Imagine walking down the road and out of the blue, you find yourself in a trap. You are in its iron-clad grip and no matter how much you struggle to break free, you are well and truly trapped. Or worse still, you find yourself in the midst of a gunfire, and much like a deer caught in the headlights, you have nowhere to run. And even if you do manage to escape, you have to face each new day with a dagger hanging over your head, for, you know that those hunting you will eventually get to you. Doesn't sound too pleasant, does it? Yet, we have meted out this treatment to fellow inhabitants of the earth to such an alarming extent that they are on the brink of being wiped out forever.
Pangolin
They look like tiny, cute, scaly anteaters and are also referred to that way because of their appearance and their preferred diet. Mostly solitary, these nocturnal animals are easily recognised by their full armour of scales. Over the years, they have increasingly become victims of illegal wildlife trade, mainly in Asia and to a large extent, in Africa — for their meat and scales. When under threat, the pangolin curls up into a tight ball to protect itself. A highly evolved defence mechanism that has successfully fended off attacks from large wild cats and bears, this however has proved futile in the face of one predator — Man — who can easily pick up the live ball and stuff it into a bag. Catching these little guys requires no special skills; anybody who manages to locate a pangolin can easily capture it without the use of a weapon or trap, something which has proven to be the animal's undoing. With only about eight species of pangolins found on two continents, their survival status ranges from vulnerable to critically endangered.Saola
Saola
Cousins of cattle who could also easily pass off for antelopes, saolas are recognised by two parallel horns with sharp ends, which can reach 20 inches in length and are found on both males and females. Meaning "spindle horns" in Vietnamese, the saola was discovered in May 1992 during a joint survey carried out by the Ministry of Forestry of Vietnam and WWF in north-central Vietnam. The team found a skull with unusual long, straight horns in a hunter's home, and immediately knew it was something extraordinary. In 1999, a camera trap set by the Vietnamese government's Forest Protection Department (SFNC) and WWF first photographed a living saola in the wild. They have since been kept in captivity several times, though for short periods. Saolas are found only in the Annamite Mountains of Vietnam and Laos, and they are critically endangered.
Javan rhino
Extremely huge, these rhinos are perfect examples of why size doesn't always guarantee power — they are the most threatened of the rhino species. Their homeland is disappearing because of deforestation, and people often hunt them for their horns to make traditional medicine. Only 60 of them remain in Java's Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia. Vietnam's last Javan rhino was poached in 2010. Despite preservation activities carried out at Ujung Kulon, they run the risk of being wiped out either by a single disaster or disease outbreak as they are all housed together in one location. As the threat of extinction is critically high, some of them will need to be removed and taken to a safer location. A dusky grey colour, the rhino is easily recognisable by a single horn of up to about 10 inches. Its skin has a number of loose folds, giving it the appearance of armour plating.
Mountain gorillas
Appearances are deceptive, and the huge, well-built mountain gorillas bear ample testimony to this. Huge and quite frightening due to their hairy appearance, these shy creatures are on the verge of being wiped out. The world's smallest population of mountain gorillas — a subspecies of the eastern gorilla — is divided into two, and there have been debates on whether they may be two separate subspecies. While some live in the Virunga Mountains that border the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, the rest are found in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Since its discovery in 1902, the gorilla population has endured years of war, hunting, habitat destruction and disease — threats so severe that it was once thought the species might be extinct by the end of the twentieth century. Mostly found in forests high in the mountains, at heights upto 13,000 feet, these gorillas have more and thicker fur compared to other great apes. The fur helps them to survive in a habitat where temperatures often drop below freezing. While they may escape freezing climates, they face extinction as humans have increasingly moved into their territory, pushing them farther up into the mountains for longer periods, forcing them to endure dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions.
Amur leopard
One of the rarest big cats in the world, their main prey includes roe and sika deer, along with hares and badgers. It is also known as the Far East leopard, the Manchurian leopard or the Korean leopard. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says there are only about 60-80 of them left in the wild. They are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as critically endangered. Recently, Russia opened a research center in a national park dedicated to preserving these leopard species. The center will be located within the 2,62,000-hectare park, known as "Land of the Leopard," which was set up five years ago to provide a protected habitat for the Amur.
