Half of All Wildlife Killed Off Since 1970

[IMPress Polly]

Although people have mostly been concerned about the condition of the natural environment from the standpoint of our own survival and well-being as humans, the simple truth of the matter is that, overall, human beings are benefiting lavishly from ecological destruction at the expense of basically all other life on Earth...which is why I generally prefer to frame the matter as an animal rights issue. The World Wildlife Federation has recently completed a study which found that "the world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 percent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought". (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-environment-wildlife-idUSKCN0HO2A120140929) By contrast, the world's human population rose from 3.7 billion to more than 6.8 billion over the same span of time (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html). Just thought I'd make that point about the proper framing of environmental issues. Once you put the stats in perspective, it becomes extremely clear who the aggressors are and who the victims are. And it's important do so because the victims can't vote or lobby or demonstrate in their own defense. They are helpless. And that's precisely WHY this is happening.

[Alyosha]

I like the WWF. We're not the problem as much as developing nations like India China and Brazil.

[Peter1469]

We need to colonize the moon and Mars. Space for humans to expand. Once we terraform them (hundreds of years in the future) we can bring animals there and give them more room and new homes.

[donttread]

Although people have mostly been concerned about the condition of the natural environment from the standpoint of our own survival and well-being as humans, the simple truth of the matter is that, overall, human beings are benefiting lavishly from ecological destruction at the expense of basically all other life on Earth...which is why I generally prefer to frame the matter as an animal rights issue. The World Wildlife Federation has recently completed a study which found that "the world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 percent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought". (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-environment-wildlife-idUSKCN0HO2A120140929) By contrast, the world's human population rose from 3.7 billion to more than 6.8 billion over the same span of time (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html). Just thought I'd make that point about the proper framing of environmental issues. Once you put the stats in perspective, it becomes extremely clear who the aggressors are and who the victims are. And it's important do so because the victims can't vote or lobby or demonstrate in their own defense. They are helpless. And that's precisely WHY this is happening.

While those numbers seem high ( except for amphibians ) the planet can only sustain so much life and we continue to over populate with large mammals , namely humans and our food sources.
I believe the answer is to localize not globalize.
Of course the other side of the coin is that if we are part of evolution then all we do is also part of evolution and anything we cause to go extinct was selected for extinction which would of course eventually include us if we destroy the environment badly enough.
As far individual animals. You may want to save the Tiger but its not your kids one is hunting right now in India. Many animals have learned to prosper along side man: Raccoons, Squirells , Coyotes, Seagulls and waterfowl and deer to name a few.

[nathanbforrest45]

Although people have mostly been concerned about the condition of the natural environment from the standpoint of our own survival and well-being as humans, the simple truth of the matter is that, overall, human beings are benefiting lavishly from ecological destruction at the expense of basically all other life on Earth...which is why I generally prefer to frame the matter as an animal rights issue. The World Wildlife Federation has recently completed a study which found that "the world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 percent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought". (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-environment-wildlife-idUSKCN0HO2A120140929) By contrast, the world's human population rose from 3.7 billion to more than 6.8 billion over the same span of time (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html). Just thought I'd make that point about the proper framing of environmental issues. Once you put the stats in perspective, it becomes extremely clear who the aggressors are and who the victims are. And it's important do so because the victims can't vote or lobby or demonstrate in their own defense. They are helpless. And that's precisely WHY this is happening.


Cool

[Polecat]

There are exceptions too you know. Many of the birds that were sensitive to the widespread overuse of DDT have recovered completely. i.e. there are many more of them now then there was in 1970. Eagles are starting to be a common sight all over the country. Canadian Geese have gotten so numerous that they are displacing pigeons as the urban winged nuisance. The deer population has exploded in the midwest. And frankly, I don't care about polar bears. They are extremely dangerous and have no more right to survive than the Dodo bird.

[Guerilla]

We need to colonize the moon and Mars. Space for humans to expand. Once we terraform them (hundreds of years in the future) we can bring animals there and give them more room and new homes.

