Every now and then, I see the endangered animals series from the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) come up for their 30 year anniversary... actually, the anniversary was quite some time ago! Earlier this year, I saw these founds come up on eBay through a seller that I trust... however, they aren't part of the 30 year anniversary series, but they appear to have been produced in a similar time.
The seller had listed them as 1000/1000 silver (30 g), so I decided to bid on each of the rounds on the off chance that I would get lucky and score a few of them. In the end, I did managed to snag 4 of the rounds... but I'm still unsure as to whether or not they are really the real deal or not!
I can't find any details of these particular pieces, there is enough on the 30 year ones... but not these ones! They ring right... and they feel right... the magnets do the right thing... but I haven't yet done the specific gravity test yet. Plus, they came from a seller that hasn't ever shown a sign of trouble over the many thousands of coin and precious metal sales that they have made! So, I am quite hopeful that they are the real deal!
Leading the list is the Dugong, the sea cow. It is a pretty weird animal, I've always thought that they look like they shouldn't really exist in the first place... they seem to big and slow. I only really know about this animal as there are some areas where they live in the coastal areas of Australia.
This addax is a type of antelope that lives in the Saharan Desert. Again, a animal that I recognise a little bit.... probably not the specific species of the antelope, but I know of antelopes! Never saw one though... outside a zoo at least!
The Anoa is a strange little mini buffalo type mammal that lives primarily in the Philippines... and then only in a small part of a small island in that country! So, quite a rare habitat indeed... unfortunately, I've never seen anything like this! I don't think I've ever seen a normal buffalo... let alone a type that was endangered!
The Thalarctos Maritimus is in fact, the POLAR BEAR! This bear is definitely the poster beast of habitat loss as the Arctic ice retreats and it starts to lose the areas that it was best suited to living in. Well, it isn't just the ice sheets... but the encroaching warmth from the southern areas that reduce the ice cover on the landmasses as well.
It is a pity for all these animals that their habitats have rendered their numbers down to a level where they are at the very least endangered or perhaps even functionally extinct. It is a lesson for us, we do make a large footprint on this globe... whether or not we want to understand that or not. At the start, it will be the wildlife and vegetation that will pay the price... but in the long term, humans will also pay the price. Two paths lead out from here, either you try to ignore the problem and be rich enough to be one of the ones least affected... or we try to slowly (quickly...) shift our ingrained ways of living and consumption... not that it needs to be a sacrifice at all, we just need to move to better technology and help workers from old industries migrate to newer ones. Of course, there are those that benefit enormously from the old (not the workers, the ones at the top...)... but trust me, they will be the ones that will be the least affected by the change, and they won't give a crap about the workers that they leeched off!
