In a shocking find by scientists, the methods used to determine when endangered species will die out has found to be not upto-date and that species which were calculated do die out in a few years could possibly die out in a few months. Thus the speed at which the endangered species can die out has been underestimated.
These findings, presented in the journal ‘Nature’, suggest that animals like the western gorilla, the Malayan sun bear, Sumatran tiger, may be extinct much sooner than what was expected. Ecologists Brett Melbourne, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Alan Hastings at the University of California comment that the models used to predict extinction of a species must be updated more frequently because there all always new factors coming up which contribute to deaths of species, which range from new diseases, natural calamities, freak deaths like the falling of a tree to even the mating and sex ratios of those concerned species.
This warning is meant to be heard more importantly by IUCN – International Union for Conservation of Nature which prepares annually a list of animals under the threat of extinction. The models used by the IUCN covered most of the factors responsible for dwindling numbers of species, but they failed to include other vital factors the male and female sex ratios, the difference in the age of a female and male of that species, the reproductive success of individuals in that group and the number of offsprings. These factors matter a lot because they can result in sudden increase in the numbers of the concerned species. Researchers say that for species like the Western Gorillas, individuals of that group could be monitored and this information could be put in those models to get more realistic results.
Craig Hilton-Taylor, who manages the IUCN red list in Cambridge, agrees that the extinction estimates are often inadequate but cites the reason that out of more than a 1.8 million species they have only able to assess 41000 species. He also said that such findings would help them only more to create even more evaluated extinction lists. It is shocking that 1 in every 4 mammal species, 1 in every 8 bird species and 1 in every 3 marine species are threatened, the total count is 16000 species.
Source: Guardian
Images: CuriousAnimals, ABC News