Sumatran rhinos likely to become extinct, warn environment experts
Source: The Guardian
Sumatran rhinos likely to become extinct, warn environment experts
Adam Vaughan
Tuesday 22 September 2015 00.01 BST
Earth’s last remaining Sumatran rhinos are edging perilously close to extinction, according to one of the world’s top conservation bodies.
There are fewer than 100 of the animals left in the rainforests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the Kalimantan province of Borneo. The last Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Malaysia was spotted two years ago in the Sabah region of Borneo but experts last month declared the species extinct in that country.
That has prompted the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to sound the alarm over the species’ fate, which it said is headed for extinction if urgent action is not taken.
“It takes the rhino down to a single country,” said Simon Stuart, chair of the IUCN’s species survival commission. “With the ongoing poaching crisis, escalating population decline and destruction of suitable habitat, extinction of the Sumatran rhino in the near future is becoming increasingly likely.”
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/22/sumatran-rhinos-likely-to-become-extinct-warn-environment-experts
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