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12 rare animals that are teetering on the brink of extinction by Simone M Scully on Jul 18, 2016, 1:50 PM  Every day, species around the planet are going extinct. And for each species that goes extinct, many more become and remain endangered due to habitat loss, poaching, human activities, and climate change. Some are so critical that they are teetering on the brink of extinction.
All these threatened animals are included on the International Union for Conservation (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, a non-prescriptive list that is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of species. “The IUCN red list tells us how close to extinction species are,” Craig Hilton Taylor, head Red List Unit of the Global Species Programme at the IUCN, told Business Insider. “It is a fairly coarse measure [but] we have a set of quantitative criteria that we try to rank species under, and if a species moves into one of the threatened categories — vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered — then we know that a species either has a high, very high, or an extremely high risk of going extinct in the wild unless we do something about it.” For example, he said, polar bears are considered vulnerable to extinction, while tigers are endangered (a more critical category), and just this July, the IUCN declared that the Bornean orangutan critically endangered. Here are 12 species at risk of extinction, including some that you probably didn’t even know existed. The Bornean orangutan  Found only on the island of Borneo, Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) have a broader face and shorter beard than their cousins, Sumatran orangutans. This July, the IUCN changed their status to critically endangered because their population has declined by 60% since 1950, and, according to Scientific American, new projections estimate that their numbers will fall by another 22% by the year 2025. The main threats for these animals are habitat loss (forests are turned into rubber, oil palm or paper plantations) and illegal hunting. Aggravating the problem, females only reproduce every six to eight years — the longest birth interval of any land mammal — which makes conservation efforts slow.
Pika  Ili pika (Ochontana iliensis) is a small mammal (only 7-8 inches long) that's native to the Tianshan mountain range of the remote Xinjiang region of China. Living on sloping bare rock faces and feeding on grasses at high elevations, this little creature is very rare — there are less than 1,000 left. The species was only discovered in 1983, but its numbers have declined by almost 70% since then, reports CNN. This is because its habitat is being drastically affected by climate change. Rising temperatures have forced the pikas to retreat up into the mountain tops. In addition, grazing pressure from livestock and air pollution have likely contributed to their decline.
Giant Otter  Found only in South America, Giant otters, or Pteronura brasiliensis, are the largest otters in the world, with some as long as 6 feet. They are also the rarest otters in the world, with only a few thousand believed to be surviving in the wild. Sometimes known as the “river wolf,” their fur is chocolatey brown and extremely soft. They also have a creamy white patch on their throat that is unique to each otter, Meg Symington, managing director of the Amazon for WWF, told Business Insider. “They are extremely smart animals, and sort of like wolves or lions, they can be cooperative hunters. They live in groups and they hunt fish together as a group, herding the fish,” she said. “They’re active during the day, so they’re actually a large mammal that you can see easily in the Amazon, which is unusual since a lot of large animals are hard to see in the jungle.” Historically, giant otters were hunted for their pelts, causing a huge decline in their numbers. While they are no longer hunted today, they remain endangered because many of their aquatic habitats (rivers and lakes) have been degraded and destroyed, causing the fish populations they rely on for food to dwindle. They are many times viewed as nuisances by humans, especially by fishermen. They are also threatened by gold-mining in the region, which leads to mercury poisoning. “Because they are an apex predator, they accumulate mercury because they eat so much fish,” Symington explained.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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