Animal Extinction - The Greatest Threat to Mankind

[China]

Animal Extinction - the greatest threat to mankind

By the end of the century half of all species will be extinct. Does that matter?

By Julia Whitty

Published: 30 April 2007

In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death.

Such is also the path of a dying species. Beyond a critical point, the collective body of a unique kind of mammal or bird or amphibian or tree cannot be salvaged, no matter the first aid rendered. Too few individuals spread too far apart, or too genetically weakened, are susceptible to even small natural disasters: a passing thunderstorm; an unexpected freeze; drought. At fewer than 50 members, populations experience increasingly random fluctuations until a kind of fatal arrhythmia takes hold. Eventually, an entire genetic legacy, born in the beginnings of life on earth, is removed from the future.

Scientists recognise that species continually disappear at a background extinction rate estimated at about one species per million per year, with new species replacing the lost in a sustainable fashion. Occasional mass extinctions convulse this orderly norm, followed by excruciatingly slow recoveries as new species emerge from the remaining gene-pool, until the world is once again repopulated by a different catalogue of flora and fauna.

From what we understand so far, five great extinction events have reshaped earth in cataclysmic ways in the past 439 million years, each one wiping out between 50 and 95 per cent of the life of the day, including the dominant life forms; the most recent event killing off the non-avian dinosaurs. Speciations followed, but an analysis published in Nature showed that it takes 10 million years before biological diversity even begins to approach what existed before a die-off.

Today we're living through the sixth great extinction, sometimes known as the Holocene extinction event. We carried its seeds with us 50,000 years ago as we migrated beyond Africa with Stone Age blades, darts, and harpoons, entering pristine Ice Age ecosystems and changing them forever by wiping out at least some of the unique megafauna of the times, including, perhaps, the sabre-toothed cats and woolly mammoths. When the ice retreated, we terminated the long and biologically rich epoch sometimes called the Edenic period with assaults from our newest weapons: hoes, scythes, cattle, goats, and pigs.

But, as harmful as our forebears may have been, nothing compares to what's under way today. Throughout the 20th century the causes of extinction - habitat degradation, overexploitation, agricultural monocultures, human-borne invasive species, human-induced climate-change - increased exponentially, until now in the 21st century the rate is nothing short of explosive. The World Conservation Union's Red List - a database measuring the global status of Earth's 1.5 million scientifically named species - tells a haunting tale of unchecked, unaddressed, and accelerating biocide.

When we hear of extinction, most of us think of the plight of the rhino, tiger, panda or blue whale. But these sad sagas are only small pieces of the extinction puzzle. The overall numbers are terrifying. Of the 40,168 species that the 10,000 scientists in the World Conservation Union have assessed, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one in three amphibians, one in three conifers and other gymnosperms are at risk of extinction. The peril faced by other classes of organisms is less thoroughly analysed, but fully 40 per cent of the examined species of planet earth are in danger, including perhaps 51 per cent of reptiles, 52 per cent of insects, and 73 per cent of flowering plants.

By the most conservative measure - based on the last century's recorded extinctions - the current rate of extinction is 100 times the background rate. But the eminent Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, and other scientists, estimate that the true rate is more like 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate. The actual annual sum is only an educated guess, because no scientist believes that the tally of life ends at the 1.5 million species already discovered; estimates range as high as 100 million species on earth, with 10 million as the median guess. Bracketed between best- and worst-case scenarios, then, somewhere between 2.7 and 270 species are erased from existence every day. Including today.

We now understand that the majority of life on Earth has never been - and will never be - known to us. In a staggering forecast, Wilson predicts that our present course will lead to the extinction of half of all plant and animal species by 2100.

You probably had no idea. Few do. A poll by the American Museum of Natural History finds that seven in 10 biologists believe that mass extinction poses a colossal threat to human existence, a more serious environmental problem than even its contributor, global warming; and that the dangers of mass extinction are woefully underestimated by almost everyone outside science. In the 200 years since French naturalist Georges Cuvier first floated the concept of extinction, after examining fossil bones and concluding "the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some sort of catastrophe", we have only slowly recognised and attempted to correct our own catastrophic behaviour.

