14 beautiful animals that could disappear in your lifetime

Like the Javan rhino, the Sumatran is also in a dangerous position, numbering fewer than 80. This subspecies is the smallest living rhino and they are constantly threatened by the illegal rhino horn trade in addition to deforestation. The animal’s reproduction rate is extremely low; just two females have reproduced in the last 15 years.

The veterinary drug called diclofefnac is responsible for the fact that fewer than 1000 white-rumped vultures now exist in Bangladesh. The drug is used on livestock and is lethal to the vultures who feed off of them. Conservationists have set up vulture safe zones in an attempt to regrow the population.

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The Borneo pygmy elephant is the smallest elephant in Asia. While every elephant population in the world is threatened by ivory hunting, this species has been hit particularly hard and only 1500 remain. Humans are also encroaching upon their territory and destroying their habitats for timber. Hopefully, a Chinese ban on ivory will help revive the Borneo pygmy elephants.

This is not the first time the Australian possum has been on the endangered list. The animal was thought to be extinct when a fossil was discovered back in 1896. The Guinness Book of Records named the mountain pygmy possum the rarest animal in the world in 1967, when a live one was spotted for the first time. Now we know that there are at most 2000. Still, that is a critically low number – and potentially dropping as a result of ski resorts being built in their habitat. Captive breeding efforts are underway to replenish this diminishing species.

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This subspecies is another animal that needs help from captive breeding programs. Przewalski’s horse (named after a Russian explorer, it’s also known as the Asian or Mongolian wild horse) has been interbred with domestic horses so much that there are only 2000 of the originals left. They are the only species of wild horse in the world; hunting and interbreeding are nudging them towards extinction. Fewer than 300 still roam in the wild, while the rest are being monitored in captivity.

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Source: RD.com