Endangered Earth

  The Sea Otter The Sea Otter is a cute and actually the smallest marine mammal in North America. The can get up to 4 f eet long and up to 50 pounds. South America's Sea Otter is the smallest marine mammal in the world.  Unlike other marine mammals, the sea otter doesn’t have a thick layer of blubber. To stay warm in chilly ocean waters, it wears the world's densest fur — at its thickest, this two-layer fur is made up of more than a million hairs per square inch.   Another way the sea otter stays warm is with its high metabolism — it will eat about a quarter of its body weight each day (A 150-pound person would have to eat 35 to 40 pounds of food a day to match that). This helps it maintain an average body temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  The current southern sea otter population averages around 3,000 individuals.  Since the California population has a limited range and is close to human activity, they are considered endangered.  Habitat/Range Southern sea otters can be

  Tasmanian Devil The Tasmanian Devil is not just a looney toons character. These fiesty animals have  a coat of coarse brown or black fur and a stocky profile that gives them the appearance of a baby bear. Most have a white stripe or patch  on their chest and light spots on their sides or rear end. They have long front legs and shorter rear legs, giving them a lumbering, piglike gait. They can reach up to 30 inches long and weigh around 26 pounds. The Tasmanian Devil species have plummeted from 140,000 to as few as 20,000 since the mid 1990s.  Habitat and Range Once abundant throughout Australia, Tasmanian devils are now found only  on the island state of Tasmania. Their Tasmanian range encompasses the entire island, although they are partial to coastal scrublands and forests. Biologists speculate  that their extinction on the mainland about 400 years ago may be linked to the introduction of Asian dogs—or dingoes . Role in Ecosystem Tasmanian Devils play an important role, by  eating

 *Note: I was not able to upload any pictures, I'm not sure why, I tried every possible way but nothing was working* Hawksbill Turtle The hawksbill sea turtle is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae.  Hawksbills are named for their narrow, pointed beak. They also have a distinctive pattern of overlapping scales on their shells that form a serrated-look on the edges. There colored and patterned shells make them highly-valuable and commonly sold as "tortoiseshell" in markets. They can way anywhere from 90-150 pounds and can grow from 30-35 inches. These turtles globally have declined 80% during the last century.  There are difficulties in accurately assessing population size, but a recent estimate of adult nesting females of 8,000+ has been made. There are only 5 populations worldwide with more than 1,000 females nesting annually. Habitat/Range Hawksbills are found mainly throughout the world's tropical oceans, predominantly in coral re