ORANG UTAN - Less than 30,000 orang utans survive
in the wild today, and each day their numbers are declining. Over the past
decade alone, their numbers are estimated to have dropped by 30-50 per cent.
Every year, several hundred young orang utans are smuggled under false export
permits for sale as pets, zoo attractions or for animal testing. Hundreds of
orang utan females fleeing the recent forest fires in Indonesia were shot by
poachers, and their young taken as pets or for sale into illegal wildlife
market...
TIGER - Day by day, we are losing our forests - and
tigers are being squeezed into ever-shrinking pockets of forest, with less
prey to feed on. Outside of parks and sanctuaries, they may stand little or
no chance of survival into the next century. Of the eight known sub-species
of tigers, three have been driven to extinction in this century alone. Today,
there are probably no more than 5,000 tigers left on the planet...
TURTLE - Turtle hatchlings have a high mortality rate.
Out of many as 1,000 tha swim out to sea, only one may survive in become an
adult turtle...
ME - "Klooooooooookkkkkkkkk!!!! Welcome in!
These are not horror stories - they are sobering facts, and they are happening today. Extinction is forever. When an animal becomes extinct, it means that the animal will never exist again on Earth. Imagine never being able to see a magnificent tiger or a playful orang utan or a turtle hatchling - except on television or in books.
These animals must be saved before they go over the brink. And it is not only these three that are in trouble. Countless species, large and small, face the same fate unless we do something now.