551 San Diego, CA 92112 Tel. There are eight tiger species, but that distinction may soon be irrelevant as whole populations disappear. Tigers need cover, clean water and abundant prey, and uncontrolled logging and other development activities have taken a toll on all three. An enduring Chinese medicinal trade, which values tiger bone as a cure for rheumatism, has also been devastating. Nesting Kemp's Ridley turtles have declined from 40,000 observed on a single day in 1947 to only 580 in 1994.
Many turtles fall victim to floating debris, which they either ingest or become entangled in.
Most of the survivors nest at only one Mexican beach, the 4.9-mile Rancho Nuevo. Only partially protected by Mexican presidential decree, the beach is still threatened by development. Noting that only one in 10,000 sea turtle hatchlings will survive to adulthood, Amanda Johnson, trade program associate with the National Wildlife Federation, says the group's turtle work is focusing on illegal shrimp trawling, which victimizes those surviving adults. To help the turtles, political pressure on fishermen to actually use the mandated TEDs would do the most good. It once ranged from Texas north across the grasslands into Alberta and Saskatchewan, but black-footed ferrets disappeared from the wild in 1987, leaving the entire species dependent on captive breeding.