But that does not mean people should care any less about them. Most of the top 20 highest conservation priority species were found to be small freshwater fish, reptiles, or birds that few people had heard of. Perhaps only 100 pairs of the bird remain, all of which are confined to a few tiny patches of juniper forest in the Asir mountains of Saudi Arabia. The next highest conservation priority animal was the Asir magpie. It is critically endangered and only known to inhabit one small dam in the Kingdom. This little fish was first discovered in 1983 but was not seen again until 2014 at Khaybar. This allowed the company to create a score sheet that ranked every species from the highest conservation priority to the lowest and is purely empirical.īy using the scientific scoring system, Aramco found that the highest conservation priority species in Saudi Arabia right now was a freshwater fish called the Arabian bream. It scored each species out of 100 according to several factors, such as how endangered it was, how many individuals remained, whether numbers were increasing or decreasing, how much of the global population occurs in the country, and how unique it was. The firm recently developed a scientific method for ranking the conservation priority of every animal species that lives in Saudi Arabia (not including marine species). Saudi Aramco has been striving to protect the biodiversity of the land, seas, and coastlines the company operates in. If we cannot protect our biological diversity, then who will? The key message from UN International Day for Biological Diversity and Aramco is that everyone should be part of the solution to the biodiversity crisis. Globally, communities have tended to focus on saving large, charismatic, pretty, cute, and cuddly species but there has often been little scientific rationale behind the decisions. If so many species are decreasing in numbers, which ones should be helped first? ![]() It had never been seen before – and has never been seen since.Īround 70 percent of the Kingdom’s plant and animal species are on the decline, and around 33 percent have formally been listed as threatened with extinction.Īlarming statistics such as these can be daunting and discouraging. ![]() Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia also contains some of the world’s most endangered animals, such as the Sarso Island racer, a snake discovered in the Farasan Islands off Jazan in 1964. Some of the most beautiful animals on Earth can be found in the country, including the resplendent Arabian sunbird with its iridescent green, blue, red, purple, and black feathers that sparkle in the sunlight.Īmong other many fascinating creatures great and small is the Arabian babbler, a group-living bird that shows social behaviors as complex as chimpanzees or the most intricate Shakespearean drama. The Kingdom boasts 499 species of bird, 117 different mammals, 107 kinds of reptile, 266 coral reef varieties, 1,230 types of fish, eight classifications of amphibian, and more than 2,400 flowering plant species. Saturday, May 22 has been designated UN International Day for Biological Diversity with the aim of increasing understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues.Īnd Saudi Arabia, with its surprising diversity of wild animals and plants, will be celebrating the event which this year is running under the theme, “We’re part of the solution.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |