16,000 species on danger list

POLAR bears and hippos have joined the ranks of species threatened with extinction from climate change, unregulated hunting and other man-made dangers, a leading environmental agency announced yesterday.

The World Conservation Union, or IUCN, said that more than 16,000 species of animals and plants were at risk of disappearing, including one in four mammals and one in eight birds. It has added 530 species to its "red list" of endangered species since the last version, released two years ago.

China, Brazil, Australia and Mexico are home to large numbers of threatened species, said the IUCN, whose members include 81 governments, more than 850 non-governmental groups and some 10,000 scientists from around the world.

It said a global push was needed to boost efforts to preserve biodiversity through reduced emissions, tighter fishing and hunting controls, and other measures. Without a reversal of global warming trends, it predicted that polar bear populations would drop more than 30 per cent over 45 years as melted ice caps deprived them of their habitat.

It classified the polar bear as a "vulnerable" species, one step down from "endangered". The polar bear was previously in a less severe "conservation-dependent" group.

The common hippopotamus was also ranked as vulnerable, "primarily because of a catastrophic decline" in numbers in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the IUCN said.

The hippopotamus population there has plummeted by 95 per cent, mainly due to unregulated hunting for meat and ivory in their teeth. The animal has never before been listed as threatened.

Dama gazelles, once the most populous species of gazelle in the Sahara, are now "critically endangered" as a result of poaching, the report found.

Freshwater fish have suffered some of the most dramatic declines due to human activities that damage their habitat, such as forest clearance, pollution and water extraction.

Around the Mediterranean, more than half of the 252 endemic species are threatened with extinction. Seven species, including two relatives of carp, are already extinct, IUCN said.

In Malawi, where freshwater fish account for 70 per cent of the animal protein that humans eat, the numbers of trout in Lake Malawi have halved in the past decade.

"This could have major commercial and dietary consequences for the region," the IUCN said.

Ocean life was also cited as vulnerable. Of 547 species of sharks and rays assessed in the report, 20 per cent were found to be at risk of extinction.

Bottom-dwelling species also logged huge declines, as fisheries have reached into ever deeper waters.

"Populations are destined to decline in the absence of international catch limits," the report said, adding that regulations on mesh size and non-fishing areas might help to restore stocks.

The IUCN's director-general, Achim Steiner, said that resurgent populations of white-tailed eagles in Europe showed that protective measures could protect vulnerable species.

"Conservation measures are making a difference," Mr Steiner said. "We should not be passive bystanders in the unfolding tragedy of biodiversity loss and species extinction."