Mapping the Endangered Species Journey: Stages from Least Concern to Extinction
The Road to Extinction
I like to begin by asking you a quick question.
When you think of a Cockroach, what words immediate come to mind. Disgusting, creepy, vile, or all of the above. While these insects are survivors and have been on Earth for over 125 million years, do you ever think of them as endangered?
Many are under the assumption that a cockroach is just a cockroach, or that all lions, tigers, and bears, oh my – are one of the same.
With this sort of broad thinking, many do not grasp the true meaning behind what constitutes a species as being endangered.
Before I ask you to travel the globe with me to meet some of the most amazing animals that desperately need our help today, our first stop of this journey should be to establish:
A. Define what is a species.
B. Define what an endangered species is.
C. Top resource for discovering the conservation status of a specific species.
DEFINE SPECIES:
A species is any life form found on this planet including animals, plants, trees, insects, coral reefs, and of course humans.
DEFINE ENDANGERED SPECIES:
According to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), passed in 1973, an endangered species is “any species which is in range of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range”.
TOP RESOURCE FOR IDENTIFIYING ENDANGERED SPECIES
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
To learn more about a specific species, I rely on the The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), considered to be the world’s leading authority on global species who face the risk of extinction.
Established in 1949, The IUCN has been able to record and track 28% of the world’s known species.
From the 163,040 species assessed by the the IUCN, more than 45,300 species are threatened with extinction.
Species are categorized within the following 9 categories.
Next, the IUCN then divides the conservation status of all species into the following 8 Categories.
** For fun, leave a comment below when you spot a baby in one of these examples **
The most important takeaway is that any species listed as Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered all fall under the category “Endangered” but to different degrees as described above.
It was very hard to locate any sort of species categorized as “least concern”. Every common animal you may think of including, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, skunks, birds, ants, flies, and yes, even cockroaches, have a specific species within their group that are facing extinction.
Every species on this planet serves a vital role by serving a purpose in our ecosystem. I hope this brief summary provides a better understanding of what it means to be an Endangered Species.
Next, I will share the top 10 reasons why so many species are facing extinction today.
Ready to take your first step towards protecting our endangered friends? Knowledge is key. Take your first small step right now by visiting the official U.S. Fish and Wildlife page to easily discover which species are endangered right in your own backyard.
You may be surprised. Let’s us know what you discover by leaving a comment below on this post or our Facebook and/or Instagram page. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.
Working together today to help save Earth’s endangered animals from becoming a Figment of our Imagination TOMORROW!
Thank you for helping me better understand all the categories along the extinction continuum.
I don’t want any cockroaches for roommates, but I do appreciate their resilience and the way they convert the world’s waste to benefit plants, thus benefitting our ecosystems.
Lisa, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. It’s true, while I don’t want cockroaches as roommates, they do play a vital role in our ecosystem.
Debbie, what an informative post. Like Lisa said, I don’t consider myself extremely fond of cockroaches or most insect or reptile. That said, I do recognize that they each have their purpose and place in the “circle of life” Often when I think of endangered species I think only of the animals, you know, all the animals with commercials claiming to help – not all the other categories mentioned above. Thank you for helping me better understand and perhaps opening my mind even to those who are “less appealing!” This is such an important cause. We has humans could not survive without the symbiotic relationships we have to the other species with whom we share this planet!
Thank you Terre for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I began this journey when a friend insisted that giraffes were not Endangered. That’s because they didn’t realize that there were different species of giraffes. That’s why I suggest beginning your journey at home and learning to appreciate what types of animals are considered endangered within your state.
Thanks for the education. Yes, Species keep changing and adapting, but we need to protect more wildlife.
Amanda I pleased that you found this information useful. Can you imagine a world without cats? In fact our loving housecats are actually decedents from the African Wildcat which was domesticated over 9,000 years ago. Although the African Wildcat is not considered Endangered at this moment, there is growing concern over it’s habitat which is leading to a sharp decline in their numbers.
Thank you for this post! I learned so much and I like how you used pictures to show the least concern, near threatened, and so on. I have to admit that when I saw the word cockroach, I immediately went to all the words you used to describe them LOL But endangered and cockroaches are not two words I thought would go together! What really stuck out to me was when you shared this statistic: from the 163,040 species assessed by the the IUCN, more than 45,300 species are threatened with extinction. I had NO clue!
Thank you for your comments Tish. Believe it or not, it is estimated that we lose over 82 species per day – that’s four species per hour. Some are referring as the “sixth mass extinction”.
Had no idea about the different categories of extinction. To answer your question — No — I do not think of roaches as a species I should protect.
I will look at a roach a little differently in the future. Are there specific roaches that we need to put back into the wild if we run across them?