By Ranjan Kumar Amritnidhi, Delhi

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released a dire report last week concluding that about a quarter of the world’s mammal species are heading for extinction. Another quarter, says the group, face less drastic but nevertheless declining population numbers.

The international nonprofit environmental organization, which produces and maintains the worldwide “red data (list) book” of endangered species,says that the situation is particularly serious for land mammals in south and southeast Asia,where some 79% of monkeys and apes face extinction, due to the one-two punch of over harvesting and habitat loss.

And marine species around the world are suffering from “our increasingly intensive use of the oceans.” Despite a general deterioration in the status of mammals, our data also show that species recoveries are possible through targeted conservation efforts.”

Mammals are vanishing very fast due to the environmental pollution, habitat loss, global warming and climate change. These are land mammals and marine mammals.

Some examples of vanishing mammals are : some species of monkey, ape,gorilla,chimpanzee,baboon,mongoose etc.

“I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children ?,” said Arizona State University life sciences professor Andrew Smith, one of researchers who contributed to the report which culled data from some 1,700 experts across 130 countries. “