of the 33 rhinos killed from 2009-11, only one was a de-horned rhino.

However, there are numerous cases where dehorning has proved insufficient to prevent rhinos from falling victim to poachers. For example, in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe during the early 1990s, the majority of de-horned rhinos were killed just 12-18 months after being dehorned. In Zimbabwe's Save Valley Conservancy, six newly dehorned rhinos were poached during January-August 2011 (one rhino was killed within 24 hours and another within five days of being dehorned).

For dehorning to be effective, it must be coupled with extensive anti-poaching security and monitoring efforts. With an absence of security, rhinos may continue to be poached regardless of whether they have been dehorned.

So why do poachers continue to target hornless rhinos? This is often attributed to the stub of horn that is left after removal. If the horn is cut too close to the germinal layer, this could damage the horn base and lead to deformed horn re-growth. Current dehorning is estimated to remove 90% and 93% of horn mass in male and female white rhinos respectively. So during any dehorning exercise a stub of horn will remain: although poaching is made less profitable, the sad reality is that poachers will still kill for a horn stub due to its high value.

Poachers may also kill dehorned rhinos out of vengeance. In Hwange NP, it was thought that poachers killed dehorned rhinos, to avoid tracking them again. Furthermore, if there is thick bush or hilly terrain poachers may not see if the rhino has an intact horn prior to shooting.

Horns grow back over time, with recent studies claiming that the re-growth of dehorned rhino horn appears faster than growth in non-dehorned rhinos. With the current severe poaching threat, experts recommend that rhinos should ideally be dehorned every 12-24 months in order to be an effective deterrent.

Dehorning is an intrusive procedure and, like any immobilisation, there is a risk to the rhino during the operation. While all efforts are taken to reduce the risk, there are sometimes veterinary complications while the animal is under anaesthetic that may result in death. The more frequently the rhinos are immobilised, the greater the risk.

In addition, dehorning is incredibly costly, due to the effort of finding the animals and the costs associated with the immobilisation process, especially if needed on a recurrent basis. The actual cost depends on several factors, but current published estimates for dehorning range from US $620 (Kruger National Park) per animal to US$1,000 (private land). It is estimated that it would cost around US$5.8-8.8 million for a one-off dehorning of all the rhinos in Kruger National Park. (In practice, one could never hope to dehorn 100% of the population: some will successfully hideaway and one should never dart a pregnant cow.)

An important consideration in the dehorning debate is whether rhinos actually need their horns. The evolutionary significance of horns in rhinos is not entirely clear, and may include mate choice or anti-predator defence. It is known that rhinos use their horns for several behavioural functions, including defending territories, defending calves from other rhinos and predators, maternal care (including guiding calves) and foraging behaviour, such as digging for water and breaking branches. Male rhinos use their horns during disputes over territory or dominance, so removal of the horn may undermine the ability of a particular bull to retain territory or status. On a positive note, dehorning has shown to reduce fighting-related mortalities among black rhinos in Zimbabwe. However dehorning may also decrease the value of rhinos, whether for photographic or hunting tourism or as a potential live sale.

The issue of dehorning leads on to another 'thorny issue' - what should be done with the horns? These could be destroyed; however, they are more likely to be stockpiled by owners awaiting the potential legalisation of the trade. The current permit system for possessing, transporting and storing horn is considered to be onerous and presents a security risk through the leakage of information on the whereabouts of horns. This risk is emphasised by the fact that at least 38 horn-related thefts had occurred by mid-2009, including several armed robberies. In South Africa, there has been a substantial internal trade of rhino horn from natural mortalities and illegally dehorned rhinos and subsequent leakage of horns onto the international black market.

If rhinos are to be dehorned, it should be done in conjunction with a publicity drive to ensure that poachers are aware that the rhinos have been dehorned. If not, there may be a lag effect whereby poachers continue to target rhinos in the area. There is also the possibility that dehorning rhinos in one area simply transfers the risk to horned individuals in other areas.

