PARIS (AFP) - Time is running out to craft a plan to save Earth's rich diversity of mammals, a quarter of whose species could be wiped out, biologists warned on Tuesday.
'A global mammal strategy is urgent,' they said in a journal published by the Royal Society, Britain's academy of sciences. Millions of people have rallied to the cause of large iconic mammals such as the tiger, the polar bear and the giant panda, they noted.
But the news for less visible species is grim, especially those with a commercial value for poachers or whose habitat is at risk from farming, development or impending climate change.
Of the 5,339 documented species of mammals that are alive today, a quarter are threatened with extinction in the wild, according to their estimates, appearing in the journal Philosophical Transactions.
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