WWF takes stock
Winners and losers in wildlife 2022
12/30/2022, 12:44 p.m. (updated)
From the fish in the Oder to the white rhinoceros in Africa: Thousands of animal species are threatened with extinction worldwide. According to the environmental foundation WWF, this also includes stocks in Germany. But there is also good news: some species are making a surprising comeback this year.
2022 was not a good year for reindeer, white rhinos and Odra fish: the stocks are declining and threatened. Their fate is representative of that of thousands of species, as the nature conservation organization WWF explained on the occasion of its annual balance sheet of endangered species. Since 1970, the examined vertebrate populations have declined by an average of 69 percent worldwide.
The international red list of endangered species now lists more than 42,100 animal and plant species as threatened – almost 30 percent of all species recorded there. For example, the world’s largest population of reindeer in the wild plummeted to 250,000 from 417,000 in 2014.
Loser of the year 2022
2022 was not a good year for them either hoverflies in Europe: According to the new Red List, more than a third – 314 of 890 species – are threatened by land use change, the use of pesticides and the climate crisis. It is also at high risk Breitmaulnashorn. In the past nine years, stocks in Africa have fallen from 20,600 to almost 16,000 due to poaching.
It was a bad year for him too Kaiserpinguin: In the summer, it was missed designating the largest penguin species as a specially protected species. According to the WWF, with current greenhouse gas emissions, between 80 and 100 percent of all known emperor penguin colonies are in danger of disappearing by 2100.
Die Fish of the Oder were also among the big losers in 2022. Thousands of young fish died in the summer fish kill. Also the Dugongs are drifting towards extinction: there are only fewer than 250 adult species off the East African coast, fewer than 900 off New Caledonia, and in China the manatees are even said to be functionally extinct.
Winner of the year 2022
However, according to the nature conservation organization, some successes were also recorded in 2022. So are commercially traded shark and ray species better protected in the future. International trade in them is only permitted if this does not endanger their stocks. More are roaming through Asia once more Tiger: In Nepal, 355 specimens of the endangered big cats live once more – almost three times more than were estimated in 2009. The stocks in Bhutan, Russia, China and the tiger-richest country India recovered well, according to the information.
According to the WWF, the comeback of the year was celebrated by the Spix-Aras in her Brazilian homeland. Habitat destruction and illegal trade left only 55 Spix’s Macaws in captivity in the early 2000s. Thanks to a breeding program, there are now around 290 animals once more.
In a Thai national park were also considered to be extinct once more Bull wild cattle spotted; in Australia the number of Buckelwale from formerly 1500 to 40,000 to 65,000. And in the USA and on the Cape Verde Islands, according to the WWF, so many nests of the Loggerhead Turtles not found in decades.
“If we continue to destroy our nature at this rate, we humans will also be among the big losers,” said WWF board member Christoph Heinrich. The World Convention on Nature recently passed in Montreal gives hope for a halt to the species crisis. The implementation must work now. “We don’t get a second chance to save our planet,” warned Heinrich.
(This article was first published on Thursday, December 29, 2022.)