I skimmed through it without reading any of the smaller text. Glad they included plants, because I think the general public assumes the term endangered species only applies to animals. Also glad they include insects (I recall seeing at least one) because again I think the general public would not consider these or worse would not think they matter.
A coworker of mine brought up on her phone a list of "top ten endangered species" that was from who knows what source. It listed things like gorillas and pandas. The latter are not even endangered any more, but were downgraded to threatened (I think). Gorillas are still endangered but there are thousands of them and they are nowhere near as endangered as hundreds of other species. It just goes to show the general public only considers large mammals when they think of animals.
As someone already pointed out, the list is nearly a decade old (published in 2021). Sadly it didn't work to solve the problem, at least in the case of the vaquita. According to this list there were less than 200. Now there are less than two dozen (maybe one dozen) and they will almost certainly go extinct in the next decade. I really don't think zoos are doing enough to combat the problems. The AZA average contribution to field conservation is less than three percent of operating budget, which is appalling. How many zoo staff (let alone visitors) still drive high-emission trucks and SUV's? How many zoos still serve beef (hamburgers, etc) in their cafes in spite of the environmental impacts of cattle ranching (humongous water usage, predator killing, etc)?
Thanks for those insightful words
@Arizona Docent. I completely agree with all of these statements. I am glad they included all life forms, Fungi as well because in reality, most endangered animals are these spectacular small organisms that no one seems to care about. I'm glad some people including you and me do, and I fear that many of these endangered species will go extinct in the future. I was devastated when I learned the Chinese paddlefish had gone extinct, they were one of the most unique fishes I have ever read about. The Amani flatwing (damselfly)
is a very beautiful species, yet I've never heard anyone talk about it on this site or in person. My goal when I am a zoologist is to at least try to save one of these species (if there still alive when I'm out of college) because I think the world would be a lot more depressing without them.
When Regarding zoos about animal conservation, I slowly start to realize that I feel like they could be doing better, as you said. I feel like when zoos try to educate people about endangered species they mainly try to appeal to the crowd by talking about, "how the Red panda is endangered". and, "Oh look, we have a read panda, support us because we help these animals" doesn't quite feel real to me. I'm not saying that they are not trying to conserve these species, Take the butterfly, the Dakota skipper for example, but I feel like they could be doing more. Or at least visitors should try to engage more about endangered species saving. Of course, you wouldn't expect a 5-year-old to get all excited about a tiny brown frog, but at 5 years old I sure did. I remember the day where I just spat out information at age 7 about the Panamanian golden frog. And another thing, lots of supposedly endangered species such as Amur leopards are supposed to be some of the rarest animals in the world, (not on this list, I'm talking about the general public's list) But actually, there are over 200 in captivity, to put that in perspective. The Vaquita is easily my favorite porpoise species, and whats even sadder, we don't know barely any information about it, so its even harder to conserve the species.
