The IUCN have a few highlights of which one of the Arabian oryx. This magnificent animal was almost hunted to extinction and it became extinct in the wild in 1972. Since then conservationists have worked hard with captive breeding programmes and animals have been reintroduced to the wild. This has been successful and now there are more more than 1000 wild oryx. So successful, in fact, that the species has been downgraded from endangered to vulnerable and is the first species to have improved by three categories from extinct in the wild.
“To have brought the Arabian oryx back from the brink of extinction is a major feat and a true conservation success story, one which we hope will be repeated many times over for other threatened species,” says Ms Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Director General of the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi. “It is a classic example of how data from the IUCN Red List can feed into on-the-ground conservation action to deliver tangible and successful results.”
However the rest of the report is not so encouraging. The 2011 Red List shows more than 40 per cent of amphibians being at risk of extinction. There are 19 new species on the list of which 8 are classes as critically endangered, and they include the colourful harlequin toad from Peru. The IUCN has assessed the lobsters, all 248 species and concluded that 35% are data deficient.
Birds have not done well either. Since 2010 another 13 species have been moved intot he threatened categories, bringing the total number of threatened bird species to 1253 - that's 13% of all bird species. The Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) has been uplisted to Critically Endangered as a result of hunting, disturbance, habitat loss and fragmentation. hEstimates suggest there are fewer than 250 individuals left in the wild. Also upgraded to critically endangered is Bahama Oriole (Icterus northropi) of which there could be as few as 180 individuals.
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