About 44 per cent of migratory species worldwide are declining in population, the report found. More than a fifth of the nearly 1,200 species monitored by the UN are threatened with extinction.
More than half of North America's bat species are likely to diminish significantly as climate change, disease and habitat loss take their toll, scientists warned Monday.
The migrating monarch butterfly was added last week to the “red list” of threatened species and categorized as “endangered” for the first time by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
“It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new listing. “This is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the world.”