Transcript Animals in danger in the world - species-in

Endangered Species
An endangered species is a
population of organisms which is at
risk of becoming extinct because it is
either few in numbers, or threatened
by changing environmental or
predation parameters. Also it could
mean that due to deforestation there
may be a lack of food and/or water.
IUCN
IUCN Red List
The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of
that endangered species not living. Many factors are taken into account when
assessing the conservation status of a species; not simply the number remaining,
but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success
rates, known threats, and so on. The IUCN Red List is the best known conservation
status listing.
The more general term used by the IUCN for species at risk of extinction is
threatened species, which also includes the less-at-risk category of vulnerable species
together with endangered and critically endangered. IUCN categories include:
•Extinct: the last remaining member of the species has died, or is
presumed beyond reasonable doubt to have died. Examples: Dodo,
Passenger Pigeon, Caribbean Monk Seal, Dimetrodon;
•Extinct in the wild: captive individuals survive, but there is no freeliving, natural population. Examples: Alagoas Curassow;
•Critically endangered: faces an extremely high risk of extinction in
the immediate future. Examples: Arakan Forest Turtle, Ethiopian wolf,
Darwin's Fox, Javan Rhino,
•Endangered: faces a very high risk of extinction in the near future.
Examples: Dhole, Blue Whale, Bonobo, Giant Panda, Snow Leopard,
African Wild Dog, Tiger, Crowned Solitary Eagle, Orangutan;
•Vulnerable: faces a high risk of extinction in the medium-term.
Examples: Cheetah, Gaur, Lion, Sloth Bear, Wolverine, Manatee,
Polar Bear, African Golden Cat;
•Conservation Dependent: the following animal is not severely
threatened, but the animal must depend on conservation programs.
Examples: Spotted Hyena, Blanford's fox, Leopard Shark, Black
Caiman;
•Near Threatened: may be considered threatened in the near future.
Examples: Blue-billed Duck, Solitary Eagle, Maned Wolf, Tiger Shark.
•Least Concern: no immediate threat to the survival of the species.
Examples: Nootka Cypress, Wood Pigeon, Harp Seal, White-tailed
Mongoose;
Panda bear
The Giant Panda is a mammal native to central-western and south
western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear)
family.It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches
around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it
belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo.
Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves,
oranges, and bananas when available.
The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China,
mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu
provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the
Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once
lived.
The Giant Panda is a
conservation reliant endangered
species.A 2007 report shows 239 Giant
Pandas living in captivity inside China
and another 27 outside the country. Wild
population estimates vary; onliving in
captivity inside China and another 27
outside the country. Some reports also
show that the number of Giant Pandas in
the wild is on the rise.However, the IUCN
does not believe there is enough
certainty yet to reclassify the species
from Endangered to Vulnerable
In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily
spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling
Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province.Though generally alone, each
adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in
their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking
such as clawing trees or spraying urine.The Giant Panda is able to climb and
take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent
dens.
For this reason, pandas do
not hibernate, which is similar to
other subtropical mammals, and will
instead move to elevations with
warmer temperatures.Pandas rely
primarily on spatial memory rather
than visual memory.
GRAY BAT
The grey bat of North America is one of the many species of bats
throughout the world that are now on the endangered list and are in grave
danger of disappearing. Living in large colonies in a small number of limestone
caves, grey bats are extremely vulnerable to being disturbed.
They have repeatedly been driven from their roosts by vandals, cavers
and even by over-enthusiastic biologists. Deprived of a suitable roosting site,
many of the bats die very quickly, and over three-quarters of their population
has disappeared in the last few centuries.
Disturbance and habitat destruction are serious threats to all bats, but
they have also suffered more than most other animals from deliberate
persecution.
Unlike many mammals, bats are not really very cut and cuddly and their
habit of swooping flight and high pitched squeaking makes many people dislike
them intensely. For this reason, many have been killed as pests, which has
further depleted bat populations.
Gray bats are distinguished from other bats by the unicolored fur
on their back. In addition, following their molt in July or August, gray bats
have dark gray fur which often bleaches to a chestnut brown or russet.
They weigh 7-16 grams. The bat's wing membrane connects to its ankle
instead of at the toe, where it is connected in other species of Myotis.
With rare exceptions, gray bats
live in caves year-round. During the
winter gray bats hibernate in deep,
vertical caves. In the summer, they roost
in caves which are scattered along
rivers. These caves are in limestone
karst areas of the southeastern United
States. They do not use houses or barns.
