Green Taxi

The World Conservation Union, as reported by this Washington Post article, released their “Red List” of threatened species yesterday and the list continues to grow.  Unfortunately they do not provide a very good feel for the rate of growth of the list from a numerical format.  While they added 188 species to the list, they do not say how many were removed, if any, and they make it seem like they only added species because they had enough money to find those species.  The species could have been threatened years back, they just did not know for sure.  This makes the growth of threatened species very hard to judge.  However, I do believe in their underlying theme, that life is not getting any easier for these animals.

The encouraging spots of growth…North American reptiles are doing quite well.  As a resident of North America, even as a lover of animals, I’m not sure how encouraged I am to have more reptiles running through my back yard (if I had one).