Dehorning has its place in rhino conservation and, although not a stand-alone solution, recent successes demonstrate that, used alongside other methods, dehorning can be used to protect rhinos. Due to the invasive nature of dehorning, it should only be considered as a last resort under conditions of severe poaching threat. For example, although dehorning is not routinely practised in Kenya, its small population of Northern White Rhino is routinely dehorned due to the exceptional conservation value of being the last remaining individuals of the subspecies.

The first priority for all rhino conservationists should be to ensure adequate anti-poaching monitoring and security (including intelligence-gathering) to protect rhino populations, and only then should dehorning be considered, for is a rhino really a rhino without its horn?

How is dehorning carried out?

Rhinos are usually darted from a helicopter, but occasionally from the ground in smaller reserves

A pen is used to mark the point of removal - usually 7cm from the base of the front horn and 5cm from the base of the back horn

While under anaesthesia, a chainsaw or hand-saw is used to cut the horn off horizontally

Eyes and ears are covered to prevent noise / disturbance / damage from the saw

The stump is trimmed to remove excess horn at the base, then smoothed and covered with Stockholm tar to prevent cracking and drying

Further reading on dehorning

Click here to read the Endangered Wildlife Trust 2011 study on the dehorning of African rhinoceros as a tool to reduce the risk of poaching

Click here to read a 2013 paper by Raoul Du Toit and Natasha Anderson from the Lowveld Rhino Trust, whose research challenges some of the supposed consequences of dehorning

Click here to read 'Caught in the Crosshairs' a scienceline article investigating the dehorning debate

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What characterises a rhino? Some might say its huge size, immense power, thick legs, or prehistoric appearance, but I am sure the majority would say their horn. It is what symbolises a rhino, so why the sudden increase in dehorning over the past few years? 20 Aug 2017 By: Save The Rhino Hornless rhinos?

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Alex.S

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The Animal-Cruelty Syndrome (Published 2010)

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Connections are being drawn between animal abuse and other forms of violence.

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Animal testing

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Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation and animal research is the use of animals for experiments. Fruit flies and mice are often used for animal testing. About 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals and many more invertebrate animals are used around the world every year. The source of the animals are different according to the country and species. Most animals used for experiments are bred for this purpose. But others may be caught from the wild or bought from people who buy them from animal shelters.

Animals are used for experiments inside universities, medical schools, farms, large companies and other places that provide animal-testing services. People who support animal testing argue that almost every medical discovery in the 20th century used animals in some way. They say that even complex computers cannot model connections between molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and the environment. But some scientists and animal rights organizations such as PETA do not support animal testing. They say that it is cruel, poorly done, and costly. Others argue that animals have the right not to be used for experiments, and that animal models are different from humans. The limits to animal testing is different in various countries.

Definitions

The terms animal testing, animal experimentation, animal research, in vivo testing, and vivisection have similar denotations but different connotations. Literally, "vivisection" means "live sectioning" of an animal, and historically referred only to experiments that involved the dissection of live animals. The term is occasionally used to refer pejoratively to any experiment using living animals; for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica defines "vivisection" as: "Operation on a living animal for experimental rather than healing purposes; more broadly, all experimentation on live animals", although dictionaries point out that the broader definition is "used only by people who are opposed to such work". The word has a negative connotation, implying torture, suffering, and death. The word "vivisection" is preferred by those opposed to this research, whereas scientists typically use the term "animal experimentation".

The earliest mention of animal testing is in the writings of the Greeks in the second and fourth centuries BCE. Aristotle (Αριστοτέλης) (384 - 322 BCE) and Erasistratus (304 - 258 BCE) were some of the first people to try out experiments on living animals. Galen, a doctor in second-century Rome who was known as the "father of vivisection", dissected pigs and goats. Avenzoar, an Arabic doctor in twelfth-century Spain, tested out surgical processes on animals before applying them to humans.

