Email
Print
ShareTigers take most of the government's conservation efforts and funds but India has as many as 687 -- up from 659 in 2008 -- animals and plants facing extinction. This includes the dark brown Pygmy Hog (a tiny pig now confined to Assam), Malabar Large-spotted Civet (a white-grey cat that once thrived in Kerala) and the Jenkin's Shrew (a mouse now rare in the Andamans).
This makes India one of the ten countries with the largest number of endangered species, a dubious distinction conferred on the country a year before the world observes the International Year of Biodiversity.
Under serious threat in India are 96 mammals, 67 birds, 25 reptiles, 64 varieties of fish, 213 invertebrates and 217 species of plants, says the latest report of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Environmentalists say extinction of species is a cause for concern since, apart from the loss of a species as a biological entity, it also leads to destabilisation of an ecosystem which endangers other species.
Why is maintaining our biological diversity taking a backseat to preserving the numbers of our national animal? More importantly, is this justified?