Gray bats are endangered
largely because of their habit of
living in very large numbers in only a
few caves. As a result, they are
extremely vulnerable to disturbance.
Arousing bats while they are
hibernating can cause them to use
up a lot of energy, which lowers
their energy reserves. If a bat runs
out of reserves, it may leave the
cave too soon and die. In June and
July, when flightless young are
present, human disturbance can
lead to mortality as frightened
females drop their young in the
panic to flee from the intruder.
Many important
caves were flooded and
submerged by reservoirs.
Other caves are in danger
of natural flooding. Even if
the bats escape the flood,
they have difficulty finding a
new cave that is suitable.
WHALE
Whale is the common name for
marine mammals of the order Cetacea.
For centuries, whales have been hunted for
meat and as a source of raw materials. By
the middle of the 20th century, however,
industrial whaling had left many species
seriously endangered, and whaling was
ended in all but a few countries.
Several organizations have been founded to try to eliminate hunting of whales and
other threats to whales' survival.
Like all mammals, whales breathe air into lungs, are warm-blooded, feed
their young milk from mammary glands, and have hair, although very little.
The whale body is fusiform. The forelimbs, also called flippers, are paddle-shaped.
The end of the tail holds the fluke, or tail fins, which provide propulsion by vertical
movement, unlike the horizontal movement of the tails of fish. Although whales
generally do not possess hind limbs, some whales (such as sperm whales and baleen
whales) have rudimentary hind limbs; even with feet and digits, hidden deep within
their bodies. Most species of whale bear a fin on their backs known as a dorsal fin.
Whales breathe through their blowholes,
located on the top of the head so the animal can
remain submerged while breathing. Baleen whales
have two; toothed whales have one. Breathing
involves expelling excess water from the blowhole,
forming a vertical spout. Spout shapes differ
among species, and learning to recognize these
shapes helps people identify them.
The Blue Whale is the largest known
mammal that has ever lived, and the
largest living animal, at up to 35 m
long and 150 tons.
Whales generally live for 40–90
years, depending on the species,
and on rare occasions live over a
century.
Whales are widely classed as predators,
but
their food ranges from microscopic
plankton to very large fish and, in the case of
orcas, sometimes other sea mammals, even
other
whales. Whales do not drink seawater;
instead, they indirectly extract water
from
their food by metabolizing fat. Because of
their environment (and unlike many
animals),
whales are conscious
breathers: they decide
when to breathe. All
mammals sleep, but
whales cannot afford
to become unconscious for too long because they
might drown. It is thought that only one
hemisphere of the whale's brain sleeps at a time,
so that whales are never completely asleep, but
still get necessary rest. Whales often sleep with
only one eye closed. Some whales communicate
with each other using lyrical sounds, called whale
songs. These sounds can be extremely loud,
depending on the species. Sperm whales have only
been heard making clicks, because toothed whales
(Odontoceti) use echolocation and can be heard
for many miles. They can generate about 20,000
acoustic watts of sound at 163 decibels.
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are
ground-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous. They inhabit the
forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and
(still under debate as of 2008) either four or five subspecies. The
DNA of gorillas is 98%–99% identical to that of a human,and they
are the next closest living relatives to humans after the two
chimpanzee species.
Gorillas live in tropical or subtropical forests. Although
their range covers a small percentage of Africa, gorillas
cover a wide range of elevations. The Mountain Gorilla
inhabits the Albertine Rift montane cloud forests of the
Virunga Volcanoes, ranging in altitude from 2,200–
4,300 metres (7,200–14,000 ft). Lowland Gorillas live in
dense forests and lowland swamps and marshes as low
as sea level.
The closest relatives of gorillas are
chimpanzees and humans, from which
gorillas diverged about 7 million years
ago.Human genes differ only 1.6% on
average from their corresponding
gorilla genes in their sequence, but
there is further difference in how many
copies each gene has.
Until recently there was considered to be a single gorilla
species, with three subspecies: the Western Lowland Gorilla, the
Eastern Lowland Gorilla and the Mountain Gorilla.There is now
agreement that there are two species with two subspecies each. More
recently it has been claimed that a third subspecies exists in one of the
species.