Animals have often been used in the history of scientific study. In the 1880s, Louis Pasteur showed the germ theory of medicine by putting anthrax in sheep. In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov famously used dogs to describe classical conditioning. On November 3, 1957, a Russian dog, Laika, became the first animal to orbit the earth. In the 1970s, antibiotic treatments and vaccines for leprosy were made using armadillos, then given to humans. In 1974, Rudolf Jaenisch produced the first genetically changed mammal. He put DNA from a virus into the genome of mice. Genetic study grew quickly after that. In 1996, Dolly the sheep was born-the first cloned mammal.

In the 20th century, toxicology testing became important. In the 19th century, laws about drugs were less strict. Drugs did not have to be checked for safety. But in 1937, a drug called Elixir Sulfanilamide killed more than 100 people. They caused great and long lasting pain, vomiting, and fits. After that, the U.S. congress made laws that said that drugs had to be tested on animals before they could be sold. Other countries passed similar laws.

Even back in the 17th century, people disagreed about animal testing. In 1655, Edmund O'Meara said that "the miserable torture of vivisection places the body in an unnatural state." O'Meara and others said that animals could be affected by pain during vivisection, making results unreliable. Others also disliked animal testing because they felt that animals should not be hurt for humans. Others opposed animal testing for different reasons: many believed that animals were not as good as humans and that they were so different that results of animal testing would not work on humans.

Supporters had different views. They argued that experiments on animals were necessary for knowledge. Claude Bernard, the "prince of vivisectors" and the father of physiology famously wrote in 1865 that "the science of life is a superb and dazzlingly (brightly) lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen". He declared that "experiments on animals ... are entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man ... the effects of these substances are the same on man as on animals, save for differences in degree". Because of Bernard, animal testing became a regular scientific method. Surprisingly, though, his wife, Marie Françoise Martin, began the first anti-vivisection society in France in 1883.

In 1896, Dr. Walter B. Cannon said, "The antivivisectionists are the second of the two types Theodore Roosevelt described when he said, 'Common sense without conscience may lead to crime, but conscience without common sense may lead to folly, which is the handmaiden (servant) of crime.' " The public first began giving its attention to the supporters and opposers of animal testing during the brown dog affair in the early 1990s. In the brown dog affair, hundreds of medical students and anti-vivisectionists and police argued over a memorial to a vivisected dog.

Images for kids

Claude Bernard, regarded as the "prince of vivisectors", argued that experiments on animals are "entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man".

Beagles are commonly used for animal testing.

A laboratory mouse cage. Mice are either bred commercially, or raised in the laboratory.

The "Leaping Bunny" logo: Some products in Europe that are not tested on animals carry this symbol.

In Spanish: Experimentación con animales para niños

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Animal Cruelty: What Is Animal Cruelty and How to Recognize It

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Animal cruelty often happens in plain sight, but it can be hard to recognize. Here are a few strategies to combat cruelty against animals in all its forms.

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Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date and age-appropriate information resource for Elementary, Middle and High School.

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Sofia

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Not long after European settlers established a commercial seal industry in Canada in the early 1500s, business was booming. Back in the day, seal oil was sold in the Old World for use as a machine lubricant. And later, demand for newly in-vogue fur meant that hundreds of thousands of harp seals were killed each year in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador so North Americans and Europeans could drape themselves in sealskin coats.

Today, though, the Canadian seal industry looks like a shell of its former lucrative self. Decades of bad publicity and campaigns to end the slaughter have taken a toll. Last year sealing generated only $1.6 million in sales, down from $34 million in 2006, according to Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. That year, 5,600 sealers participated in the hunt; now there may be no more than a few hundred.

Much to the alarm of animal welfare advocates, this year Canada opened the hunt two weeks early, on March 28-continuing its endorsement of a disappearing industry that many nations around the world consider superfluous and barbaric.

The government requires sealers to go through training in humane killing practices before they can be licensed. To ensure that seals die quickly, it mandates that sealers target a seal's head using high-powered rifles, clubs, or a hakapik-a wooden staff with a hook at the end. The sealer is then required to ensure that the animal is dead and to sever its arteries before skinning it.

But animal welfare groups claim that the killings are inhumane, with hunters impaling pups in their face or eyes and shooting seals from moving boats. Hunters generally target pups for their soft coat. "Many animals are left to suffer in agony, crawling through their own blood on the ice," says Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of the Humane Society International-Canada.

