The Biggest Issues for Wildlife and Endangered Species in 2019
Wildlife didn’t have an easy go of it in 2018. We lost the last male northern white rhino, the vaquita porpoise continued its slide toward extinction, poachers kept targeting pangolins and other rare creatures, and through it all the Trump administration kept trying to whittle away at key protections for endangered species.
So with that rough bit of recent history, what does 2019 hold?
Well, in most cases it won’t be pretty. There will be more blood, more habitat loss, more legislative attacks and more extinctions—but at the same time, there will also be signs of hope and progress on many levels. Here are some big issues that experts say we should be watching in 2019:
Climate Chaos
Of course, climate change will continue to threaten species around the world in 2019. “The impacts of climate change aren’t showing signs of slowing, and this administration refuses to recognize it,” says Charise Johnson of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Water temperatures are rising, increased flooding, deforestation, fires, storms—these are all things that affect a species’ existence.”
And new threats continue to emerge. “There’s been a lot of discussion about how global climate change affects ocean acidification, and now there’s emerging evidence that the even greater threat is reduced oxygen levels,” says noted conservationist William Laurance of James Cook University. A study published last month found that ocean deoxygenation could have a major impact on zooplankton, one of the building blocks for the ocean food web. Deoxygenation also causes increased algal growth, like the red tides that choked the coasts of Florida this past year and killed hundreds of manateesand tens of thousands of fish.
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