And now, the polar bear. Yesterday’s decision by the U.S. government to place the polar bear on the endangered species list comes after the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that the world’s polar bear population could shrink to one-third its current size by 2050. The IUCN Red List, which transcends borders, states that the polar bear is “considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.” For a table showing how the different animal classes compare on percentage of species considered endangered — it’s pretty much all bad — I condensed an IUCN table into what you see below.
July 18, 2008 at 4:43 am
I have a co-worker that is convinced that the extinction of the polar bear will have absolutely no effect on humans. How will their extinction affect the earth and in particular, the polar ecosystem? I’d like to shut my co-worker up.