The marvelous creature at the left is an Ili pika, a small, and endearing looking mammal native to a mountain range in the remote Xinjiang region of China. The  7-8 inch long critter lives on sloping rock faces, and feeds on high altitude grass. No sooner had it been discovered in 2014 when it was declared in danger. There are fewer than 1,000 Ili Pika left.

It outnumbers the Otterhound.

In 2017, only 24 Otterhound puppies were registered in the UK, its country of origin, and that makes it the most endangered dog in the UK. The world population is thought to be down to 800 dogs making the breed at risk globally.

Lest we Americans get too smug about the notion of breeds in trouble “over there,” consider this: As of five months ago, the AKC recognizes 190 breeds, but the ten most popular breeds make up over half of all registrations each year.

This means that if the AKC registered a million dogs each year, 500,000 of them would be divided among 180 breeds. The AKC breeds that rank as the 50 least popular make up only 1.2 percent of all dogs registered in the United States! So, out of 1,000 dogs, only 12 would be of any of the 50 breeds, these calculations according to writer, Claire Murphy.

As for the Otterhound, the Otterhound Club of America Reproduction Bank now exists to collect and store semen and even frozen ovaries. Though the club had considered the idea years before, the AKC didn’t allow a corporation to own frozen semen at the time. When Dr. Carmen L. Battaglia spoke about alarming breed numbers at an AKC Delegate’s meeting in 2016, the idea resurfaced, and Betsy Conway founded the committee with others who the critical importance of saving the breed. AKC Board members supported the move and in February 2017, approved the creation of a “parent club acknowledged semen bank.

You can learn more about this effort in an interview that Laura Reeves of PureDogTalk had with Joellen Gregory, DVM, an Otterhound breeder, exhibitor and AKC Delegate:

https://puredogtalk.com/saving-endangered-breeds/