Huge chunk of plants, animals in U.S. at risk of extinction -report

Record ID: 1710858

  • Title: Huge chunk of plants, animals in U.S. at risk of extinction -report
  • Date: 6th February 2023
  • Summary: ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA USA (JANUARY 31, 2023) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) REGAN SMYTH, NATURESERVE VICE PRESIDENT OF DATA, SAYING: “The United States actually has this incredible freshwater diversity, especially in the southeast, with species that are found nowhere else on the planet, and we don’t even know what we’re losing until we really do these studies to unde
  • Embargoed: 20th February 2023 09:53
  • Keywords: animals biodiversity climate change farms fishing hunting science
  • Location: Alexandria, Virginia USA+Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA+VARIOUS
  • City: Alexandria, Virginia USA+Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA+VARIOUS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Environment,North America,Nature/Wildlife
  • Reuters ID: LVA00A775306022023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A huge mixture, from crayfish and cacti to freshwater mussels and iconic American species such as the venus flytrap are in danger of disappearing, a new report finds, and it could affect daily American lives.
    “You won’t have things to hunt or fish if their ecosystems are degraded, if their rivers are polluted, or if someone clears the land that the elk depend on,” said Dr. Sean O’Brien, president of NatureServe, which put together the report using data from states all across the country.
    A report released on Monday from a leading U.S. conservation research group says that 40% of animals and 34% of plants in the United States are at risk of extinction, while 41% of ecosystems in the country are facing collapse.
    NatureServe, which in part acts as a national scientific data aggregator with input from its network of over 1,000 scientists in the U.S. and Canada, said its new report was its most comprehensive analysis yet, synthesizing five decade’s worth of its own data on the health of animals, plants and ecosystems.
    Importantly, the report pinpoints the areas of the U.S. where land is unprotected and where plants and animals are facing the most threats.
    Freshwater mussels, an admittedly not charismatic animal, are some of the most at risk.
    “If you care about going fishing with your son or your daughter you’re going to care about having clean dynamic rivers. The fish that lives in those rivers depend ont he ecosystem service that those mussels provide,” said Regan Smyth, vice president of data at NatureServe.
    Besides hunting and fishing, endangered animals and plants could also affect farmers directly if pollinating insects die, O’Brien said.
    O’Brien said the conclusions of the report were “terrifying” and he hoped it would help lawmakers understand the urgency of passing protections, such as the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act that stalled out in Congress last year.
    Among the species at risk of disappearing are icons like the venus flytrap, which globally is only found in the wild in a few counties of North and South Carolina. Nearly half of all cacti species are at risk of extinction, while 200 species of trees are also at risk of disappearing. Among ecosystems, temperate grasslands are at the most risk, with over half of 78 grassland types at risk of a range-wide collapse.
    The threats against plants, animals and ecosystems are varied, the report found, but include “habitat degradation and land conversion, invasive species, damming and polluting of rivers, and climate change.”
    California, Texas and the southeastern U.S. are where the highest percentages of plants, animals and ecosystems are at risk, the report found. Converting lands from wild spaces to farms is a big contributor.
    Those areas are both the historically richest in terms of biodiversity in the country, but also where population growth has boomed in recent decades, and where human encroachment on nature has been harshest, said Wesley Knapp, the chief botanist at NatureServe.
    Knapp highlighted the threats facing plants, which typically get less conservation funding than animals. There are nearly 1,250 plants in NatureServe’s “critically imperiled” category, the final stage before extinction, meaning that conservationists have to decide where to spend scant funds even among the most vulnerable species to prevent extinctions.
    “The real trouble comes when you lose those keystone species,” Knapp said, which can and already has led to ecosystem collapse.
    O’Brien hopes the report can show state governments the gaps between protected lands and areas that need protecting.
    “It’s much easier to poach on lands that aren’t being guarded than on lands that are, so putting protected areas around species that are at risk could potentially reduce poaching,” O’Brien said.
    (Camera: Julio-Cesar Chavez, Nathan Frandino, Matt McKnight, Liliana Salgado, Evan Garcia Production:Julio-Cesar Chavez)
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