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Report says thousands of plants and animals are at risk of extinction in Canada

Released every five years, the 2020 Wild Species report shows the number of plants, animals, fungi and other organisms at risk.
westerngrebe
A male western grebe, right, shares a fish with his mate as they float on a wetland near Rutland, N.D., on Saturday, June 22, 2019. The Wild Species 2020 report released identifies more than 5,000 species that are extinct or at risk of going extinct in Canada.

Thousands of plants and animals are at risk of extinction in Canada. The concerning data coming from a recent report shows the number of species at risk continues to increase, and thousands are at risk of completely disappearing from the wild.

Released every five years, the 2020 Wild Species report shows the number of plants, animals, fungi and other organisms at risk.

The number of species at risk of extinction has increased steadily since the first report was published 2 decades ago.

In Canada we are losing nature faster than we can recover it,” said Terry Duguld, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. “Extinction is a very chilling word, once something is gone, it is gone forever.”

Addressing the report, Duguld says the clock is ticking and efforts need to be doubled to ensure the conservation of all species. The report says over 100 species that have either gone extinct or are vulnerable to extinction are not found anywhere else on the planet.

“One in five species are at risk of extinction in Canada,” said Sandra Schwartz with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Adding the report reveals shocking truths. While some animals like beluga whales, beavers and moose populations are listed as secure, other animals like the polar bear, bison, and caribou are all listed as vulnerable.

Aerin Jacob, director of science and research director at Nature Conservancy of Canada says now is the time to act to reverse the troubling trends seen in the report.

“This report is like an orchestra of canaries in the coal mines, and they are down in the bottom of the coal mines, they are in the shafts, they are up on the surface, and they are all singing extremely loudly telling us we are on a dangerous path.”

She says solutions have to be put into practice before it’s too late, and hopes the report will help drive decision-making at the UN biodiversity conference taking place in Montreal on Dec. 7.

Coordinator of the report Remie Hebert says we can’t protect what we don’t know we have, which is why each year the report expands the number of species it tracks. Hebert says this latest report identified 135 species once found in Canada that are now locally extinct.

“It’s the most complete inventory to my knowledge in the world. No other countries are doing such a complete inventory of their species,” said Hebert. “And among those there are seven species that the only place in the world we knew they occur was in Canada, so those species are gone from the earth, forever.”


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