Earth May Be on Verge of Wildlife Extinction

A researcher at Stanford University, along with colleagues, have published new research highlighting the rate at which wildlife is being destroyed.

The new research indicates that the extinction rate is likely much higher than originally thought, stating that wildlife trade, along with human impacts have destroyed multiple species and have pushed others towards extinction at an “unprecedented rate”.

The research looked at the rates of extinction for vertebrates, showing that since 1900 more than 400 vertebrates have gone extinct, which is a rate 100 times higher than in other non-extinction periods.

The researchers estimate that approximately the same number of species are likely to go extinct over the course of the next two decades and warn that this will greatly impact human life as well.

“When humanity exterminates populations and species of other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system,” said the author of the study. “The conservation of endangered species should be elevated to a national and global emergency for governments and institutions, equal to climate disruption to which it is linked.”

New research is showing that the Earth is on the verge of a mass extinction of wildlife. While the research examined the rate at which species are being wiped off the Earth, the threat to human civilization is speculative. As a result, we label the claim that the Earth is on the verge of a sixth mass extinction of wildlife and that it is accelerating at a rate that could pose a threat to human civilization as “misleading.”