List Of Endangered Animals

The Saola—An Asian Unicorn

So rare it is almost mythological, the saola-an hangs on by its hoof tips in a forest full of poachers’ snares

The saola (pronounced sow-la—scientific name Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) has been referred to as the Asian unicorn because it is so rare and seldom seen. It is also Critically Endangered, with no more than several hundred individuals remaining in several isolated areas of tropical forest stretching along the border between Vietnam and Laos.

Related to cattle but resembling an antelope, the saola—brown with white patches on its head and face and sporting a pair of straight, spindly horns—can grow to a height at the shoulders of a little over three feet (one meter), and a weight of up to 220 pounds (100 kilos).

The saola was first discovered in 1992, and since then has been seen only a handful of times, even by researchers who were looking very hard. In fact, until late 2013 when a camera trap in Vietnam took photos of a single animal, no live saola had been spotted for 15 years.

Illegal hunting and trapping are the main factors pushing the saola toward extinction. Southeast Asian forests have experienced a huge upsurge in poaching over the last few years due to a growing market for wild game and skyrocketing demand for rare wildlife for use in making Asian folk medicines. But the Asian uncorn is also threatened by deforestation.

Leatherback Sea Turtle

The population of the world’s largest turtle is dropping at an alarming rate

The leatherback sea turtle (Demochelys coriacea) is the earth’s biggest turtle and has the largest range of any species, swimming all over the globe from the tropics to the sub-polar regions. When it comes time to dig a nest and lay its eggs, it crawls out onto sandy sub-tropical beaches the world over. The leatherback is also critically endangered. According to the IUCN, in 1982 there were around 115,000 adult female leatherback turtles in the world; just 14 years later, there were only 20,000 to 30,000—and the population has continued to plummet. The leatherback’s problems include theft of its eggs by humans, illegal hunting and nesting-habitat loss due to beach development, and the erosion of beaches due to global climate change. In addition, leatherbacks sometimes die after ingesting plastic debris they find floating in the ocean, which they mistake for food such as jellyfish.

(Source: google)