State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Herbivore hunting transpires for two main reasons: meat ingestion and global trading of animal parts. The authors wrote that approximately 1 billion people survive on wild meat.
“But it’s inconceivable that we allow demand for horns and tusks to drive the extirpation of large herbivores from otherwise suitable habitat,” Levi said. “We need to intensify the reduction of demand for such items.”
“We hope this report increases appreciation for the importance of large herbivores in these ecosystems,” said Ripple. “And we hope that policymakers take action to conserve these species.”
In order to understand the outcomes of large herbivore decline, the authors encourages people to do a synchronized research endeavour on endangered species especially in developing countries. Additionally, local people must also engage in solving the problem on the falling off of large herbivores. . “It is essential that local people be involved in and benefit from the management of protected areas,” they write. “Local community participation in the management of protected areas is highly correlated with protected area policy compliance.”


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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A very bleak future! :-(


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Stanford Report, June 19, 2015
Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here
Paul Ehrlich and others use highly conservative estimates to prove that species are disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs' demise.
By Rob Jordan, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence.

That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," Ehrlich said.

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Although most well known for his positions on human population, Ehrlich has done extensive work on extinctions going back to his 1981 book, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. He has long tied his work on coevolution, on racial, gender and economic justice, and on nuclear winter with the issue of wildlife populations and species loss.

There is general agreement among scientists that extinction rates have reached levels unparalleled since the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. However, some have challenged the theory, believing earlier estimates rested on assumptions that overestimated the crisis.

The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that even with extremely conservative estimates, species are disappearing up to about 100 times faster than the normal rate between mass extinctions, known as the background rate.

"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autónoma de México.

Conservative approach

Using fossil records and extinction counts from a range of records, the researchers compared a highly conservative estimate of current extinctions with a background rate estimate twice as high as those widely used in previous analyses. This way, they brought the two estimates – current extinction rate and average background or going-on-all-the-time extinction rate – as close to each other as possible.

Focusing on vertebrates, the group for which the most reliable modern and fossil data exist, the researchers asked whether even the lowest estimates of the difference between background and contemporary extinction rates still justify the conclusion that people are precipitating "a global spasm of biodiversity loss." The answer: a definitive yes.

Image
Source: International Union for Conservation of Nature

"We emphasize that our calculations very likely underestimate the severity of the extinction crisis, because our aim was to place a realistic lower bound on humanity's impact on biodiversity," the researchers write.

To history's steady drumbeat, a human population growing in numbers, per capita consumption and economic inequity has altered or destroyed natural habitats. The long list of impacts includes:
Land clearing for farming, logging and settlement
Introduction of invasive species
Carbon emissions that drive climate change and ocean acidification
Toxins that alter and poison ecosystems

Now, the specter of extinction hangs over about 41 per cent of all amphibian species and 26 per cent of all mammals, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which maintains an authoritative list of threatened and extinct species.

"There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead," Ehrlich said.

As species disappear, so do crucial ecosystem services such as honeybees' crop pollination and wetlands' water purification. At the current rate of species loss, people will lose many biodiversity benefits within three generations, the study's authors write. "We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on," Ehrlich said.

Hope for the future

Despite the gloomy outlook, there is a meaningful way forward, according to Ehrlich and his colleagues. "Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations – notably habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change," the study's authors write.

In the meantime, the researchers hope their work will inform conservation efforts, the maintenance of ecosystem services and public policy.

Co-authors on the paper include Anthony D. Barnosky of the University of California at Berkeley, Andrés García of Universidad Autónoma de México, Robert M. Pringle of Princeton University and Todd M. Palmer of the University of Florida.


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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75 Percent of Animal Species to be Wiped Out in ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’
Under the most conservative estimate possible, development, disappearing habitats and climate change will exterminate animal species within just three human lifetimes, a new study finds.

From rhinos to tigers to elephants, three out of four "familiar" animal species – those commonly thought of and well understood by human beings – will be extinguished within three human lifetimes, a new study finds, confirming that Earth is in the midst of what’s become known as the “sixth mass extinction” driven by runaway development, shrinking animal habitats and climate change.

“Scientists never like to say anything for sure, but this is close as we’re ever going to get to saying, ‘We’re certain that this is a huge problem,’” says study coauthor Anthony Barnosky, a paleontologist at the University of California-Berkeley, calling the problem “quite dire.”

The hundreds of species eliminated in the past century alone would otherwise have lasted at least another 800 to 10,000 years, the study found. Coral reefs “are in danger of annihilation” as soon as 2070, Barnosky says, potentially erasing a quarter of the ocean’s species.

The last mass extinction occurred 66 million years ago with the end of the dinosaurs. This is the only one, however, where a single species is responsible for the destruction of all the others. And by eliminating biodiversity, it threatens to disrupt the pollination, water purification, food chain and other "ecosystem services" that humanity's "beautiful, fascinating and culturally important living companions" provide, the study says – threatening human life itself.

