Cross Breeds

The reason why some countries have very few extinct animals?

I have a biology investigation and want to know why there are some countries that have a low rate of extinct or endangered animals. could someone tell me at least 5 or 6 reasons why these countries have a low rate. there is a red list called IUCN redlist that shows how many animals are extinct or how many endangered and so on. and from the 7 country that i had to investigate about Iraq was the country with the least extinct animals

Public Comments

1. It would help to know what countries you are referring to, and how anyone would know every animal that is extinct.
2. I live in Australia. We have a relatively high rate of extinction.. but I think that is also because we have such a high number of exotic and endemic (native) animals. So the portion is greater, than say a country which doesn't have many different species types. I would also say that conservation work would limit extinction ie places where city dwelling have already taken over the native lands (have already wiped out most animals, except those that can survive in cities) where as some places have created national parks and protect native lands, so to conserve species. I would say the space left in a country for animals to live in their natural habitat is important. The less space you have for animals, the more quickly or likely they will become extinct. If all animals have is areas where they are unsuited.. say like with panda bears, being forced into areas, where now they have adapted to eat bamboo. many species would not adapt to where they are forced to live and become extinct. In Australia urban sprawl, is why many animals are dying here. Also a big one the introduction of foreign animals ie cane toads which are killing a lot of our native species, as they don't have the genetics to deal with this invasive species. When you put something foreign (ie foxes - as they did hear) into an environment, it upsets the eco system and that can lead to extinction of other species. As these native species can't compete with the same foods and resources as well as the foreign ones (we have that with a few bird breeds as well) and haven't coping methods to deal with a foreign species like foxes or people. Also you never listed any other country apart from Iraq and I don't know anything about Iraq! Sorry! Perhaps Iraq is not as populated, greater area (without human cities) where people can live? The animals adapted to their climate haven't had to deal with too many changes? I dunno sorry!
3. also Australian.. represent! *virtual high fives* between the two of us, we have all the answers. My contribution would be that you have to have a large number of different species to begin with, and iraq is not a really nice environment for alot of animals except the ones that are well adapted.
4. At present, the main cause of extinctions is the destruction or degradation of natural environments by human activities. So, one reason why species are not going extinct in a particular country could be that the natural environment has been left undisturbed, but this is seldom the case. Most likely, the data gathered by IUCN on Iraq is biased by a lack of recent information. There are probably very few people, if any, who are roaming the country to check on endangered species. Unfortunately, the people living there now probably have more serious issues to deal with. Go back to the IUCN website and read the criteria which they use to decide if a species is endangered. You will realize that there are many possible reasons why a species which is actually endangered could fail to be classified so. In brief, here's a few reasons why a country will have few red listed species: 1)Best case scenario. The country is effectively protecting the environment, allowing plants and animals to live undisturbed. Sadly, as I said before, this is seldom the case. 2)Overall size and heterogeneity of the landscape. Smaller countries and countries where there is not a wide variety of different ecosystems will have a smaller number of species to start with. Therefore they will also have less of the endangered ones. 3)Incomplete records of the past situation Extinction is a dynamic process. The main criteria for evaluating it are a decrease in time of the number of individuals in a population or a decrease in time of the area occupied by the population. Unless we have information on the past situation, we cannot compare it to the present. This is often the case in undeveloped countries. While western countries have a longer history of naturalistic exploration, the data from the past can still be fragmentary and difficult to access (Darwin did not store his data on an open access online database :-) 4)Lack of information on the present situation Even if we have information on the past situation of a species, we still need to go out in the field and gather data on its present state. This takes a lot of time and money and can be a problem even in developed countries because there are so many different species we would need to check on. 5)Data interpretation The raw data gathered from the field need to be interpreted correctly. For example, biologists will say that a species is not endangered if its range is above a certain number of square kilometres, but this value might have to be increased if the species population is very fragmented. It is often very difficult to reach a reliable estimate of such values. 6)Sampling effort bias Some countries are funding specific projects aimed at assessing the conservation status of their biodiversity but others are not. Also, some species groups are more "popular" than others with scientists. Some because they are easier to study (e.g.: large vertebrates, plants), some are protected by international protection agreements (birds, bats), some have economic importance, some simply look nicer then the others (butterflies). Endangered species not belonging to a popular group are more likely to go undetected.