Endangered Animals

Every year animals and plants face extinction, the animals are ranked vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered. Species can become endangered because of climate change, habitat loss, hunting, and some animals have become extinct for having deadly diseases.

The most endangered animal group is amphibians, a reported 30% of amphibians are endangered. The following amphibian species are critically endangered, the Puerto Rican Crested Toad, only 300 are left in the wild. The Mississippi Gopher Frog has only 60 to 100 left. With such low numbers, zoos have helped to keep these rare animals alive and as a result, The Panamanian Golden Frog has 53 left in zoos such as the San Diego Zoo in San Diego, California, and The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. The Kihansi Spray Toad also has none left in the wild but 141 have been kept in zoos. The Boreal Toad has an unknown number left in the wild and 23 left in zoos.

Many other animals outside of the amphibian family are also endangered. The Mountain Gorilla has 880 to 900 left in the wild. Orangutans only have 120,000 left in the wild. Saola, which in 2001, the population was estimated to be between 70 and 700 individuals, with current estimates favouring the lower range of this figure. The South China Tiger is believed to be extinct. The Sumatran Tiger with 400- 500 left in the wild. The North Atlantic Right Whale with only 300- 350 left in the wild, the Red Panda with less than 10,000 left, and the Sri lankan Elephant, only 2,500- 4,000 of the entire population is left.

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