Anti-sealing campaigns have led more than 35 countries, including Russia and the members of the European Union, to ban seal imports, although they still allow products that come from the Canadian Inuit. (The Inuit, who have subsisted on seal for thousands of years, have their own separate hunt.) "We lost our markets for the large quantities of seal furs and pelts," acknowledges Eldred Woodford, president of the Canadian Sealers Association.

In 2006 fur made up $16.4 million of the $18 million worth of seal products Canada exported. Preliminary data from the Canadian government shows that sales of all seal products overseas plummeted to less than $1 million last year.

It's important to note that last year hunters killed about 66,000 seals, a fraction of the northwest Atlantic's 7.4 million harp seals, which aren't considered endangered (grey seals and hooded seals are also hunted, but to a much lesser extent). Commercial seal hunting also takes place in Namibia and Greenland, but Canada sets the highest annual quota- some 400,000 last year.

So given the intensity of opposition to the hunts and the falling demand for seal products, why does Canada still hold onto its sealing industry?

One argument by fishermen is that in some areas seals gobble up too much cod, whose stocks have collapsed. But like many claims related to the seal hunt, this is up for debate: Scientists counter that cod makes up only a very small portion of a seal's diet and that the fishing industry, not seals, is to blame for the decline.

The government justifies the hunt by citing its cultural and economical importance. "Historically it's played an important role from generation to generation," says Adam Burns, the acting director general of fisheries management at Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. "It still does generate economic activity in coastal communities where it's badly needed."

According to Woodford, sealing can account for as much as 40 percent of the annual income for sealers, the majority of whom live in the economically troubled province of Newfoundland and Labrador and earn most of their living by fishing. That partly explains why the Canadian government allocates $2.5 million a year to oversee the hunt, according to the Guardian, and why the Newfoundland and Labrador government has lent seal processors money and announced in 2013 that it would spend $500,000 on a pilot project to develop seal meat products.

Any clue as to the industry's direction today depends on whom you ask. Bernie Halloran, owner of a seal processing plant in Newfoundland called PhocaLux International, pins his hopes on Chinese desire for seal furs, meat, and oil, prized for its high content of omega-3 fatty acids and sold as a health supplement. Halloran opened a seal products factory and store there, but earlier this year he told the Canadian magazine Maclean's that business has been slow.

Meanwhile Dion Dakins, CEO of Carino Processing, a long-standing seal operation based in Newfoundland, says that although he still does business globally, the primary market for his seal products is at home. "From the low point, perhaps in 2011, we're seeing steady increase in supply of products to market," Dakin says. "Canada is a very important market for us right now."

Although there is demand for seal meat and oil in coastal communities, it's unclear whether Canadians alone can save the industry. In 2015 Carino turned down $1 million from the Newfoundland government to help it buy pelts from sealers, noting that it already had pelts in storage it hadn't yet sold. A few notable chefs in Canada have added seal meat to their menus (braised seal flippers, pulled seal, seal carpaccio), but there's no evidence that the public as a whole has developed a strong taste for seal.

Regardless, Dakins and others believe there's no good reason to revile the industry. "For anyone to condemn a group of humans for conducting an activity that improves societal conditions of a small rural community is simply absurd and unjustified," he says.

But animal welfare groups say that even though seals are still abundant, they shouldn't be hunted, not only because the industry is cruel but also because seals are facing new pressures from climate change. With warming waters, the stable sea ice platform baby seals need for nursing is melting. Pups have been dying, and scientists have warned that if nothing changes, the average pup survival rate will continue to drop.

Read more stories about wildlife crime and exploitation on Wildlife Watch. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas tongwildlife@natgeo.com.

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Demand For Seal Products Has Fallen-So Why Do Canadians Keep Hunting?

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Not long after European settlers established a commercial seal industry in Canada in the early 1500s, business was booming. Back in the day, seal oil was sold in the Old World for use as a machine lubricant. And later, demand for newly in-vogue fur meant that hundreds of thousands of harp seals were killed each year in the Gulf of St.

