India is among the ten countries with the largest number of endangered species, says International Union for Conservation of Nature.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Namdapha Flying Squirrel, it’s a lovely little creature with red, grizzly fur, a grey crown, orange flanks and a white derriere. And where do we find this polychromatic beauty? Right now on the list of India’s “critically endangered” species. Before leaping into this list, they galloped in good numbers in jungles in India’s north-east.
Keeping company with Namdapha Flying Squirrel on this “critical” list are 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 Jenkin’s Shrew (a mouse now rare in the Andamans).
Tigers hog most of the government’s conservation effort and funds but India has as many as 687 -up from 659 in 2008- animals and plants facing extinction.
That 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).
“The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,” says Jane Smart, director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group. “The latest analysis of the IUCN Red List shows the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met,” he added.
Environmentalists say extinction of species is cause for concern since, apart from the loss of a species as a biological entity, it leads to destabilisation of an ecosystem which endangers other species.
Adding to India’s worries is the fact that 24 of the 28 new endangered species in the latest list are varieties of fish.
This reflects poorly the depletion and poor state of the country’s water bodies due, among other things, to rising pollution.
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