The 10 Rarest Animals in the World

Endangered, hunted, smuggled and now some would say abandoned, these animals have the smallest chances of recovery out off all the Earth’s creatures. Last year, studies shown that there are at least 35 different animals with world populations of under 1000. But which are the rarest, the animals on the brink of extinction? We have rounded up a list of 10 of the rarest animals in the wild. These animals are so rare, they might disappear forever, and they’re not alone!

2. Baiji (Yangtze River Dolphin) - With no more than a few tens of individuals,

1. The Pinta Island tortoise - Without argument, this turtle is one of the few species of Giant Galapagos tortoises and the rarest animal in the world since there is only one left alive. Lonesome George is the sole surviving member of the Pinta Island race, the giant tortoise being a symbol for the fragility of the Galapagos islands, and a constant reminder for vigilence and conservation of the species. The species was considered extinct until 1971, when a lone example was located by rangers. Since then, the Charles Darwin Research Station has been searching for a female tortoise, even posting a reward of $10,000 to those that find one.

the dolphin is one of the world’s rarest mammals, and a victim of China’s breakneck economic growth, competing for food with the human beings. It has been driven to extinction due to the activity in 50 years, this being the fourth time when an entire evolutionary line of mammals has vanished from the face of the Earth since the year 1500. The main reason for this fact are the numerous dams and barrages, built starting in the 1930’s, that have fragmented the population and reduced the amount of available habitat. There are news that the species is functionally extinct, experts still searching for members of the species. Fingers crossed!

3. The Vancouver Island Marmot - This marmot is found only in the high mountainous regions of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, the Canadian Species at Risk Act listing it as endangered in May 2000. In 1998, the population reached an all-time low of 75 individuals, a captive breeding programme being started during that time. In captivity, there are around 90 Vancouver Island marmots in four breeding facilities, while an estimated 30 members of this species live in the wild ibn 2004. The ultimate goal is to restore a sustainable population of 400-600 Vancouver Island marmots in the wild, so there’s still much to be done. 2005 was a successful year, with 150 individuals in captivity and over 44 pups born.

4. Seychelles Sheath-tailed Bat - Inhabiting the central granitic islands of the Seychelles Islands north of Madagascar,

the bat is part of our list, being one of the most endangered animals since fewer than 100 are believed to exist in the world. It was once commonly found in Seychelles, but the species has undergone a dramatic decline in population during the mid to late 20th century. More research needs to be done in order to understand how the species behave and what needs to be done in order to save them. Scientists believe that, with a heavy amount of effort, 500 individuals may be sufficient to guarantee long-term persistence of the population.

5. Javan Rhino - This scarce animal is one of the rhino species with fewer than 60 animals surviving in only two known locations: one in Indonesia and the other in Vietnam. Though once widespread throughout Asia, by the 1930’s the rhinoceros was nearly hunted to extinction in Peninsular Malaysia, India, Burma and Sumatra. It was poached for its horn, that is believed to have medicinal uses, and driven to extinction to the intense agricultural practices. Even with all the conservation efforts, the Javan rhinoceros’ chance of survival is small: the population is reduced, hence there are risks of disease and inbreeding.

6. Hispid hare - Also called the “bristly rabbit”, this hare has been recorded along the southern foothills of the Himalayan

mountain chain, Nepal, , Bengal, and Assam. Deforestation, cultivation, and human settlement had the most negative impact on the species, isolating the rabbits in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. This animal was feared extinct in 1964, but in 1966, one was spotted. There were an estimated 110 hispid hares worldwide in 2001, numbers continuing to plunge due its unsuccessful adaptation to captivity.

7. Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat - In the 19th century this species of wombat was present in New South Wales and Victoria but now can only be found in a small national park near Epping Forest Station in tropical Queensland. While this area has been protected as a National Park, the native grasses that the wombat eats are overtaken by non-indigenous plants. The Northern hairy-nosed wombat is the rarest Australian marsupial, and probably the world’s rarest large mammal. In the latest population study, there are an estimated 113 (range 96 to 150) individual. A major recovery program is underway, funded by the Queensland and Commonwealth governments to the tune of $250,000 per year.

