Global heating, pollution, overfishing and falling water levels among factors hitting populations, finds IUCN red list study

Nearly a quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction due to global heating, overfishing and pollution, according to an expert assessment.

From the large-toothed Lake Turkana robber in Kenya to the Mekong giant catfish in south-east Asia, many of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of disappearing, the first International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list assessment of the category has found.

Nearly a fifth of all threatened freshwater species are affected by climate change, from impacts such as falling water levels, shifting seasons and seawater moving up rivers. Of the assessed species, 3,086 out of 14,898 were at risk of vanishing.

The latest assessment also found that mahogany, Atlantic salmon and green turtles were increasingly threatened, according to scientific assessments, but there was good news about the saiga antelope, which has moved up from the critically endangered category to near threatened after the population increased by 1,100% in just seven years, mainly in Kazakhstan.

  • @AltofaltceptionEnglish
    -1•1 year ago

    It doesn’t need to be 3/4ths of humanity. Most of the world’s population is just doing its best to survive.

    There is a class of people who have managed to hoard most of the world’s wealth, who exploit the earth’s resources with impunity. They’re the ones who need to go.