Instead of sending animals to other planets we should just send our industry there and then we can turn Earth back into a wilderness.

[waltky]

10,000 Titicaca water frogs die mysteriously in Peru...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/icon_omg.gif
Peru investigates death of 10,000 Titicaca water frogs
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 - Peru's environmental agency is investigating the deaths of some 10,000 frogs whose bodies have been found in a tributary of the Titicaca lake.


A campaign group says pollution in the River Coata is to blame for the deaths. It says the government has ignored pleas for the construction of a sewage treatment plant in the area. The Titicaca water frog is an endangered species that is found only in the huge freshwater lake shared by Peru and Bolivia and its tributaries. The Committee Against the Pollution of the Coata River told the AFP news agency that the Peruvian authorities had failed to address a serious pollution problem.

Activists took about 100 dead frogs to the central square in the regional capital, Puno. "I've had to bring them the dead frogs. The authorities don't realize how we're living, protest leader Maruja Inquilla told AFP. "They have no idea how major the pollution is. The situation is maddening."


http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/22CA/production/_91960980_capture.png
Giant Titicaca Lake frog, Telmatobius culeus

Peru's National Forestry and Wildlife Service (Sefor) said it was investigating what happened. "Based on local residents' statements and samples taken in the days after the incident, it is believed that more than 10,000 frogs were affected over about 50km (30 miles)," it said in a statement.

The Titicaca water frog (Telmatobius culeus) has enormous folds of skin, which increase its surface area and help the amphibian absorb more oxygen from the surrounding air. As a result of their baggy skin, they are sometimes called Titicaca scrotum frogs. The frogs are critically endangered because humans have collected too many to eat, their habitat is being lost and invasive species are taking over what remains of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37686285

[waltky]

Deer, bear, raccoons makin' a comeback here... World wildlife 'falls by 58% in 40 years' Wed, 26 Oct 2016 - Global wildlife populations have fallen by 58% since 1970, according to a biodiversity report.
The Living Planet assessment, by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and WWF, suggests that if the trend continues that decline could reach two-thirds among vertebrates by 2020. The figures suggest that animals living in lakes, rivers and wetlands are suffering the biggest losses. Human activity, including habitat loss, wildlife trade, pollution and climate change, is attributed to the declines. Dr Mike Barrett. head of science and policy at WWF, said: "It's pretty clear under 'business as usual' we will see continued declines in these wildlife populations. But I think now we've reached a point where there isn't really any excuse to let this carry on. "We know what the causes are and we know the scale of the impact that humans are having on nature and on wildlife populations - it really is now down to us to act." However the methodology of the report has been criticised. The Living Planet Report is published every two years and aims to provide an assessment of the state of the world's wildlife. This analysis looked at data collected on 3,700 different species of birds, fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles - about 6% of the total number of vertebrate species in the world. The researchers then analysed how the population sizes had changed over time since 1970. The last report, published in 2014, estimated that the world's wildlife populations had halved over the last 40 years. This assessment suggests that the trend has continued: since 1970, populations have declined by an average of 58%.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/2D64/production/_92102611_medium_ww211056.jpg Dr Barrett said some groups of animals had fared worse than others. "We do see particularly strong declines in the freshwater environment - for freshwater species alone, the decline stands at 81% since 1970. This is related to the way water is used and taken out of fresh water systems, and also the fragmentation of freshwater systems through dam building, for example." It also highlighted other species, such as African elephants , which have suffered huge declines in recent years with the increase in poaching, and sharks, which are threatened by overfishing. The researchers conclude that vertebrate populations are declining by an average of 2% each year, and warn that if nothing is done, wildlife populations could fall by 67% (below 1970 levels) by the end of the decade. Dr Robin Freeman, head of ZSL's Indicators & Assessments Unit, said: "But that's assuming things continue as we expect. If pressures - overexploitation, illegal wildlife trade, for example - increase or worsen, then that trend may be worse. "But one of the things I think is most important about these stats, these trends are declines in the number of animals in wildlife populations - they are not extinctions. By and large they are not vanishing, and that presents us with an opportunity to do something about it." However, Living Planet reports have drawn some criticisms. MORE (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37775622)

[MRogersNhood]

Oh BS.Half of all wildlife.Pffft.
I know that's a lie.
I need to go fishing more often and soon.