8. Tamaraw (Dwarf Water Buffalo) - Found in the the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, the tamaraw is the onlyendemic Phillipine bovine. In 1900 there were an estimated 10,000 tamaraw on Mindoro, 120 in 1975, 370 in 1987 . It was declared critically endangered species in 2000 by the World Conservation Union and remained so until today, being threatened by agriculture, hunting or disease brought by domestic species. The current population was estimated in 2002 at a number between 30 and 200 individuals. Although protected by law, the illegal capture and killing of this species continues to occur.

9. Iberian Lynx - The Lynx, the most endangered of the world’s 36 cats, stands on the edge of extinction. This lynx was once distributed over the entire Iberian Peninsula but now its area is severely restricted in Andalusia. Threatened by destruction of habitat and of its prey, the cat was killed by traps set for rabbits or hit by cars as the number of roads increase. The Spanish Government is now in the process of developing a national conservation effort to save the Iberian Lynx. Studies from March 2005 have estimated the number of Lynx to be as few as 100, down from about 400 in 2000. On March 29, 2005, the birth of 3 cubs, the first born in captivity, was announced, a hope for the future reintroduction of the species.

10. Red Wolf - This wolf is a smaller and a more slender cousin of the gray wolf, historically ranging from southeasternUnited States to Florida and Texas. Now, their home is the 1.7 million acres throughout northeastern North Carolina, including Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Only 20 pure red wolves were estimated in 1980, however the number increased to 207 captive red wolves, found in 38 captive breeding facilities across the United States. With the successful breeding programs, over 100 red wolves currently live in the wild.

Runner-up. Dwarf Blue Sheep - The Dwarf Blue Sheep or Dwarf Bharal Pseudois schaeferi is an endangeredspecies of caprid found in China and Tibet. The dwarf blue sheep population in the world has declined to a total of 70–200 individuals, currently being listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The species is hunted, and in their limited range cannot escape from humans and livestock. As of 1997, China did not recognize them as a seperate species so efforts to conserve the species have not been initiated.

CAT 2010: How you should start your prep

The Common Admission Test or CAT for admission to the country's top B-schools is one of the most competitive examinations in India. Lakhs of students and working professionals across the country vie for the few thousand coveted seats. To help these B-school hopefuls give CAT 2010 their best shot, Rediff.com launches its CAT 2010 coverage which will include expert tips and chats, topper experiences, section-wise analysis and many other useful articles and features. Kicking things off is an article by Rahul Singh, who scored in the 100-percentile in CAT 2010.

A lot of you would probably be starting out now on your preparation for CAT. Five to six months is a lot of time if utilised properly and should be spent on building the basic skills required to crack an exam of the form of CAT. I believe that a lot of us commit the mistake of prematurely concentrating on the so called "tips, tricks and strategies" for cracking CAT without paying enough attention to the fundamentals.

So if you want to go about preparing in a more sensible and steady manner, now is a good time to start. I have given below my section-wise approach to preparation in the first three or four months.

Quantitative ability
Start by revising your basic class X mathematics. Make sure you have a fair idea of how the so-called 'shortcut formulas' mentioned in the umpteen CAT guidebooks are actually derived.
Initially concentrate on the accuracy part of things. You should aim to solve almost every problem you come across, even if it's in an inefficient and time-consuming manner occasionally. This is probably easier for students with an engineering background as they stay in touch with maths throughout their coursework, but three-four months of sincere and steady preparation ought to bring most students up to this level.

It is highly inadvisable to start memorising the 'tips' and 'tricks' at this stage as they are no substitute for a good grasp of the concepts. Almost all CAT problems can be solved quickly enough from basic principles themselves, irrespective of whether you know the relevant tricks and shortcuts or not.

Once you become fairly confident about solving problems you can start working on the speed factor. Even after you have successfully solved a problem, critically analyse your solution and see if you can make it any shorter by removing redundant steps or if a totally different approach is possible. This is quite often possible in time and work, speed, probability, permutation and combination based problems.

