Environmental Defense Fund Names Species Of The Century
12/28/99
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Title: Environmental Defense Fund Names Species Of The Century
Source: Environmental Defense Fund via Environmental News Network
direct
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 28, 1999
WASHINGTON -- As we approach the year 2000, there are more species in
danger of extinction now than at any according to the Environmental
Defense Fund (EDF), which today released a list of the top wildlife
winners and losers of the last century. EDF's list is available at
www.edf.org online.
The last century began as a time of crisis for many US species, but
some have staged spectacular comebacks, like the gray wolf, northern
elephant seal, and whooping crane. A few species have even become too
successful and are now a nuisance, like the white-tailed deer and
brown-headed cowbird. At the start of the new millennium, some
species are still in serious peril, like the Snake River sockeye and
po'ouli (a Hawaiian songbird), while others are declining at an
alarming rate, like the bobolink, black-tailed prairie dog, and
longleaf pine tree.
According to EDF, while overexploitation was the major threat to
species at the beginning of the last century, that threat has been
replaced by three far more ruthless and indiscriminate killers:
habitat destruction, alien species, and pollution.
"Wildlife in the US is in a greater state of crisis now than at any
since the Ice Age," said David Wilcove, an EDF ecologist and author
of The Condor's Shadow, The Loss and Recovery of Wildlife in America.
"But there are very hopeful signs that we can save and recover
disappearing species." Topping the EDF list of successful species is
the white-tailed deer, which was in danger of disappearing from much
of the US at the start of the 20th century due to unregulated hunting
and deforestation. The imposition of game laws, combined with the
regeneration of eastern forests, helped bring about its revival.
Today some 17 to 25 million whitetails roam the forests, fields, and
suburbs of America. They have become pests in certain places by
destroying farm crops and gardens and decimating native wildflowers,
hemlocks and yews.
On the bottom of EDF's list, the longleaf pine ecosystem has been so
damaged and degraded that dozens of species inhabiting this ecosystem
are in danger of extinction. Longleaf pine once covered 74 million
acres in the southeastern US from Virginia south through Florida to
Texas. These forests were severely damaged by settlers, who destroyed
the trees for tar, pitch, rosin, and turpentine, as well as logging
them for timber. The suppression of natural fire caused the remaining
acreage of longleaf to become overgrown with hardwoods.