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - wildlife returns with wetlands too...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/icon_grandma.gif
Study: Restoring Wetlands Could Help Fix Climate Change
February 01, 2017 When it comes to climate change, there are all kinds of ideas about how to address the problem.


One that has been on the front burner lately is the 'engineering' approach. The idea is: humans can 'fix' the problem through technology, rather than by punishing people and industries that pump carbon into the atmosphere. Supporting clean energy technologies, and making them as cheap and plentiful as fossil fuels, is one way to engineer our way out of the problem. But according to a new report, protecting and rebuilding some of our coastal wetlands may be another way to get some carbon out of the atmosphere.

Wetlands as carbon sinks

The new study was done by researchers from the University of Maryland, with support from NOAA, and appears in the Journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The goal was to find the world's best 'blue carbon' storage sites. Blue carbon is what scientists call the carbon dioxide captured and held in the world's oceans and coastal systems. VOA spoke with lead author Ariana Sutton-Grier, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Maryland, about the research. She says one of the main points is that the natural world has already figured out some effective ways to deal with excess carbon. "Coastal wetlands are some of the most productive ecosystems on the planet," she points out, "and they store a lot of carbon below ground."


https://gdb.voanews.com/BD759B85-AEEB-4A2C-8016-DECEE12E9845_w250_r1_s.jpg
Salt marshes capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

How much? "The researchers estimated that mangrove forests in the U.S. capture and store as much as 34 metric tons of carbon annually," the team said in a press release. "Which is roughly equivalent to the carbon emitted by 24 million passenger cars in a year." And that's just the U.S. How about the world? Including the United States, they estimate "coastal wetlands may capture and store more than 200 metric tons of carbon per year globally."


https://gdb.voanews.com/E2025033-791F-4AD9-BFF5-9B8E7B79B85F_w250_r0_s.jpg
Illustration of how coastal wetlands serve as reservoirs for carbon.

That's a lot of carbon, but Grier admits, not nearly enough to solve the problem. "This would definitely not be a "silver bullet" that would "fix" climate change;" she says. "There is no silver bullet. Human emissions are much larger than natural sinks, but with a problem this big, we need to find multiple solutions to reduce and combat emissions..." To give you an idea how big, some of the best estimates suggest humans are pumping about 36 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. To help reverse that trend means protecting, and perhaps beginning to restore the coastlines that have been degraded by human activity and rising sea levels.

Protecting, and rebuilding (http://www.voanews.com/a/climate-change-wetlands/3701799.html)

[Starman]

We need to colonize the moon and Mars. Space for humans to expand. Once we terraform them (hundreds of years in the future) we can bring animals there and give them more room and new homes.

Brilliant. No, really.
It currently costs thousands of dollars PER POUND just to put objects in orbit around earth. Of course it is far more costly to set things gently on the moon, much less Mars.
You're proposing to bring earth movers, trucks, steel, cement mixers, lakes of water, thousands of tons of oxygen and nitrogen, in heavy, pressurized containers, not to mention thousands of tons of gasoline, or diesel fuel, to the moon, and to Mars? And when you are "terraforming" the surface with all that heavy equipment, you're burning up the oxygen you transported. How to recover it? Oh that's right.
You brought millions of tons of soil, to grow crops... in greenhouses... made of glass, heavy glass. One meteor crashes your greenhouse and there goes the whole whacked out plan.

"There's something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." - Mark Twain

[rcfieldz]

Wait Peter1469 will make pigs fly soon!

[donttread]

I like the WWF. We're not the problem as much as developing nations like India China and Brazil.

I think the number of critters in my neck of the woods has increased over that time. Turkey's, Turkey Vultures, Ravens, Possums were all rare if not non exsistent here in 1970 and the Coyote population has exploded