(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) The newly-released update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ‘Red List' of animals potentially at risk with extinction, found that of more than 71,000 species studied in total, more than 21,000 were found to be ‘threatened', including 91 in Oman.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species determines the relative risk of an animal species' extinction and catalogues animals and plants that face a greater extinction risk. The list also includes species that have ceased to exist in the wold, as well as others that are considered less vulnerable and those that are making a recovery in the wild.
Among the 91 threatened species in the sultanate included ten mammals, ten birds, eight reptiles, 25 different kind of fishes and six plants.
An example is Uromastyx Thomasi or the Omani Spiny Tailed Lizard, listed as ‘Vulnerable' due to a decline of at least 30 per cent of its population over the past 15 years, largely from over-collection for the international pet trade.
''This Red List update shows some fantastic conservation successes, which we must learn from, for future conservation efforts, however the overall message remains bleak,'' said Jane Smart, global director, IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group, in a statement.
''With each update, whilst we see some species improving in status, there is a significantly larger number of species appearing in the threatened categories. The world must urgently scale up efforts to avert this devastating trend.''
Among the most notable discoveries in the survey was that of the Okapi, a national symbol of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the sub-Saharan White-winged Flufftail, were judged to be on the brink of extinction. The country found to have the most number of species threatened with extinction was Ecuador with 2,301 plants and animals, of which 1,843 were plants alone.
The full list can be obtained from www.iucnredlist.org
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