More than 800 wildlife species now extinct -report
The new analysis shows 869 species became extinct or extinct in the wild since the year 1500 while 290 more species are considered critically endangered and possibly extinct.2004: One million species extinct by 2050: scientists - www.theage.com.au
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For land-based species, the main threat is habitat destruction through farming, logging and development.
Climate change is not now the main threat to biodiversity but that could change, the report said.
Humans must change their ways if animal and plant species are to survive. Melissa Fyfe reports.
A quarter of all land animals and plants will not survive the onslaught of climate change, an international group of scientists has predicted.
Their alarming findings, published in the scientific journal Nature today, show more than a million existing species could be extinct by 2050 as human-induced climate change heats up the earth.
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There can be little doubt that we humans are a mass extinction event as far as biological diversity is concerned. However life will go on; no matter if only a few species survive, they will then radiate out to fill the available niches.
What is not so clear is whether WE will survive. We threaten our own existence, not the existence of life on earth.
Show me the bodies.
Here's something interesting from page 43 of the new analysis.
"Extinctions are often difficult to confirm. Using the most conservative approach to documenting extinctions, just 38 amphibians are known to have become Extinct since the year 1500.
Of the 38 known extinctions, 11 have occurred since 1980, including such species as the Golden Toad Incilius
periglenes of Monteverde, Costa Rica."
Hmmm. I can hardly wait to see the mammal section.
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