Tag Archives: extinction

Wild Vertebrate Populations Have Dropped 52% Since 1970

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The World Wildlife Fund‘s annual Living Planet Report surveys over 10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. The 2014 report has just been released and it shows populations of wild vertebrate species declined 52 percent between 1970 and 2010. The report points the finger at habitat loss and destruction and the exploitation of animal populations as the primary causes of the die-off. The effects of climate change are also having a significant impact and are anticipated to have an even greater impact in the future. While the WWF admits the report “is not for the faint-hearted,” they hope that the information will prove useful so “humanity can make better choices that translate into clear benefits for ecology, society and the economy today and in the long term.”

The statistical breakdowns in the report are disturbing reading indeed: terrestrial and marine species declined by 39 percent over the 40-year period, while freshwater species declined by 76 percent. For the populations where threats could be identified and monitored, responsibility for population decline was attributed to exploitation 37 percent of the time, habitat degradation or change 31.4 percent of the time, habitat loss 13.4 percent, and climate change 7.1 percent. Other threats identified were invasive species or genes, pollution and disease. To break it down further, including the good news and the bad news, the WWF have produced an excellent infographic showing the impact of human activity on biodiversity….

For the full article, click here.

Essential species quiz

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Here is a short multiple-choice quiz to test your knowledge of our fellow animals.

Instructions: Choose the species that best fit the descriptions below.

Note: Although some may share a few of the characteristics, they must meet all the criteria listed in order to qualify as a correct answer.

1. Which two species fit the following description?
Highly social
Live in established communities
Master planners and builders of complex, interconnected dwellings
Have a language
Can readily learn and invent words
Greet one another by kissing

A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Dolphins
D. Penguins

Answer: A. and B

2. Which two species fit the following description?
Practice communal care of the youngsters on their block
Beneficial to others who share their turf
Essential to the health of their environment
Without them an ecosystem unravels
Have been reduced to a tiny portion of their original population
Vegetarian

A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Bison
D. Hyenas

Answer: B. and C.

3. Which two species fit the following description?
Out of control pest
Multiplying at a phenomenal pace
Physically crowding all other life forms off the face of the earth
Characterized by a swellheaded sense of superiority
Convinced they are of far greater significance than any other being
Nonessential in nature’s scheme

A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Cockroaches
D. Sewer Rats

Answer: Sorry, trick question; the only species fitting the criteria is A.

If this seems a harsh assessment of the human race or a tad bit misanthropic, remember, we’re talking about the species that single-handedly and with malice aforethought blasted, burned and poisoned the passenger pigeon (at one time the most numerous bird on the entire planet) to extinction and has nearly wiped out the blue whale (by far the largest animal the world has ever known). Add to those crowning achievements the near-total riddance of the world’s prairie dogs, thereby putting the squeeze on practically all their grassland comrades, and you can start to see where this sort of disrelish might be coming from.

When the dust settles on man’s reign of terror, he will be best remembered as an egomaniacal mutant carnivorous ape who squandered nature’s gifts and goose-stepped on towards mass extinction, in spite of warnings from historians and scientists and pleas from the caring few…

Click here for the original article.

Humans are wiping out species 1,000 x faster than nature can create new ones

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Sometimes extinction happens naturally. Other times humans are to blame. Given the many millions of plant and animal species that have ever existed, it’s tough to know exactly how to assign responsibility. But new research indicates that we have an alarmingly large role.
Humans are wiping out species at least 1,000 times faster than nature is creating new species, according to a new study in Conservation Biology (paywall). And it’s getting much worse. In the future, plants and animal species will go extinct at 10,000 times the rate at which new species emerge, the researchers assert.
Looking at both fossils and genetic variation, the study found that nature snuffs out its own creations much more slowly than we’d realized—at a rate of only one species per every 10 million. Past estimates put the “normal background extinction rate”—the rate at which species would go extinct without human interference—at about 10 yearly extinctions for every 10 million species.
Since mankind hit the scene, however, more than 1,000 out of every 10 million species have been dying out each year.
“We’ve known for 20 years that current rates of species extinctions are exceptionally high,” said Stuart Pimm, one of the co-authors and president of the nonprofit organization SavingSpecies. “This new study comes up with a better estimate of the normal background rate—how fast species would go extinct were it not for human actions. It’s lower than we thought, meaning that the current extinction crisis is much worse by comparison.”
Here’s another way of thinking about it. Overall species’ diversity grows exponentially richer over time, as branches of news species diverge. The authors liken this to a person’s bank account. Think of your income as the number of new species, while your spending is those that go extinct. Every month when you get paid, your net worth jumps for a while, before spending whittles it down again. If your spending is constant, that monthly spike will rise over time as your salary increases—just as the number of new species should also rise over time. But the authors saw no such increase, implying that extinction is happening far too fast for the pace of new species creation to keep up.
Take birds, for instance. There are 10,000 species of birds, as Pimm explains in a blogpost. At nature’s rate of one extinction per 10 million species, the disappearance of a single bird species should therefore be a once-in-a-millennium event. However, since the year 1500, at least 140 birds have disappeared—including 13 species we only identified after they went extinct.

