Today, there are several animal species in the world which are nearing their extinction. These are species whose their productivity and survival is vulnerable, threatened or endangered. Partially, mankind has been the largest contributor of the demise of these species.
With activities such as over-hunting, over-fishing, water bodies pollution etc. These species are usually categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List (IUCN) due their nature of becoming extinct in future. Among the endangered species are marine creatures.
Today there are several marine creatures whose existence is endangered mostly as a result of human activities and influence on the environment. They include:
Yangtze Finless Porpoise
This marine species is a cousin to Baiji dolphin which was declared functionally extinct in 2006 due to human activities. The two lived in Yangtze River in Asia.
Leatherback Turtle
Unlike other turtles posing with a hard shell, this variety has a leather-like back. They are reckoned as the most adventurous sea turtle species which are too the largest and cross both the Pacific and Atlantic as they go hunting. There endangerment mostly resulted from massive collection of their eggs and fisheries bycatch by humans.
Hawksbills Turtles
These are named so for their narrow pointed beaks and a distinctive pattern of overlapping scales on the shells of their backs that is serrated. The adaption of their head makes it possible for them to feed in coral reefs using their narrow pointed beaks to extract sponges from the crevices of reefs.
Bluefin Tuna
These are the largest species of tuna, – almost known as overly obese, – which are known to live for up to 40 years. They also migrate across different ocean bodies and can dive more than 4,000 feet.
Fin Whales
These species of whale are the second largest to blue whale and they are mostly hunted for their oil, meat and baleen. They are also threatened by human environmental attacks such as water pollution, climate change and habitat destruction.
Other marine species include; the Vaquita, Ganges River Dolphin, Green Turtle, Humphead Wrasse, Indus River Dolphin, Loggerhead Turtle, North Atlantic Right Whale and many others.
Among these marine creatures endangered or threatened is the Steelhead Trout. These species can grow up to 55 lbs in weight and 45 inches in length and are usually dark-olive in color with silver-white shading on the underside and a pick-red stripe on the sides of their heavily speckled bodies.
These species usually produce on freshwaters and then move to oceans before migrating back to freshwaters when they want to mate. Because of this routine, they are more susceptible to human hunting hence their threatened life.
This website belonged to the BC Conservation Foundation, which was tasked with identifying the best strategies and detail activities of the Steelhead Recovery Plan which was formed to stabilize and restore wild steelhead stocks and their habitat to healthy diets and self-sustaining levels in the streams of the Greater Georgia Basin (southwestern B.C., Canada).
They ceased using the domain later and they seem to have migrated to www.bccf.com. Anyway, now this site includes several posts below with important info about endangered marine species. You can access the posts by clicking on them or on the categories which are listed below…