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Misha.M

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This story appears in the October 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.

LIFE, BESIEGED

Most of the animals shown here are among the more than 28,000 species of animals and plants that the International Union for Conservation of Nature says are threatened with extinction. That number actually understates the risk. Since 1964, when the IUCN established a " red list" of threatened species and began compiling data gathered worldwide, the list has become the preeminent global database of endangered life and an essential tool for conservation policy. Yet the IUCN has been able to assess only about 106,000 species of the more than 1.5 million species of animals and more than 300,000 plants that scientists have described and named-which they estimate is less than a quarter of what's really out there. A recent intergovernmental report on the biodiversity crisis estimated that extinction threatens up to a million animal and plant species, known and unknown. The IUCN hopes to raise the number of species assessments to 160,000 by 2020. Next up on its agenda: a " green list " of conservation successes. It will be much shorter than the red one.

THE BIGGEST THREAT: HUMANS

Habitat loss-driven primarily by human expansion as we develop land for housing, agriculture, and commerce-is the biggest threat facing most animal species, followed by hunting and fishing. Even when habitat is not lost entirely, it may be changed so much that animals cannot adapt. Fences fragment a grassland or logging cuts through a forest, breaking up migration corridors; pollution renders a river toxic; pesticides kill widely and indiscriminately. To those local threats one must increasingly add global ones: Trade, which spreads disease and invasive species from place to place, and climate change, which eventually will affect every species on Earth-starting with the animals that live on cool mountaintops or depend on polar ice. All of these threats lead, directly or indirectly, back to humans and our expanding footprint. Most species face multiple threats. Some can adapt to us; others will vanish.

If we lived in an ordinary time- time here being understood in the long, unhurried sense of a geologic epoch-it would be nearly impossible to watch a species vanish. Such an event would occur too infrequently for a person to witness. In the case of mammals, the best-studied group of animals, the fossil record indicates that the "background" rate of extinction, the one that prevailed before humans entered the picture, is so low that over the course of a millennium, a single species should disappear.

But of course we don't live in an ordinary time. Everywhere we look, species are winking out. Just in the past decade, two mammal species have gone extinct: a bat known as the Christmas Island pipistrelle and a rat, the Bramble Cay melomys.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists more than 200 mammal species and subspecies as critically endangered. In some cases, like the Sumatran rhino or the vaquita-a porpoise native to the Gulf of California-there are fewer than a hundred individuals left. In others, like the baiji (also known as the Yangtze River dolphin), the species, though not yet officially declared extinct, has probably died out.

And unfortunately, what goes for mammals goes for just about every other animal group: reptiles, amphibians, fish, even insects. Extinction rates today are hundreds-perhaps thousands-of times higher than the background rate. They're so high that scientists say we're on the brink of a mass extinction.

The last mass extinction, which did in the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago, followed an asteroid impact. Today the cause of extinction seems more diffuse. It's logging and poaching and introduced pathogens and climate change and overfishing and ocean acidification.

But trace all these back and you find yourself face-to-face with the same culprit. The great naturalist E.O. Wilson has noted that humans are the "first species in the history of life to become a geophysical force." Many scientists argue that we have entered a new geologic epoch-the Anthropocene, or age of man. This time around, in other words, the asteroid is us.

What's lost when an animal goes extinct?

One way to think of a species, be it of ape or of ant, is as an answer to a puzzle: how to live on planet Earth. A species' genome is a sort of manual; when the species perishes, that manual is lost. We are, in this sense, plundering a library-the library of life. Instead of the Anthropocene, Wilson has dubbed the era we are entering the Eremozoic-the age of loneliness.

Joel Sartore has been photographing animals for his Photo Ark project for 13 years. In an ever growing number of cases, animals housed in zoos or special breeding facilities are among the last remaining members of their species. In some instances, they are the only members.

Toughie, a Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog from central Panama, lived at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He became the last known of his kind when a fungal disease swept through his native habitat and a captive-breeding program failed. Toughie died in 2016, and it's likely the Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog is now extinct.