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation
This is one section where almost every candidate starts preparing from scratch unless he has taken CAT before. At the same time I believe that this is the section where consistent hard work pays off the most. The best way to begin is to set aside a fixed number of hours each day (or every week if you don't want to be so rigid in your schedule) for attempting DI problems. There are a few things you can pay special attention to while working on this section:
Spend ample time analysing the solutions. In fact I often spent more time reviewing solutions than I did solving problems. Pay special attention to how the information is represented in a more readable and analysable form through tables etc. This is particularly crucial in solving problems where all the information is just written in the form of a simple, continuous piece of text.
Learn to identify the problems in a set which could have been solved by using just a couple of lines of information from the whole paragraph. This ability proves critical in tackling a tough DI set or when you are running out of time.
Some problems tend to be calculation intensive. In most cases making rough assumptions and rounding off gives the correct answer. Herein the knack of simplifying ugly looking fractions, calculating percentages easily, etc comes in handy.
I was never too good at calculations so I attempted these problems in the very end, but I have seen some of my friends who bank heavily on these problems and it pays off well. I often tried to round off three-digit numbers to the nearest five or ten and two-digit numbers to nearest multiple of two or four in order to simplify my calculations.

Verbal Ability
This is usually the section that engineering students struggle most with and it can get awfully tough for students at times. I often hear students complaining that their vocabulary is not good enough for CAT, which I believe is a very narrow approach. CAT is not about your vocabulary or your grammar per se; in general it tests your reading experience. So a 'start from the basics' approach is absolutely essential in this regard, if you are not an avid reader to begin with.
The first step is to increase your appetite for reading. Newspapers are an obvious place to start, but if you find them heavy reading then you can start with some light fiction. I know most of my friends picked up reading after their first Harry Potter or Chetan Bhagat. You will find that your speed picks up considerably as you near the end of such books. As you move on, you should gradually increase the amount of stuff you read in newspapers every day. Their advantage is two-fold: they tell us both about contemporary issues and contemporary language.

Being well read on a variety of topics is a huge bonus while attempting RCs in a CAT paper. You will soon realise this once you start taking mock CATs; you can glide through passages faster if it's about something you have already read about, and it's not uncommon to find such passages in your exam paper.

As it is in the DI section, analysing solutions to RC passages is a very beneficial exercise. Writing down new words that you come across every day is very helpful in remembering them. Spending time memorising word lists and grammar rules would be futile at this stage as the amount of information will become too overwhelming. Hence, the focus should be on developing your reading habit at this stage. If you are already a keen reader, then you can work on your reading speed and grammar.

To summarise, I would like to say that patience is a key factor here. In the beginning one must patiently work on building the aforementioned basic skills before attempting to augment them with tips, tricks and strategies. Initially progress might be slow and unrewarding, but this steady foundation will assure you of a good CAT score irrespective of how tough the individual sections are in the paper or how different the test format turns out to be from your expectations.

10,000 Hindus to attend Toronto temple opening

Toronto, June 15 (IANS) About 10,000 Hindus from Canada and the US will join week-long ceremonies here Friday for the opening of a unique south Indian temple modelled on the 9th century Sringeri Peetam.

Built at a cost of $11 million and named after the goddess of wisdom Sri Sharadamba, the temple will be consecrated with water from more than 250 rivers around the world.
These include the Ganga and the Yamuna and the Manosarovar Lake.

The temple, which will also have nine other deities, has been built with marble and granite imported from India.

'Apart from serving as a religious shrine, the temple will also house a museum on the life of Adi Shakaracharya who set up four matts in all four corners of India,' temple president Lucky Lakshmanan told IANS.

Twenty pandits have arrived from Sringeri in Karnataka for performing the consecration ceremonies. They will be joined by 10 priests from North America.
'The statues of the deities have also come from Jaipur,' temple publicity committee chairman K. Sundaram said.
The consecration ceremonies will begin Friday, with the chanting of mantras from the four Vedas to 'energise' the water from over 250 rivers.

'The chanting will continue for two days after which the holy water be fully energised. We will start the actual ceremony June 20,' temple religious affairs chief Raghu Ranganathan said.

Called Mahakumbhabhishekam, the consecration ceremony will include the chanting of mantras and bathing of the deities with the holy water to pass the 'energy' to the deities.

'This ceremony will make the deities divine and powerful to bestow their blessings on the devotees,' says Ranganathan.

The ceremonies will continue till June 27 during which havan will be performed to propitiate the deities. These will conclude with the pouring of 1,004 vessels of 'energised' waters on the deities.

Famous Indian singers, including Narendra Chanchal, will sing bhajans during the ceremonies.
Many Canadian leaders, including Indo-Canadian minister Harinder Takhar, will attend the ceremonies.