A Few of the Most Endangered Species

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 set criteria to recognize animal populations in danger of extinction and standards that US states can follow to set up effective countermeasures to help these populations recover to a healthy level. Today, animals may be classified at stages ranging from least concern to critically endangered.

The vaquita, a species of porpoise, ranks as one of the most endangered animals on the planet and is the most endangered marine mammal. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed the animal as critically endangered since 1996. As few as six vaquitas remain on Earth, according to a 2018 census, while more recent estimates have the global population no higher than nine. Like many sea creatures, the vaquita is a helpless victim of the illegal fishing industry; vaquitas are frequently caught in gillnets that target the totoaba, a large fish. For years, conservation efforts have prioritized both the protection of vaquita habitats and the minimization of the market for totoaba swim bladders to stop the catching of vaquitas, but they remain critically endangered.

On land, few animals are as endangered as the Amur leopard, another animal on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Fewer than 100 Amur leopards lived in the wild in 2015, and recent years have seen that number fall further, in large part due to poachers. Like many endangered animals, habitat loss at the hands of humans and a decrease in prey availability resulting from climate change are additional reasons for the Amur leopard’s critically endangered status.

Other critically endangered species include the kakapo parrot of New Zealand, the gharial Indian crocodile, and the North Atlantic right whale. While only about 400 right whales are left in the world, including just 100 females capable of breeding, the right whale offers some hope for other endangered species: in 1890, nearly a century before the passing of the Endangered Species Act, the right whale was on the brink of extinction, but the species has endured and is slowly recovering.

The story of the right whale should not encourage complacency, as countless species are not so fortunate. In 2020 alone, at least 15 species were declared extinct, never to be seen again on planet Earth.

The Jalpa false brook salamander, once a common sight throughout Guatemala’s Jalpa region, has not been seen since 1976 due to habitat destruction from logging and farming. The salamander has been formally declared extinct by the IUCN. Similarly, the Splendid Poison Frog of Central America has not been seen in three decades.

Amphibians were not the only class of vertebrates to suffer extinctions in 2020. The Simeulue Hill myna is a tropical bird that most likely went extinct between 2017 and 2019. The lost shark, Carcharhinus obsoletus, went extinct nearly a century before it was recognized as a distinct species in 2019. Native to the heavily fished South China Sea and last observed in the wild in 1934, the IUCN has no reason to believe the shark still exists.