A species came back from extinction
Extinction is usually a one-way journey, but not for the scimitar-horned oryx. It is roaming Chad again after conservationists reintroduced it using captive animals.
The oryx’s return prompted the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to relist the animal from ‘extinct in the wild’ to ‘endangered’ this week.
Also ascending the list was the saiga antelope. Native to Kazakhstan, it teetered on the edge a decade ago, but now there are around 1.3m of them – an increase of 1,100% since 2015.
The two species’ shifting fortunes were bright spots in an otherwise concerning report by the IUCN. It warned that nearly a quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction due to overfishing, pollution and climate change. Atlantic salmon, green turtles and mahogany are also increasingly threatened, it added.
Extinction is usually a one-way journey, but not for the scimitar-horned oryx. It is roaming Chad again after conservationists reintroduced it using captive animals.
The oryx’s return prompted the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to relist the animal from ‘extinct in the wild’ to ‘endangered’ this week.
Also ascending the list was the saiga antelope. Native to Kazakhstan, it teetered on the edge a decade ago, but now there are around 1.3m of them – an increase of 1,100% since 2015.
The two species’ shifting fortunes were bright spots in an otherwise concerning report by the IUCN. It warned that nearly a quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction due to overfishing, pollution and climate change. Atlantic salmon, green turtles and mahogany are also increasingly threatened, it added.
