Wildlife Group Identifies the Planet’s Most Endangered Species

The Wildlife Conservation Society has identified a dozen species most in danger of extinction, including the Cuban crocodile, the Sumatran orangutan, and the green-eyed frog. According to the conservation group’s new publication, State of the Wild ”“ A Global Portrait, more than 3,200 plant and animal species are “critically endangered” — meaning that their numbers have decreased 80 percent in the last 10 years. The species described as the “rarest of the rare” face a variety of threats to their existence, the group says. Illegal hunting threatens the Cuban crocodile, logging and deforestation is destroying the Sumatran orangutan’s habitat, and entanglement in fishing nets is killing off the vaquita, a small ocean porpoise found in the northern Gulf of California in Mexico. The group also reports instances in which conservation efforts have helped endangered species recover, including the Romer’s tree frog in Hong Kong, whose numbers have increased through captive breeding in zoos, and the Przewalski’s horse in China and Mongolia, which is recovering since it was reintroduced into the wild. See the full list