It's May 16th- Happy Endangered Species Day!
by Bonnie Hulkower, New York, New York on 05.16.08
photo by Dan Crosbie of Canadian Ice Service
May 16th is Endangered Species Day, created by a resolution introduced by Maine Senator Susan Collins and California Senator Dianne Feinstein. Treehugger chose some of our favorite threatened, endangered, and extinct species. Of course, a few of the cutest endangered animals are also the most well known, like the giant panda (my sister commented that her kid's photos aren't as cute as these) and the, possibly even cuter, red panda. The polar bear officialy joined the threatened list yesterday.
But let's also remember the Guatemalan Black Howler, the hairy-eared dwarf lemur, and the possibly extinct Duck-billed Buntingi. Or how about the sadly named Neglected Frog, or the pygymy three-toed sloth? You may never have heard of it, but the hirola is a beautiful animal. Also the golden bamboo lemur is as cute an endangered species as they come. And who would want to live in a world without a white-whiskered spider monkey?
My personal favorite animal is the wombat. And I am sad to say that, though the common wombat is doing ok, the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the southern hairy-nosed wombat, aren't doing that great.
If you're more of a lover of the bigger, leatherier type of animal, you might be especially concerned about the fact that both the Indian rhino and the Indian elephant are endangered. Still leathery, but smaller, the endangered sea turtle is an ancient reptile that has survived for the last 100 million years, but now, because of us, is facing extinction.
But wait! Endangered species day is also about endangered plants. Such as the four-petal pawpaw, the fragrant prickly-apple,the Beautiful Goetzea, the swamp pink, and the running buffalo clover. And of course, we here at TH are especially concerned about how much longer we will be able to hug the African Blackwood, the Honduras rosewood, the Hawaiian Loulu Palm, Chile's Monkey Puzzle tree, in Saudi Arabia, the Nubian Dragon Tree.
As for the species we have already lost: if you want to get lugubrious today, you might consider the rabbit-like Sardinian pika or the Algerian red gazelle. The Javan tiger became extinct in the '80's due to huntng and loss of its habitat. The Falkland Island fox was a gorgeous animal which was commemmorated by Darwin in The Voyage of the Beagle. The sea mink's attractiveness was it's downfall, we wanted its fur for coats, and so it is no longer. The Quagga had both a super cool name and an arresting look.
Any other most missed species we should raise our glasses to this weekend? Remind us of what we've lost in the comments. Send us your favorite endangered or threatened species. Many of these species don't have photos or only have wiki stubs.
The next post in this series will highlight the bad ass animals that faced extinction but are back from the brink.
That picture of the polar bears is the most depressing thing I've ever seen. Thank you for taking my bummer of a day and making me want to crawl into a hole and never come out because clearly no matter what I do it will not be enough to save those two polar bears.
If i'm not mistaken, polar bears are playful, curious, and pretty good climbers and swimmers . It seems likely that polar bears that appear to be stranded in photos likel these are actually just playing on or exploring icebergs, but the photo is framed to imply that they are stranded.
I have to say I agree with Emily - it's a very sad photo - I don't suppose there's any chance of finding out from Dan Crosbie if the two had a happy reprieve; even if the reprieve might be a temporary one...
Yay, a sloth!
Endangered species day is depressing though. I don't think it's being brought to people's attention well enough that millions of animals are disappearing. Honestly, the only endangered animals people can think of are the cute ones like pandas and no one even seems to care about plants.
I certainly hope that Dan Crosbie took measures to save these bears, if in fact they are stranded as they appear and not playing and climbing, which I didn't know they did (the swimming out and climbing around, though it makes sense now that I think about it.)
And wait...does this mean that the government moved them from "threatened" to "endangered"?
What about the orangutans? If things don't change, they could become extinct in only 10 years! They certainly deserve some love too!!! You can find more info at http://redapes.org.
That looks just like the pic I saw recently of the black bears climbing on the jungle gym. They are probably having a blast.
That photo of the polar bear is great! They are in their natural habitat doing what they do. Did you know that:
Polar bears have webbed feet desinged for swimming.
They are know to swim up to 100 miles from land and use the ice to rest
The photo probably will be used as a propaganda tool for the environmentalist to:
show the poor polar bears stuck on an ice burg melting from underneath them and will probably die......
Show an ice burg melting from global warming.......
Boy are some people gullible(EMILY)not mentioning anyones name here......
Did you know that the Polar Bear picture was NOT taken by the Canadian Ice Service? AND that the photo was taken in the middle of August?
Not that it lessens the threat of extinction or anything, but the photo really shouldn't be used as a rallying cry for global warming. Click the URL link I gave and you'll see in the correction.
How about a few critters closer to home? Hawaiian monk seals and Red wolves come to mind immediately.
this is my email cassiedoo7@yahoo.com can you please email me and tell me more about polar bears please