Some hope for recovery as extinction Red List grows

Only two living spiny seahorses have been sighted since 2015 in prime breeding waters on southern England's Dorset coast. But a remarkable recovery is underway thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown, with 16 seahorses recently observed during a single dive by the Seahorse Trust. "When humans leave nature alone it has a chance to recover, and indeed thrive," Trust founder Neil Garrick-Maidment told DW.

This marine mollusc entered the Red List as Critically Endangered in December. A newly discovered pathogen is causing dramatic declines in the population throughout the Mediterranean Sea, where the mollusc is endemic. The IUCN says that 80 to 100% of Fan Mussels affected by the pathogen have died, which "amounts to a mass mortality event."

The Kenyan primate species is now Critically Endangered due to dramatic forest habitat loss caused by flooding, agriculture, fire, selective logging and wood collection. One of the world's 25 most threatened primates, its remaining forests are small and have a precarious future. Hunting is also helping to drive red colobus numbers down.

Africa's Black Rhino population has grown at an annual rate of 2.5% between 2012 and 2018, from an estimated 4,845 to 5,630 animals in the wild. Though the Black Rhino remains Critically Endangered, the slow recovery is "a powerful reminder...that conservation works," said Grethel Aguilar, IUCN Acting Director General. But poaching and illegal trade could still undo the hard work, he warned.

A Red List update reveals that 37% of Australia’s freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction. Nearly 60% are directly impacted by the climate crisis, the fish struggling to survive ongoing extreme droughts linked to record low rainfall and historical high temperatures. Invasive introduced species are also colonizing fresh water habitats due to shifting water temperatures and flows.

The flightless Guam Rail is, after the California Condor, the second bird in history to recover after being declared extinct in the Wild. Native to the Pacific island of Guam, it was wiped out by the Brown Tree Snake after it was introduced in the mid-1940s. Still Critically Endangered, a 35-year captive breeding programme helped establish a Guam Rail population on the neighbouring Cocos Island.

The world's largest pseudoscorpion has entered the Red List as critically endangered. Reaching 1.5 cm, the oversized mini-beast with scorpion heritage lives exclusively on a 5-hectare islet off the arid Ascension Island located in the Atlantic between Africa and Brazil. The Giant Pseudoscorpion is losing habitat to introduced "predatory invertebrates" such as the American Cockroach.

While European Rabbits have been widely introduced across the Continent, the species has moved from near threatened to endangered across its original habitat in Spain, Portugal and southern France. Key prey to the endangered Iberian Lynx and the vulnerable Spanish Imperial Eagle, a new outbreak of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease is responsible for an estimated 70% population decline.

While 812 of 826 eucalypt tree species occur only in Australia, an unprecedented worldwide assessment of the genus tree was included in the latest Red List update. Near 25% of the species that covers much of the Australian continent are threatened with extinction, due largely to habitat loss. These include the Vulnerable Eucalyptus moluccana, the sole food source of the declining Koala.

Since the Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction a century ago, around 500 vertebrates have been lost for ever. According to a research team including Paul Ehrlich — who in 2015 confirmed a human-induced sixth extinction was underway — 515 vertebrates now have fewer than 1,000 individuals, and could be extinct within 20 years. Climate change and the animal trade are driving the acceleration.