Falling Stars: 10 of the Most Famous Endangered Species

Vaquitas, the rarest and smallest of all cetaceans (members of a certain order of aquatic mammals), inhabit only the waters in Mexico’s Gulf of California. There were nearly 600 vaquitas in 1997, but estimates of how many survive as of 2022 range from just 10 to 18 of the porpoises. The vaquita’s natural range is rich in fish and shrimp, and therefore it is also rich in fishing boats. The gill nets used by the locals are meant to capture the totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder can fetch $20,000 each in China, where it’s viewed as a delicacy. The average vaquita is 4.9 feet long, which makes it similar in size to the totoaba. This is problematic because vaquitas can become entangled in these nets and drown. Gill nets were banned by the Mexican government in 2015 but are still used illegally, despite social programs and restrictions intended to deter their use.

William Blake’s “forests of the night,” the stalking grounds of the six subspecies of tigers, are burning bright. Slash-and-burn agriculture along with logging and human encroachment have hugely diminished the habitat available to these felines, which require extensive ranges capable of supporting the large herbivores that constitute the bulk of their diet. Poaching—for trophies and body parts used in Asian “medicine”—is thought to pose the greatest threat to tigers. An estimated 4,500 tigers are left in the wild. In 2014 China explicitly outlawed the consumption of endangered species, including tigers, whose bones, penises, and other organs are superstitiously believed to have magical curative powers.

In 1938, the first year a population survey was conducted, only 29 whooping cranes remained in the wild. Three years later only 16 were left. Hunting and reduction of their wetland habitat had decimated the population, and concerted efforts to salvage remnant birds did not begin until the late 1960s. In 2022 it was estimated that there were more than 500 birds, thanks in large part to innovative breeding programs. Though a plan that involved transferring whooping crane eggs to the nests of related sandhill cranes for fostering ultimately failed, captive rearing and reintroduction have established two wild populations in Florida, one of which has been taught to migrate to Wisconsin. Neither is self-sustaining. The only self-sustaining population migrates between Alberta, Canada, and Texas, U.S.

Fewer than 25,000 blue whales, the largest animals on the planet, survive today. Comprising several subspecies, blue whales are found in all of the world’s oceans save the Arctic. The current population is thought to have been reduced by up to 90 percent by whaling in the 20th century. Commercial hunting of the species was ultimately banned in 1966. The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service spelled out a recovery plan in 1998. It stipulated the maintenance of photo databases of individual specimens and the collection of genetic and migration data in order to better understand the species, which remains at risk from ship collisions and entanglement in fishing nets.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species estimates that the current population of Asian elephants, which inhabit 13 countries, is about 40,000–50,000. That number may be far lower; some regions inhabited by the lumbering pachyderms are inaccessible because of the terrain or political volatility. Over 50 percent of the population is concentrated in India. The burgeoning human population there—and elsewhere in Asia—creates conflicts for space and resources. And, while the tusks of Asian elephants are much smaller than those of their African counterparts, the Asian species is still poached for its ivory, meat, and skin.

The luxurious waterproof coat that insulates sea otters from the chilly waters they inhabit almost led to their extinction. A target of the commercial fur trade, the species was almost wiped out, its population reduced from an estimated 300,000 in the early 1700s to some 2,000 by 1911. That year an international ban on commercial hunting was enacted. That ban and management and conservation measures taken in the wake of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act have helped populations recover to perhaps 128,000 worldwide by the early 21st century. Still, sea otters are highly vulnerable to both natural phenomena such as killer whale predation and to anthropogenic factors such as oil spills.

At first glance, the Javan rhinoceros’s fleshy folds of skin appear to be plated armor, complementing the keratinous horn adorning the skull of this lumbering species. Its population faces many threats: natural disasters, habitat loss, disease, and, notably, poaching for its horn. In 2010 the last of continental Asia’s Javan rhinoceroses was killed in Vietnam. Today the Javan rhinoceros inhabits Ujung Kulon National Park, which sits on a remote peninsula on the eastern side of the Indonesian island of Java. Historically, the single-horned beasts were found across wide swaths of South Asia and Southeast Asia too. The northern white rhino is nearly extinct, and the Javan rhino, whose population numbers no more than 75 individuals of all ages, appears to be treading a similar path.

Depending on whom you ask, there are either two species of gorilla, the eastern (Gorilla beringei) and western (Gorilla gorilla), or three subspecies, the eastern lowland, western lowland, and mountain gorillas. Regardless of whom you ask, all gorillas are endangered. There could be more than 300,000 gorillas left in the wild, and they’re listed as critically endangered. Habitat encroachment and poaching for bushmeat, trophies, and supposed magical talismans have led to substantial losses. Because their social structure is so complex and because they reproduce slowly—females giving birth only once every four years at best—the removal of even a few individuals from a gorilla troop can catastrophically impact its ability to sustain itself.

Between 1996 and 2008 the population of Tasmanian devils dropped some 60 percent because of a contagious cancer known as devil facial tumor disease. It continues to decimate populations of the species, which occurs only on the Australian island of Tasmania. There may be only 10,000 wild individuals remaining. Captive breeding of uninfected individuals has been instituted, and efforts have been made to develop a vaccine for the cancer, which is thought to have stemmed from mutated cells from a single specimen.

Orangutan is Malaysian for “person of the forest.” Though morphologically orangutans may resemble melted Muppets more than people, their sophisticated cognitive abilities are very human indeed. Like gorillas and chimpanzees, they have been known to use tools. Threatened largely by logging and capture for the exotic pet trade, orangutans—restricted to the Southeast Asian islands of Borneo and Sumatra—number about 120,000 per the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. A 2011 survey revealed that more than 50 percent of the original Bornean orangutan population had been killed in the previous 40 years. Unlike other great apes, orangutans are usually solitary or live in groups of fewer than three, making them difficult to track and study.