Primatologists
continue to explore the
relationships between
various gorilla
populations.The
species and
subspecies listed here
are the ones upon
which most scientists
agree
Both species of gorilla are endangered, and have
been
subject to intense poaching for a long time. Threats
to
gorilla survival include habitat destruction and the
bushmeat trade. In 2004 a population of several
hundred gorillas in the Odzala National Park,
Republic
of Congo was essentially wiped out by the
Ebola
virus.A 2006 study published in Science concluded
that more than 5,000 gorillas may have died in
recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in central Africa. The
researchers indicated that in conjunction with
commercial hunting of these apes, the virus
creates "a recipe for rapid ecological
extinction.Conservation efforts include the Great Ape
Survival Project, a partnership between the United Nations
Environment Programme and the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and also
an international treaty, the Agreement on the Conservation
of Gorillas and Their Habitats, concluded under UNEPadministered Convention on Migratory Species. The Gorilla
Agreement is the first legally binding instrument exclusively
targeting Gorilla conservation and came into effect on 1
June 2008.
Brown Bear
The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern
Eurasia and North America. It weighs 100 to 680 kilograms (220 to 1,500 lb) and its
largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of
the bear family, and as the largest land based predator.
While the brown bear's range has shrunk, and it has faced local
extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern species by the IUCN, with a total
population of approximately 200,000. Its principal range countries are Russia, the
United States (especially Alaska), Canada, the Carpathian region (especially
Romania), and Finland where it is the national animal.
The brown bear is primarily nocturnal. In the summer it gains up to
180 kilograms of fat, on which it relies to make it through winter, when it becomes
very lethargic. Although they are not full hibernators, and can be woken easily, both
sexes like to den in a protected spot such as a cave, crevice, or hollow log during
the winter months.
Brown bears are mostly solitary, although they
may gather in large numbers at major food sources and
form social hierarchies based on age and size. Adult
male bears are particulary aggressive and are avoided
by adolsecent and subadult males.
Female bears with cubs rival adult males in aggression and more
intolerant of other bears than single females. Young adolsecent males
tend to be least aggressive and have been observed making nonagonistic interactions with each other.
They are omnivores and feed on a
variety of plant products, including berries,
roots, and sprouts, fungi as well as meat
products such as fish, insects, and small
mammals. Despite their reputation, most
brown bears are not highly carnivorous as
they derive up to 90% of their dietary food
energy from vegetable matter.
In some areas of Russia and Alaska,
brown bears feed mostly on spawning salmon,
whose nutrition and abundance explains the
enormous size of the bears in these areas.
Brown bears also occasionally prey on
large mammals, such as deer, elk, moose,
caribou, and bison. When brown bears attack
these animals, they tend to choose the young
ones as they are easier to catch. When hunting,
the bear pins its prey to the ground and then
tears and eats it alive.
TIGE
R tigris) is a
The tiger (Panthera
member of the Felidae family; the
largest of the four "big cats" in the
genus Panthera. Native to much of
eastern and southern Asia, the tiger is
an apex predator and an obligate
carnivore. Reaching up to 3.3 metres
(11 ft) in total length and weighing up to
300 kilograms (660 pounds), the larger
tiger subspecies are comparable in size
to the biggest extinct felids.Aside from
their great bulk and power, their most
recognisable feature is a pattern of dark
vertical stripes that overlays near-white
to reddish-orange fur, with lighter
underparts. The most numerous tiger
subspecies is the Bengal tiger while the
largest subspecies is the Siberian tiger.
Highly adaptable, tigers range from the
Siberian taiga, to open grasslands, to
tropical mangrove swamps. They are
territorial and generally solitary animals,
often requiring large contiguous areas of
habitat that support their prey demands.
This, coupled with the fact that they are
endemic to some of the more densely
populated places on earth, has caused
significant conflicts with humans. Of the
nine subspecies of modern tiger, three are
extinct and the remaining six are classified
as endangered, some critically so. The
primary direct causes are habitat
destruction and fragmentation, and
hunting. Their historical range once
stretched from Mesopotamia and the
Caucasus through most of South and East
Asia. Today it has been radically reduced.
While all surviving species are under
formal protection, poaching, habitat
destruction and inbreeding depression
continue to threaten the species.
Bibliography
wikipedia.org
animals.howstuffworks.com
mattviews.wordpress.com
irinovici.wordpress.com
nw-seo.ning.com
fromtheleft.wordpress.com
hsu.edu
southeasternoutdoors.com
deniselindsayresearch.blogspot.com
science.nature.nps.gov
images.google.ro/imghp
nearfamous.com
mauriziovalentini.it
Project made by:
•Benţo Andrei
•Chiş Alexandra
•Deac Ioana
•Mariş Tabita
•Petrean Ana-Maria
•Suărăşan Ligia