Species Directory
| Common name | Scientific name | Conservation status ↓ |
|---|
| Amur Leopard | Panthera pardus orientalis | Critically Endangered |
| Black Rhino | Diceros bicornis | Critically Endangered |
| Bornean Orangutan | Pongo pygmaeus | Critically Endangered |
| Cross River Gorilla | Gorilla gorilla diehli | Critically Endangered |
Conservation status: Critically endangeredWith around 60 individuals left of its species, the Javan rhino is the most endangered rhinoceros subspecies on the planet.
10 Surprising Marine Animals Close to Extinction
- Scalloped Hammerhead Sharks. Conservation Status: Endangered.
- Hawksbill Sea Turtle. Conservation Status: Critically endangered.
- River Dolphins. Conservation Status: Vulnerable to critically endangered.
- Mako Sharks. Conservation Status: Endangered.
- Galapagos Penguin.
- Humphead Wrasse.
- Hawaiian Monk Seal.
- Giant Devil Ray.
Top 10 Extinct Animals
- Sabre-toothed Cat. Often called Sabre-toothed Tigers or Sabre-toothed Lions, they existed 55 million to 11,700 years ago.
- Woolly Mammoth. An enormous mammal, believed to be closely related to the modern-day elephant.
- Dodo.
- Great Auk.
- Stellers Sea Cow.
- Tasmanian Tiger.
- Passenger Pigeon.
- Pyrenean Ibex.
10 Things You Can Do to Save the Ocean
- Mind Your Carbon Footprint and Reduce Energy Consumption.
- Make Safe, Sustainable Seafood Choices.
- Use Fewer Plastic Products.
- Help Take Care of the Beach.
- Don't Purchase Items That Exploit Marine Life.
- Be an Ocean-Friendly Pet Owner.
- Support Organizations Working to Protect the Ocean.
- Influence Change in Your Community.
Global warming is causing sea levels to rise, threatening coastal population centers. Many pesticides and nutrients used in agriculture end up in the coastal waters, resulting in oxygen depletion that kills marine plants and shellfish. Factories and industrial plants discharge sewage and other runoff into the oceans.
Globally, 100,000 marine mammals die every year as a result of plastic pollution. This includes whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions. There are two principle ways that encountering marine debris can be fatal for these creatures: ingestion (eating) or entanglement in plastic-based fishing gear.
“Global warming, combined with the negative impacts of numerous other human activities, is devastating our ocean, with alarming declines in fish stocks, the death of our reefs, and sea level rise that could displace hundreds of millions of people.”
Participate In (or Organize) a Beach or River CleanupHelp remove plastics from the ocean and prevent them from getting there in the first place by participating in, or organizing a cleanup of your local beach or waterway. This is one of the most direct and rewarding ways to fight ocean plastic pollution.
Today the world is producing 20 times more plastics than 40 years ago. This means that each year more than 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, wreaking havoc on marine wildlife, fisheries and tourism and marine ecosystems.
Human activities affect marine ecosystems as a result of pollution, overfishing, the introduction of invasive species,and acidification, which all impact on the marine food web and may lead to largely unknown consequences for the biodiversity and survival of marine life forms.
Take a look at the top 10 ocean issues:
- Plastics.
- Trash.
- Pollution.
- Overexploitation of Fishing Resources.
- Unsustainable Aquaculture.
- Marine Engineering and Oil Drilling.
- Destruction of Habitats.
- Ocean Acidification and Coral Bleaching.
There is now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our ocean & 46,000 pieces in every square mile of ocean, weighing up to 269,000 tonnes. Every day around 8 million pieces of plastic makes their way into our oceans.
As carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion accumulates in Earth's atmosphere, warming the planet, the oceans warm in response. This warming in turn alters the chemistry of the ocean, specifically, decreasing the waters' ability to hold oxygen.
The ocean absorbs most of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions, leading to rising ocean temperatures. Increasing ocean temperatures affect marine species and ecosystems. Rising temperatures cause coral bleaching and the loss of breeding grounds for marine fishes and mammals.
Most ocean pollution begins on land.Much of this runoff flows to the sea, carrying with it agricultural fertilizers and pesticides. Eighty percent of pollution to the marine environment comes from the land. One of the biggest sources is called nonpoint source pollution, which occurs as a result of runoff.
It is also legal for the cruise industry to dump raw, untreated sewage in the ocean once a ship is more than three miles from the U.S. shore. This waste not only carries bacteria which are harmful to human health, but it also sickens and kills marine life including fish and corals.
Conventional wisdom suggests that animals eat plastic because it's there and they don't know any better (to some animals, like anchovies, plastic may smell like food). They use echolocation to hunt for food—typically squid. It's possible, says Savoca, that plastic trash sounds like food to toothed whales.
100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste alone. 100,000 marine animals die from getting entangled in plastic yearly – this is just the creatures we find! 1 in 3 marine mammal species get found entangled in litter, 12-14,000 tons of plastic are ingested by North Pacific fish yearly.
In the ocean, plastic debris injures and kills fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Because persistent organic pollutants in the marine environment attach to the surface of plastic debris, floating plastics in the oceans have been found to accumulate pollutants and transport them through ocean currents.
