Species that got booted to 'endangered' or 'threatened' status in 2022

In recent years many species have entered the so-called "doomed" list of flora and fauna which are facing the imminent threat of extinction thanks to human activities. All these species are integral to their respective ecosystems and efforts to save them need to be launched ASAP. Here's a list of some species whose survival is in jeopardy and who in 2022 were classified as threatened:

In February of 2022, Australia officially classified the cuddly looking marsupials as 'endangered'.

As WWF-Australia conservation scientist Stuart Blanch puts it what's alarming about this is that "Koalas have gone from no-listing to vulnerable to endangered within a decade".

Humane Society International's Alexia Wellbelove estimates that in absence of appropriate action, east coast koalas may go extinct by 2050. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in March 2022 listed the long-tailed macaques as endangered due to the rapid population decline and the prognosis of decline giving the continuation of current trends of exploitation and habitat destruction.

In October of this year, the US government formally listed Emperor penguins as an endangered species which faces a grave threat due to the loss of sea ice over the course of this century.

According to Marcela Libertelli, an expert from the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA) the species is in grave danger of extinction in the next 30 to 40 years due to climate change.

In July 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the migratory monarch butterfly a subspecies of the majestic Monarch butterfly as endangered adding it to its Red List of Threatened Species.

The listing as per San Antonio Report comes as surprise as in May of this year the World Wildlife Fund in a piece of welcome news announced that during the 2021-2022 overwintering period in Mexico, there was a 35 per cent increase in butterflies over the previous year. 

As per IUCN, the western population is at the greatest risk of extinction, having declined by an estimated 99.9 per cent, from as many as 10 million to 1,914 butterflies between the 1980s and 2021. The larger eastern population also shrunk by 84 per cent from 1996 to 2014.

World's world’s longest-living vertebrate, the  Greenland shark too made it onto the list. The shark which has the lifespan of up to 500 years is especially vulnerable to overfishing.

As per estimates over the past 420 years the species has lost around 60 per cent of its population. In October of this year, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) prohibited the retention of Greenland sharks in international waters, awarding the species with long-awaited protection for the Greenland shark.

(Image: Wikimedia commons)

Described a sone of the world's largest gliding mammals, the Greater glider which is a cat-sized marsupial unique to Australia had its status bumped from vulnerable to endangered in July 2022.

The status change comes just six years after it was first assessed as vulnerable on Australia's threatened species list.

(Image courtesy: WIkimedia commons)

A ruling of the US Fish and Wildlife Service recently declared Dixie Valley toad a.k.a Nevada toad an endangered species.

It said that the spectacled, quarter-sized amphibian "is currently at risk of extinction throughout its range primarily due to the approval and commencement of geothermal development."

Reno, nevada is the only known place where this species lives. In 2017 it was even embroiled in a lawsuit to block he geothermal power plant on the edge of the wetlands where the toad lives about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno.

(Image courtesy: Wikimedia commons)