Polar Bears and Hippos threatened by man-made dangers

(GENEVA, Switzerland) --The World Conservation Union or IUCN (a leading environmental agency) added the Polar Bear and Hippo to its list of species which face extinction due to climate change and man-made dangers such as unregulated hunting.

In addition, 530 other species of animals and plant life were added to the list since it 2004. The ICUN’s list titled the “Red List” listed China, Brazil, Australia and Mexico as home to large numbers of threatened species. It stressed that countries across the globe need to boost efforts for the preservation of biodiversity. Tougher emission standards, fishing and hunting controls were amongst the measures it stated needed to be addressed.

The Polar Bear was listed as “vulnerable” which is one step down from “endangered in the IUCN rankings, with predictions that the Polar Bear population could drop 30% in the next 45 years due to loss of habitat caused by melting ice caps.

The Hippo was also ranked as vulnerable because of a declined in it’s population in the Democratic Republic of Congo where unrestricted hunting caused a 95% decline in population since 1994. This is the first time the Hippo has been listed as threatened.

Other endangered species included:
Dama gazelles from the Sahara desert, half of the 25 species of endemic species of fresh water fish from the Mediterranean, and Lake Trout in Lake Malawi, Malawi