See original story.

World has lost more than half its wildlife in last 40 years

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London (CNN) — The world’s animal population has halved in 40 years as humans put unsustainable demands on Earth, a new report warns.

The World Wide Fund for Nature’s Living Planet Index, released Tuesday, revealed the dramatic decline in animal species, and said the trend could cost the world billions in economic losses.

Humans need one and a half earths to sustain their current demands, it said.
The index, which draws on research around WWF’s database of 3,000 animal species, is released every two years. This year’s has the starkest warning yet of the risks associated with the decline of wildlife.

The index showed shows a 52% decline in wildlife between 1970 and 2010, far more than earlier estimates of 30%. It is due to people killing too many animals for food and destroying their habitats.
“We are eating into our natural capital, making it more difficult to sustain the needs of future generations,” the report said.  Researchers from the Zoological Society of London looked at changes in populations of more than 3,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, tracking over 10,000 different populations.

The decline in animals living in rivers, lakes and wetlands is the worst — 76% of freshwater wildlife disappeared in just 40 years. Marine species and animals living on land suffered 39% decline in their populations.

Animals living in tropics are the worst hit by what WWF calls “the biggest recorded threats to our planet’s wildlife” as 63% of wildlife living in tropics has vanished. Central and South America shows the most dramatic regional decline, with a fall of 83%.
And while the animals are suffering now, the long-term impact will be on people, the report said.

Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, said “protecting nature is not a luxury….it is quite the opposite. For many of the world’s poorest people, it is a lifeline.”
According to Lambertini, the threat to oceans could create economic losses of up to $428 billion by 2050. The global fishing sector employs more than 660 million people, and fish provide more than 15% of protein in people’s diet.

Global food security is under threat as the demands of growing population drain the resources. Forests provide water, fuel and food for more than billion people, including 350 million of the world’s poorest people.

See complete article with graphics here.

New study shows wildlife population numbers plummet far worse than previously thought

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GENEVA (AP) — About 3,000 species of wildlife around the world have seen their numbers plummet far worse than previously thought, according to a new study by one of the world’s biggest environmental groups.

The study Tuesday from the Swiss-based WWF largely blamed human threats to nature for a 52 percent decline in wildlife populations between 1970 and 2010.

It says improved methods of measuring populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles explain the huge difference from the 28-percent decline between 1970 and 2008 that the group reported in 2012.

Most of the new losses were found in tropical regions, particularly Latin America.

WWF describes the study it has carried out every two years since 1998 as a barometer of the state of the planet.

“There is no room for complacency,” said WWF International Director General Marco Lambertini, calling for a greater focus on sustainable solutions to the impact people are inflicting on nature, particularly through the release of greenhouse gases.

The latest “Living Planet” study analyzed data from about 10,000 populations of 3,038 vertebrate species from a database maintained by the Zoological Society of London. It is meant to provide a representative sampling of the overall wildlife population in the world, said WWF’s Richard McLellan, editor-in-chief of the study.

It reflects populations since 1970, the first year the London-based society had comprehensive data. Each study is based on data from at least four years earlier.

Much of the world’s wildlife has disappeared in what have been called five mass extinctions, which were often associated with giant meteor strikes. About 90 percent of the world’s species were wiped out around 252 million years ago. One such extinction about 66 million years ago killed off the dinosaurs and three out of four species on Earth.

In the new WWF study, hunting and fishing along with continued losses and deterioration of natural habitats are identified as the chief threats to wildlife populations around the world. Other primary factors are global warming, invasive species, pollution and disease.

“This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live,” said Ken Norris, science director at the London society. “There is still hope. Protecting nature needs focused conservation action, political will and support from industry.”