The Fight to Save
our Native Species

Not just a crisis in Amazonian rainforests, species rarity is a worldwide and local conservation crisis.  Here in Rhode Island, there are many rare, endangered and threatened species that are vulnerable for a multitude of reasons.  (Anne - pull and put in italics, larger?)

Some species are naturally rare. The keen observer and naturalist Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859) concluded, "Rarity is the attribute of a vast number of species in all classes, in all countries." And two and a half centuries later, few species tend to be overwhelmingly common. Many will never carpet the state or be seen on every foray into the field.

In nature, rarity may be a product of restricted geography or very specific habitat requirements, small population sizes or a combination of these factors.  Habitat destruction and invasive species, the top two threats to biological diversity worldwide, exacerbate the dilemma of rarity. Some species are just more vulnerable. Giant pandas with their dietary and habitat specificity will always be rare. Birds of declining coastal grasslands are likely to be rare in the Northeast.