Thousands of endangered species around the world are on the brink of extinction. And human beings are biodiversity’s greatest enemy: we’re responsible for the endangered status of 99% of at-risk species.
A handful of conservationists have been hard at work changing the story for a number of endangered populations. But in the U.S., hundreds of species are still fighting a losing battle for survival.
NetCredit created a series of posters celebrating the wildlife that each State could lose forever. The image above is the Mount Graham red squirrel of Arizona. For a while, it seemed like the Mount Graham red squirrel wouldn’t survive the year. The 2017 Frye Fire, caused by lightning, tore through Mount Graham and the Pinaleño Mountains in southeastern Arizona — the only place in the world that this subspecies of squirrel call home.
The squirrels live mainly in mixed conifer forest at high altitudes on the Pinaleño range, around 8,500 to 10,000 feet elevation. The Frye Fire destroyed a significant portion of the squirrel’s habitat.
Their population, which numbered 252 in 2016, plummeted to an estimated 35 after the wildfire, according to an annual survey conducted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Coronado National Forest, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Center for Nature Conservation and the University of Arizona.
See the full collection of images at NetCredit here.