Some nations move more slowly than others. In 1992, an international summit produced a treaty called the Convention on Biological Diversity that was subsequently ratified by 190 nations - all except the unlikely coalition of the United States, Iraq, the Vatican, Somalia, Andorra and Brunei. The European Union later called on the world to arrest the decline of species and ecosystems by 2010. Last year, worried biodiversity experts called for the establishment of a scientific body akin to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide a united voice on the extinction crisis and urge governments to action.

Click on the link for the full article

[Koolblue13]

Good thing we found Gilese! Time to get on that time travel thing.

[DCsportsfan53]

Wow, that's an eye opener to say the least. I'm sure most will simply dismiss it to some extent but, I don't know, you just get the feeling that something about the way we live is FAR from sustainable. :2cents:

[Sweet Sassy Molassy]

When the ice retreated, we terminated the long and biologically rich epoch sometimes called the Edenic period with assaults from our newest weapons: hoes

You would think that after what Don Imus said, scientists would be more careful with their words.

Very interesting article. The Earth has always gone through changes, and species have come and gone. I have no doubt that, in the future, humans will be spoken of in the same manner as we talk about the Woolly Mammoth or Dinosaur, etc..

[stwasm]

You would think that after what Don Imus said, scientists would be more careful with their words.

Very interesting article. The Earth has always gone through changes, and species have come and gone. I have no doubt that, in the future, humans will be spoken of in the same manner as we talk about the Woolly Mammoth or Dinosaur, etc..

Man, Joe! That's deep!

[@DCGoldPants]

Again, there is no reason to NOT try to keep species alive.

I think of the folks who seem to go against this stuff. But at the same time are the ones who campaign on a platform that involves going to Church, praising the Lord, and everything he's created. Then we all leave our Churches and Temples.....and go out to destroy basically what we just praised.

[DCsportsfan53]

Again, there is no reason to NOT try to keep species alive.

I think of the folks who seem to go against this stuff. But at the same time are the ones who campaign on a platform that involves going to Church, praising the Lord, and everything he's created. Then we all leave our Churches and Temples.....and go out to destroy basically what we just praised.

That some kind of irony, isn't it?

[dwbiggs]

The dinosaurs got wiped out and I think everything turned out OK. :whoknows:

[China]

The dinosaurs got wiped out and I think everything turned out OK. :whoknows:

Not for the dinosaurs (or anything that relied on them to live - which is the point, the web of life all creatures are interconnected on this planet in some way).

As an example:

http://college.unc.edu/features/march2007/article.2007-03-30.8213324607

[jbooma]

You would think that after what Don Imus said, scientists would be more careful with their words.

Very interesting article. The Earth has always gone through changes, and species have come and gone. I have no doubt that, in the future, humans will be spoken of in the same manner as we talk about the Woolly Mammoth or Dinosaur, etc..

Exactly and new species are being created and found every day. This is just the continous cycle of this planet which we can not change no matter what we do.

[China]

Yes, but the rate at which extinctions are happening is much higher than the normal background rate:

May 21, 2007

10 Animals That May Go Extinct in the Next 10 Years

The Dodo may soon have some august company

By Coco Ballantyne

Extinction is a natural process. As evolution hums along, species disappear and new species emerge in an ongoing dynamic called "background extinction." Geologic history has also been punctuated by five great "mass extinctions"—precipitous declines in the number of species spurred by dramatic events such as an asteroid impact or changing sea levels.

Today we are witnessing what some experts believe to be the "sixth wave of extinction," a species diminution that appears to be the handiwork of humankind. Experts estimate that the current extinction rate is somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times higher than the background rate (others say it is even higher, up to 10,000 times the usual background extinction rate).

There are currently 3,071 "critically endangered" species in the world, according to the World Conservation Union, also known as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), a collaboration of 83 countries, 800 nongovernmental organizations and 10,000 scientists and experts devoted to preserving Earth's biodiversity. According to the IUCN, species assessed at the critically endangered level "face an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild unless the pressures on them are relieved." Here are just a few of these species:

Slide Show

The 10 from the Slideshow:

1- Iberian lynx (currently found in Andalusia, Spain; 120 left)

2- Sumatran orangutan (Sumatra, duh; 7,500 left and dropping by 1,000 a year)

3- Northern hairy-nosed wombat (Queensland, Australia; 100 left)

4- Wild bactrian camel (Gobi Desert; 1,000 left)

5- Dama gazelle (Chad, Niger, Mali; 100 left)

6- Seychelles sheath-tailed bat (Seychelles, obviously; 50-100 left)

7- Chinese alligator (Yangtze River, China; 150-200 left)

8- Black rhinocerous (Africa in general; 'a few thousand' left)

9- Pied tamarin (Manaus, Brazil, metropolitan area; number not mentioned)

10- Leatherback turtule (Various oceans; 26,000-43,000 left)

[Mickalino]

Again, there is no reason to NOT try to keep species alive.

