top 10 animals near point of extinction

Near Extinction!

The World Conservation Union annually publishes a Red List of Threatened Species, and is believed to be the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the threat of extinction.The Red List ranks species according to their population status and threat levels. It shows the effects that over-exploitation, pollution, climate change and the loss and degradation of habitat are having on the world’s species.

According to the latest report almost one in four of the world’s mammals, and a third of amphibians threatened with extinction.

http://www.iucnredlist.org/

The growing and unsustainable demand by people for natural resources is at the heart of the problem. Human demand for agriculture, forestry, energy production, road building and poaching – are all having a serious impact.

Why protect rare and endangered species?

Protecting the world's species conserves the earth's biodiversity. While important in their own right, species are also critical for maintaining the fundamental balance of ecosystems.

Here is a list of some species nearing extinction....

Mountain Gorilla

Estimated number left in wild- approximatley 700

Location- Africa, Virunga National Park spanning the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.

Primary reason for extinction- Human competition for natural resources

over 100 thousand people live nearby and their increasing need for land to live and farm on has reduced the gorrillas forrest habitat to two virtual islands in the middle of human settlements. Civil unrest and conflict has made conservation efforts more difficult.

The gorrillas are protected by rangers but are still hunted and captured for the illegal animal trade. More than 100 rangers have been killed in recent years in the line of duty.

Predicted future-

The International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) was formed in 1991. Since the IGCP’s creation the number of mountain gorillas has increased from 620 to 720.

Giant Panda

Estimated number left in wild-1600

Location-forest areas high in the mountains of south-western China.

Reason for extinction-Human competition for natural resources

The panda’s forest habitat has shrunk and become fragmented over many years due to agriculture, local communities’ use of forest products for food and fuel, and commercial logging. This has been compounded by infrastructure development for China's growing human population. Hunters trying to catch other animals for the medicinal trade lay wire snares, some of which accidentally trap the panda. Poaching giant pandas carries a severe penalty in China, this rare and secretive animal is prized by collectors for its skin, and some targeted poaching of pandas still occurs.

Tigers

estimated numbers left in wild-4000

Wild tiger numbers have fallen by about 95% over the past 100 years, and three subspecies – the Bali, Caspian and Javan – are extinct.

Asian Rhino

estimated numbers left in wild-just over 18,000 African rhinos and fewer than 3,000 Asian rhinos

African rhino numbers were devastated between 1970 and 1992, during which time 96% of black rhinos were killed. The Javan rhino is the rarest, with fewer than 60 individuals surviving in the wild and none in captivity.

Orang-utan

estimated numbers left in wild-60,000.

A century ago, there were around 230,000 orang-utans in Borneo and Sumatra.

Within the last decade alone, their numbers have fallen by half and now only 60,000 survive.

Crisis-Extinction

" Museums are built on loss and its recollections: there is no museum without the threat of erasure or incompletion, no museum not shadowed by the imagination of the impending destruction of what it therefore seeks to stabilize and maintain. Or to be more exact, we can say that museum finds in loss its most powerful alibi. Elsewhere, something is said to be nearing its end, threatened with extinction, and demands memory and protection."

Thomas Keenan " No End in Sight"

Books I have been reading...














Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep- Philip K Dick
Straw Dogs, Thoughts on Humans and other Animals- John Gray



The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Natural World- Michael J. Benton


The Language of Things- Dejan Sudjic










Preservation and exhibition





I have been thinking about how we deal with animal extinction. If we accept that some species will become extinct despite our best efforts to protect them, how can we preserve a record of their existence in some way.





Historically animals have been preserved and recorded in a number of ways, depending on the technology of the time.



These can be divided into two dimensional techniques and three dimensional techniques.

Skeletal preservation-Animals were hunted and killed (or they were found dead) and their flesh was removed or rotted away leaving their more durable skeletons which were arranged and preserved.


Taxidermy-Animals were hunted and killed and their outward live appearance preserved through taxidermy techniques. Taxidermy is Greek for " skin arrangement".





Images -Prior to the invention of photography drawings etchings and paintings were made.

Photography - After the invention of photography photographs were taken of animals capturing an accurate 2 dimensional image of them alive.

Film- The invention of moving images enabled us to capture a two dimensional moving image of a live animal showing is movement and behaviour.

Anamatronics

CGI

DNA Preservation

DNA Genetic Manipulation

Saftey Balance Lamp

Crisis of Communication



Alexander Graham Bell
inventor of the telephone 1876














Sir Tim Berners-Lee
inventor of the World Wide Web 1990

What is the most effective way to communicate with people over the internet?
I guess it depends what you are trying to communicate and why but firstly you need to get peoples attention.

From reading Jamie Freemans book "500 Simple Website Hints , Tips , and techniques"
hint number 57 stood out...

"The 10 Second Rule"
"you need to capture your visitors attention -or give them what they are looking for- within 10 seconds of them arriving at your page. That's how long they're likley to afford you before heading back to the search engine they came from to try one of the countless other sites vying for for their attention"

A time factor or countdown to a critical point of change seems essential to the idea of a crisis, whether it is a countdown towards a crisis point or the length of time an existing crisis has to be endured.

The idea of capturing someones attention and maintaining their concentration ties in with some of the research i have done into machines designed to maintain concentration.
One of those machines is the one legged stool designed for and used in Alfred Nobles dynamite factories in the 1890s. Nitroglycerin needed to be heated and mixed in order to make dynamite. The mixing process needed to be constantly monitored by a watchman to prevent it exceeding a certain temperature and exploding.

However the job was so boring that watchmen often lost concentration and fell asleep particularly during night shifts. This lead to many explosions and deaths and so the one legged stool was invented. The watchman sat on the one legged stool and if he fell asleep he would fall off the stool and wake up. The design took advantage of the fact that although we take the ability to balance for granted it is still a conscious act requiring our attention on one of the levels of consciousness.


One legged stool used in Ardeer dynamite
factory 1897


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Maybe my website access point for the Crisis project should incorporate a time factor such as a 10 second repeating countdown. At the end of each countdown something changes on the website. This might create a cycle of anticipation that is addictive because of its repitition but retains the attention of the viewer because it is regularly changing.
In a simple way this could be to do with the content - such as a changing slide show
or more interestingly it could be to do with the nature of the internet.

Swarm Theory

If the internet is a web of changing information its users could be seen as a swarm of collective attention. Some websites are never visited while others are visited by millions, some become very popular destinitions and then visitor numbers decline.
An aspect of my website could track and keep a record of where the swarm of collective attention is highest and every 10 seconds generate a link to the most visited location at that moment in time.

"The public sphere is always already disappearing- that is its definition in the democratic tradition, since its boundaries and possibilities are slways subject to precisley the renegotiation it seeks to render possible- by virtue of its publicity."

Thomas Keenan " No End in Sight"

Crisis Management

"Design a website or web-entry place to present your Crisis and your project work. It needs to contain research, ideas, visuals, images, assumptions, statements of intent, all in a way that presents the direction of your project.

Use this to create a tool for leaving notes and updates on progress and directions.

The intention is to then makea link of all your logs from one page on the Platform 10 website"

CRISIS

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PROJECT BRIEF

"Interogate the concept of crisis. Explore social, cultural and technological aspects that interest you."