Washington: Researchers have warned that the world`s largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations.
The study by more than 40 authors representing 28 scientific organizations assessed 14 desert species and found that a shocking half of those are regionally extinct or confined to one percent or less of their historical range.
A chronic lack of studies across the region due to past and ongoing insecurity makes it difficult to be certain of the causes of these declines, although overhunting is likely to have played a role.
The Bubal hartebeest is extinct; the scimitar horned oryx is extinct in the wild; and the African wild dog and African lion have vanished from the Sahara.
Other species have only fared slightly better: the dama gazelle and addax are gone from 99 percent of their range; the leopard from 97 percent, and the Saharan cheetah from 90.
Only the Nubian ibex still inhabits most of its historical range, but even this species is classified as vulnerable due to numerous threats including widespread hunting.
The authors say that more conservation support and scientific attention needs to be paid to deserts noting that 2014 is the halfway point in the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification and the fourth year of the United Nations Decade for Biodiversity.
Study`s lead author Sarah Durant of Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society or London, said that the Sahara serves as an example of a wider historical neglect of deserts and the human communities who depend on them.
The study has been published online in the journal Diversity and Distributions.
