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WWF urges Europe to save endangered species |
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| UK: January 31, 2000 | ||
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LONDON - The World Wide Fund for Nature called on Europe to save 10 disappearing species on the continent, including the world's most endangered wildcat - the Iberian lynx.
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The British arm of the conservation group issued a report blaming tourism, intensive farming and fishing for the problem. It urged the European Union to halt the decline of all endangered species, but especially the Iberian lynx, the monk seal and the brown bear. "WWF believes these species provide a snapshot of a bleak picture for wildlife across Europe," said Carol Hatton, WWF-UK's senior wildlife campaigner. She said that over the past 30 years the number of Iberian lynx had dropped by 80 percent, due to scarcer supplies of their traditional diet of rabbit. Fewer than 650 of the animals are left in the wild, according to WWF estimates. "Since 1992 the governments of the European Union...have had an excellent conservation law available to them to prevent these declines," said Stuart White, leader of WWF-UK's living countryside campaign. "But they have failed to meet every deadline for putting the law into practice." The WWF has invested in more than 13,100 conservation projects in 157 countries.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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