Romeo, a Sehuencas water frog that lives at the natural history museum in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was likewise believed to be a sole survivor. Scientists created an online dating profile for him. It linked to a donation page, and the $25,000 raised helped fund expeditions in the eastern Andes, where the species was once abundant.

Amazingly, the search has revealed five more Sehuencas water frogs, two males and three females. All were taken to Cochabamba; the one female mature enough to breed with Romeo was named Juliet. Whether she will prove a worthy mate and perpetuate the species, no one knows.

Was the Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog beautiful? Not in the flashy way of, say, the Spix's macaw (which is believed to be extinct in the wild) or the Gee's golden langur (which is endangered). But with its expressive brown eyes and gangly limbs, it had its own kind of charm.

Sartore treats all creatures-great and small, handsome and homely-with reverence. His photos capture what's singular and, I'd also like to say, soulful about every living thing. One of my favorite images of Joel's is of a Partula nodosa, or niho tree snail, laying down a trail of slime. There used to be dozens of Partula species in the South Pacific, occupying different islands and different ecological niches. Much like Darwin's finches, they are the darlings of evolutionary biologists-living, slime-producing illustrations of the power of natural selection. The introduction of carnivorous snails from Florida drove nearly a third of the Partula species extinct; several survive solely thanks to captive-breeding programs.

Precisely because extinction takes place so frequently now, it's possible to become inured to it. This desensitizing is what makes Sartore's images so crucial: They show us just how remarkable each species is that's being lost.

We live in an extraordinary time. Perhaps by recognizing this, we can begin to imagine creating a different one-one that preserves, as much as is still possible, the wonderful diversity of life.

THREAT: DISEASE

Since the 1980s, a fungal disease called chytridiomycosis, likely spread through direct contact and by infected water, has ravaged global amphibian populations. More than 500 species have been affected; 90 of these may be extinct. The fungus disrupts transmission of electrolytes through the skin of a frog or toad, ultimately stopping its heart.

THREAT: INVASIVE SPECIES

THREAT: FRAGMENTATION

THREAT: HABITAT LOSS

Butterflies can fly long distances and feed on many types of flowers, but caterpillars are locavores, eating plants they hatch on or near. As those plants are lost to development or farming, butterflies disappear. The ones here aren't listed by the IUCN-which has evaluated only 8,100 insect species-but are considered at risk by other authorities.

THREAT: POACHING

THREAT: DEFORESTATION

For tree-dwelling lemurs, there's no life without the forest-or Madagascar, their only home. Yet the island nation has lost 80 percent of its trees to development, charcoal production, and slash-and-burn agriculture. Lemurs are squeezed into limited protected areas; 38 species are critically endangered. Fuel-efficient stoves are being introduced to encourage people to reduce wood use and protect forest habitat.

Elizabeth Kolbert's most recent book, The Sixth Extinction, won the Pulitzer Prize. Photographer Joel Sartore has been called a modern-day Noah for building the Photo Ark, the world's largest collection of animal studio portraits.

Photo Ark is a joint project of National Geographic and Joel Sartore. Learn more at natgeophotoark.org.

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Animals are disappearing at hundreds of times the normal rate, primarily because of shrinking habitats. Their biggest threat: humans.

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Sean.F

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Sharks have been feared hunters ever since people first observed them swimming in the vast ocean. Yet today, sharks are declining rapidly on a global scale because humans have replaced them as the ocean's top predators. One way that humans hunt sharks is by using a practice called shark finning. This is the process of slicing off a shark's fin and discarding the rest of the still-living body, often by dumping it back into the ocean.

Shark fins are tempting targets for fishermen because they have high monetary and cultural value. They are used in a popular dish called shark fin soup, which is a symbol of status in Chinese culture. In the past, Chinese Emperors favored the soup as a dish that honored guests because it was thought to have medicinal benefits and represented a victory against powerful sharks. This popularity has not faded with time and has even expanded with China's growing population. Today shark fin soup is still prevalent and has become a staple for more than just emperors on special occasions. As a result, fishermen have a large incentive to gather and sell shark fins.