“You can kind of think of it as guns and bullets,” Barnosky says. “The guns are different in each case, but the bullets that come out – changing climate, increased CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere, ocean acidification – those things that contribute to mass extinction are the things that we’re doing today.”

Previous studies had established the world is in the midst of a mass extinction, with animals disappearing at far faster rates than expected. The term even made the title of New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert’s 2014 bestseller, “The Sixth Extinction.” There is no way to know just how many species there are on earth – roughly 1.3 million animals have been described since 1758. A study last September, however, found the number of wild animals had likely been halved in just the past 40 years.

But this latest effort is by far the most conservative: a study aimed at debunking any possible rebuttal that its findings are “alarmist.”

Barnosky and his team, hailing from Florida and Mexico as well as California, doubled the pace that species were expected to go extinct without any human interference, then used the lowest possible estimate for the number of species that actually were disappearing.

The results, even as an underestimate, proved just as dire.

Since 1900, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish died 72 times faster than “normal,” this most conservative estimate found. Whereas researchers might have expected nine veterbrates to go extinct, instead 468 were wiped from the Earth.

Industrialization was especially lethal, with extermination rapidly accelerating from 1800 on.

“The most iconic bird species historically are gone – the ivory-billed woodpecker, passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet, great auk, imperial woodpecker,” says study coauthor Paul Ehrlich, professor and president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. “But there are many others less-well known – the gorgeous orange-bellied and golden-shouldered parrots of Australia, many large raptors, and likely many penguins – as climate disruption takes hold.”

The study was released one day after Pope Francis issued the Vatican’s first-ever encyclical on the environment and climate change, a 184-page letter urging Catholics and “all humanity” to respect nature, rein-in development and address global warming. It also comes six months ahead of a U.N. climate summit in Paris, where President Barack Obama and other world leaders reportedly hope nearly 200 nations will agree to reduce their carbon emissions.

Francis emphasized the need for swift action, a theme echoed by the research team.

“It really is possible to fix these big problems if people put their minds to it,” Barnosky says. “We’re at a stage now where people are becoming aware of the problem, and as people become aware we can move the needle toward making progress.”

That includes switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like wind and solar, producing food more efficiently and limiting population growth. But no matter what actions are taken, there will inevitably be a cost, experts say.

“We’re not only in the midst of a sixth major extinction, we’re moving further and further into it,” says Bruce Stein, senior director of climate adaptation and resilience at the National Wildlife Foundation. “It’s clear that we are going to lose a lot of things, but it’s also clear that we have the ability to ensure that many of our systems will be different but will continue to have ecological functionality and continue to support many of these species.”


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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If we extinct The human race, most of the others will probably survive. just an idea -O-


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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we need all species... human and other
but a little bit more conscious 0'


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Very sad! :-(


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Endangered wildlife list swells in 2015, from lions to orchids
OSLO, June 23 | By Alister Doyle

The number of animals and plants at risk of extinction rose in 2015 despite government pledges to improve protection, with species under threat ranging from lions in West Africa to orchids in Asia, a study showed on Tuesday.

The Red List of Endangered Species, backed by governments, scientists and conservationists, grew to 22,784 species in 2015, almost a third of all animals and plants sampled, from 22,413 a year ago, it said.

Loss of habitats, such as clearance of forests for farmland, cities or roads, was the main cause of the rise, according to the list compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Lions in Africa retained an overall listing as "vulnerable", one of the least endangered categories, thanks to conservation in southern Africa.

But lions in West Africa were listed in a more severe category as "critically endangered" due to losses of habitat and a decline in prey caused by human hunting, it said.

And it said there were also "rapid declines in East Africa, historically a stronghold for lions - mainly due to human-lion conflict and prey decline." Trade in bones and other body parts for traditional medicines were an emerging threat.

In 2011, almost 200 governments set a goal of preventing by 2020 the extinction of known species and reducing threats to those most in decline. No known species went extinct in 2015 but many came closer to the brink.

"We are not on track," said Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List Unit, told Reuters of the 2020 goals.

Still there were some conservation successes, such as the Iberian lynx, whose number rose to 156 adults in 2012 from 52 a decade earlier.

Hilton-Taylor said some economically valuable species were added as endangered.

The list said that practically all of the 84 species of tropical Asian slipper orchid, which are prized ornamental flowers, were threatened, mainly because of over-collection and habitat loss.

Nine of 17 species from the tea plant family assessed were also endangered because they are used for making tea and medicines or as ornamental plants and firewood.

"Losing these plants would reduce the genetic diversity of tea," Hilton-Taylor said. The plants might be valuable replacements for current species of drinking tea if environmental conditions were to change in future.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Tom Heneghan)


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Still there were some conservation successes, such as the Iberian lynx, whose number rose to 156 adults in 2012 from 52 a decade earlier.

Hopefully this is the sort of thing that will happen once countries get more developed? :-(


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Re: State of the World's Wildlife: Towards Mass Extinction?

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Ja, but before the species go nearly extinct like they did or almost did in the already developed countries. 0'


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