I think of the folks who seem to go against this stuff. But at the same time are the ones who campaign on a platform that involves going to Church, praising the Lord, and everything he's created. Then we all leave our Churches and Temples.....and go out to destroy basically what we just praised.

Why are Christians more guilty ?

[DCsportsfan53]

Why are Christians more guilty ?

Maybe because you have poor reading comprehension? He didn't say Christians, in fact, he said "when we leave our churches and temples..." which implies that, at the very least, he's including Jews. I think his statement was just generalized to say it's sadly ironic that people of many religions go to services to praise what God made and then go about destroying everything he created.

[rincewind]

Why are Christians more guilty ?

Maybe because you have poor reading comprehension? He didn't say Christians, in fact, he said "when we leave our churches and temples..." which implies that, at the very least, he's including Jews. I think his statement was just generalized to say it's sadly ironic that people of many religions go to services to praise what God made and then go about destroying everything he created.

God damn, Christians are a paranoid group.

[Stophovr6]

God damn, Christians are a paranoid group.

The "guilty" ones usaully are.:laugh:

JK

[Mickalino]

Maybe because you have poor reading comprehension? He didn't say Christians, in fact, he said "when we leave our churches and temples..." which implies that, at the very least, he's including Jews. I think his statement was just generalized to say it's sadly ironic that people of many religions go to services to praise what God made and then go about destroying everything he created.

actually, it was your reading comprehension that conveniently skipped the part where he said "praising the Lord" which usually implies Christians.

[DCsportsfan53]

actually, it was your reading comprehension that conveniently skipped the part where he said "praising the Lord" which usually implies Christians.

:rotflmao:

I'll let you think about the statement you just made for a few minutes and see if you can find the flaws in it for yourself.

[Brad89]

All we need is chicken, cows, turkey, pigs, and food for them to eat. Well, that's all I need.

[Susannahjb]

I don't understand how anyone can possibly predict a mass extinction but whatever. If they go extinct then they go extinct. They were meant to for a reason. Not saying we shouldn't try to save some animals, but we shouldn't make a big deal out of it.

[Jumbo]

I think it's like totally whatever.

[dfitzo53]

I don't understand how anyone can possibly predict a mass extinction but whatever. If they go extinct then they go extinct. They were meant to for a reason. Not saying we shouldn't try to save some animals, but we shouldn't make a big deal out of it.

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. In what way were certain animals meant to go extinct?

[Coach Williams]

As in all varieties of belief there are always various degrees of faith........

Just because someone is of an Abrhamic religion doesn't mean they should deny themselves of the fruits of the Earth. I do however believe we should each do our part to help prevent the corruption of the Earth. This should go for all people because if you don't believe in GOd ( or God creating the Earth you should still want to take care of where our species will live for the next X billion years when the sun explodes.

[China]

Extinction threat for 45 Australian species

SYDNEY – Up to 45 rare species of wallaby, bandicoot and other Australian animals could become extinct within 20 years unless urgent action is taken to control introduced predators and other threats, scientists warned Wednesday.

Dozens of mammals, birds, lizards and other vertebrates in the remote northwestern Kimberley region are at risk from hunting by feral cats and from destruction of their native habitat by wild donkeys, goats and fires, a study of the conservation needs of the area shows.

"We're in the midst of a massive extinction event in Australia and the north has really been the last stronghold for many species of birds and mammals and reptiles," said Tara Martin, a co-author of the report by the government-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

Nearly 30 percent of the endangered species identified in the study are unique to the Kimberley region, while others, like the golden bandicoot and golden-backed tree rat, have already disappeared elsewhere in the country.

Click on the link for the full article

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I don't understand how anything is still alive in Oz with the spiders they have over there.

[Chachie]

I always assumed the greatest threat to humans was there own overpopulation. I guess that also contributes to the extinction of all the other animals on this planet.