Many fishermen prefer to practice shark finning instead of bringing whole sharks to the market because the fins are far more valuable than the rest of the body, sometimes selling for as much as $500 a pound ($1,100 a kilogram). Instead, fishermen choose to keep just the shark fins-only one to five percent of a shark's weight-and throw the rest of the shark away rather than have the less valuable parts take up space on the boat. The finned sharks are often thrown back into the ocean alive, where they do not die peacefully: unable to swim properly and bleeding profusely, they suffocate or die of blood loss.

However, the animal cruelty implications are not the only reason to stop this practice. Another major factor is that shark fisheries-and finning in particular-are having catastrophic effects on shark populations around the world. Approximately 100 million sharks are killed globally each year, and one of the major incentives for this is the shark fin trade. With their slow growth and low reproductive rates, sharks are highly susceptible to extinction, and it is difficult for many shark species to replenish their populations as quickly as they are being diminished. Many species of sharks are currently in danger due to shark finning, including the scalloped hammerhead, which is endangered, and the smooth hammerhead, which is vulnerable according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Between 1.3 and 2.7 million of just these two sharks are killed every year in the shark fin trade, and the northwestern Atlantic population of the scalloped hammerhead declined from around 155,500 in 1981 to 26,500 in 2005. Today, some shark populations have decreased by 60-70% due to human shark fisheries.

Such dramatic population plunges are not only dangerous for sharks but also for entire ecosystems. When shark populations decrease, a ripple effect can spread throughout the rest of the ecosystem. For instance, the loss of the smooth hammerhead caused their prey, rays, to increase. The larger ray population now eats more scallops, clams, and other bivalves. This not only hurts the bivalve populations and therefore the biodiversity of the ecosystem; it also harms human fisheries. Furthermore, many coastal populations make money from the sharks that entice vacationers to their communities for ecotourism. One estimate for hammerhead sharks suggests that a live shark, over the course of its lifetime, is worth $1.6 million, which is a great deal higher than the $200 the dead shark can sell for. A recent study from the University of British Colombia projected that shark ecotourism will be worth more than the global shark fisheries in just a few years.

Progress

Around the world, people are realizing how critical sharks are to ecosystems and people, and officials are beginning to protect sharks on a variety of scales. In early 2013, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ( CITES) listed five more species of sharks in its Appendix II, a list of species that are not currently endangered but may become endangered without regulating their trade. Although Appendix II still allows trade in shark fins, the fishing is required to be sustainable, giving the species additional protection. Additionally, many individual countries are making their own protections. For instance, all sharks caught in U.S. waters must be brought to shore with their fins still attached according to the 2010 Shark Conservation Act. Since 1994, 22 countries have placed domestic regulations on shark finning. China is also working towards ending shark finning. To decrease the cultural value of fins, the Chinese government began prohibiting the serving of shark fin soup at official banquets in 2012.

Yet cultural values are slow to change, even with growing support to ban shark fishing from governments and celebrities. Many restaurants and hotels around the world continue to sell shark fin soup. One 2012 survey found that only six percent of luxury hotels in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shenzhen, and Fuzhou had stopped serving the dish. To those who feel shark fin soup is a part of their culture, cutting it out of their diets completely is difficult. Some people support (pdf) increasing regulations on shark finning rather than banning it completely or using the whole shark so there is less waste and cruelty. Others remain staunchly against this process, making it difficult to resolve this debate. A variety of approaches may be the key to making progress in the future towards protecting sharks everywhere.

(Fiona Ayerst/Marine Photobank)

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Sharks have been feared hunters ever since people first observed them swimming in the vast ocean. Yet today, sharks are declining rapidly on a global scale because humans have replaced them as the ocean's top predators. One way that humans hunt sharks is by using a practice called shark finning.

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Alex.S

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Animal Cruelty: What Is Animal Cruelty and How to Recognize It

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Animal cruelty often happens in plain sight, but it can be hard to recognize. Here are a few strategies to combat cruelty against animals in all its forms.