negative space
felicity tse 2021
asia
The Sundarbans is 4000 square miles of marsh land located in India and Bangladesh, the world’s largest mangrove forest supporting several hundred species of animals. With the spike in extreme weather events, changing vegetation, and rising sea levels, the Bengal Tiger population has become threatened. A rise of just 11” in sea level can reduce the number of tigers in the Sundarbans by 96% within a few decades. The habitat loss can lead to tigers wandering outisde of their habitat and into rural areas, increasing human confrontation. As it is, illegal trade of animal parts has decimated the global population of tigers from 100,000 in the 1900s to fewer than 4000 in the 1970s.
Conservation status: threatened; endangered Global population: 3,900
south america
Located in the Chocó region of Colombia, the Harlequin Poison Frog is threatened by severe habitat loss and rising temperatures. Earth’s rising temperatures increase cloud coverage over tropical mountains, leading to cooler days and warmer nights, allowing the chrytid fungus to thrive and cause chytridiomycosis. This condition attacks the frogs’ skin, leading to suffocation. As a result, two-thirds of the Harlequin species vanished between the 1980s and 1990s, and three other Central American frog species have gone extinct.
Conservation status: threatened; critically endangered
north america
Major factors causing the decline of the moose population since the 1990s have been due to predation, bacterial infection and parasites. Rising temperatures and shorter winters in regions such as Alaska have pushed moose migration northward over the past century. Changes in migration habits cause moose and other animals to encroach on each others’ habitats, carrying disease such as winter ticks. Winter ticks cause the moose to expend most of their energy on scratching and rubbing, leading to less feeding and loss of their winter coats, resulting in hypothermia. Scratching can also lead to blood loss, making them anemic. In Minnesota, two separate populations of moose were tracked in the 90s, one of which was at a population of 4000 individuals. Today, there are less than 100.
Conservation status: least concern Global population: 1.5 million
africa
Altering weather patterns and civil unrest are causing giraffes to suffer a “silent extinction”. Drastic changes in weather patterns increased rainfall in forested regions, and significant drought in the savanna, causing certain plants to die. The decline of livable habitats and food sources also caused by an increase of farmland and ranches, forced giraffe populations to cluster in certain highly-populated areas of the continent, creating a higher risk of vehicle collisions. Civil unrest in Africa resulted in limited resources to track wildlife trafficking and poaching in the area, and giraffes have become a commodity to make knives, gun handles, rugs, clothing, and taxidermized trophies. In regions of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, the reticulated giraffe population fell 60% in 2018, the Kordofan giraffe in Central Africa declined 85%, and the Nubian giraffe population declined 97%.
Conservation status: threatened; vulnerable Global population: 68, 000
europe
In Europe, guillemots have a very regimented way of living especially during breeding season. The change in climate has created shifts in species distributions, affecting their primary food source and breeding grounds. High pressure systems over the Barents Sea (where the guillemot primarily go to scavenge for food), has led to less upwelling of the water in the ocean. This keeps food and nutrients to remain on the seabed, unavailable for the fish, causing a decline in fish stocks, resulting in less food for seabirds. Black Guillemots prefer to feed their nestlings arctic cod that can mainly be found at the edge of sea ice, however in recent years as the ice pack as shrunk, the edge is now hundreds of miles from their breeding ground, making them unavailable during their August feeding time. Among the most threatened taxonomic group, it is reported that around 25% of all seabird species are listed as threated and vulnerable.
Conservation status: least concern
oceania
The forest fires in Australia have threatened several species of unique wildlife, and flying foxes are no exception. With extreme heat events and temperatures rising over 42°C, thermoregulatory behaviours of the flying fox have caused them to perish from hyperthermia. The vicious cycle of extreme high heat leading to deterioration of roost vegetation have destroyed their habitat, and increased their susceptibility to heat stress. Habitat loss also pushes large colonies to rural areas, affecting vegetation and increasing human involvement. Locals have resorted to netting their trees to prevent the flying foxes from eating the fruit, and have targeted them for shooting due to the noise and smell of the animals. In the past century, the Grey-Headed Flying Fox and Spectacled Flying Fox populations have declined by at least 95%. As of 2018, six out of sixty two flying fox species have gone extinct.
Conservation status: threatened; critically endangered