These 15 animal species have the lowest chance for survival.

Tripp Judkins           3/22/15

Current Event#1           Biology

University of Southern Denmark. "These 15 animal species have the lowest chance for survival." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 March 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150316135444.htm>.

The article “These 15 animal species have the lowest chance for survival.” talks about the conservation and extinction of animals species. Specifically, the article says that the US can invest 1.3 billion dollars a year to save 841 highly endangered species. Even with this money, !5 species would still have a low chance of survival. They estimate the opportunities to conserve these species off two factors. One factor is the opportunity of protecting the remaining habitats of the animal. These habitats are restricted to single sites. This opportunity depends on the cost to protect the habitat, political stability in the habitat, and the probability of the habitat being urbanized. The second factor is the possibility of establishing protected insurance populations in zoos. This opportunity depends on the cost and finding breeding expertise for each species. The researchers calculated the survival chances for all 841 species using these factors. The data shows that 39% of the species scored high for conservation while 15 species are in imminent danger of extinction. At the end of the calculation, the estimated total cost to conserve the 841 animal species in their natural habitats was calculated to be over US$1 billion total per year. The estimated annual cost for complementary management in zoos was US$160 million. The article goes on to say that this isn’t a lot of money for the US because it is 500 times less of what the US spends on its defenses.

This article is an important connection to society because it tells us that US could prevent extinction for lower than expected. This means the US people will be taxed more, which will affect everyone's lifestyle. This article talks about preventing extinction because society doesn’t know what affect the extinctions of some these animals will have on the ecosystem. What if one of these animals on the list eats rats and then goes extincted. Now the ecosystem where this animals lived will be filled with rats.

This article was very interesting to me but there were some sections in the article where I didn’t understand what the author was trying to say. At the end of the article, the author listed the 15 species who were close to extinction. I believe if the author included some pictures of the cuter animals on the lists, it would make the reader feel more sympathetic for the animals.