Arizona Wildlife Notebook
A new edition of the “Arizona Wildlife Notebook” is available.
From the Introduction: In the year, 2015, lethal heat waves and storms made it clear that humanity is changing the Earth. Anyone who has paid attention to the news knows that Earth’s animals and plants are disappearing.
This figure from the review by the World Wildlife Fund (2014) shows that, from 1970 to 2010, Earth’s animals declined by 52%.
I have come to believe that nature conservation is the great challenge of our time. Human beings are imposing a mass extinction that will eliminate almost all animals on Earth. We may not be able to stop this, but I believe that the Notebook will be useful for anyone who hasn’t given up and wishes to work to protect Earth’s creatures.
Arizona Species Conservation Status
For this edition of the Notebook, I added more information on conservation. The table below shows group status for species that AZGFD specialists consider critically imperiled (S1), imperiled (S2), and vulnerable (S3). It also shows group status according to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for Threatened (LT) and Endangered (LE) species. I didn’t include butterflies, moths, damselflies, and dragonflies in this table because the status of most species in those groups is unknown.
Many species that the AZGFD says are critically imperiled are not given national recognition and protection by the U. S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). It seems that only after species are mostly gone that protection becomes available. Thus, the ESA achieves very little overall protection from biodiversity loss.
ARIZONA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION STATUS
Species Group
Total minus
Exotic & Extinct
AZGFD
S1+S2+S3
ESA
LT+LE
Amphibians
31
18 (58%)
2
Birds
451
260 (58%)
9
Fish
40
40 (100%)
13
Lizards
67
27 (40%)
0
Mammals
189
64 (34%)
15
Snakes
76
35 (46%)
1
Turtles
10
6 (67%)
2
TOTAL
864
450 (52%)
42
The third column shows how many species AZGFD considers at risk. For instance, all native Arizona fish species are at risk, and about one-third of native Arizona mammals are at risk.
Click–Arizona Wildlife Notebook–for a free copy of the 168-page book formatted as a PDF “fillable form.” If you like the book, tell others. Write a review for Amazon: http://mybook.to/AZWildlifeNotebook , or Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1Mkgmei. If you would like to review a printed copy of the book, send a note using the form below. Thank you.
Now that you’ve downloaded the book, you have a conversation-starter for tonight’s warm-up party for World Animal Day!
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