The extinction of world's remaining megafauna mammals is imminent

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Plazma Inferno!, Aug 2, 2016.

  1. Plazma Inferno! Ding Ding Ding Ding Administrator

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    The extinction of most of the world’s remaining megafauna mammals is more or less imminent (over the next few decades) without major changes and improved conservation strategies, according to a public declaration published in the journal BioScience.
    The public declaration — which calls for a coordinated global plan to prevent further megafauna extinctions — was signed by over 40 conservation researchers and experts.
    The main drivers behind this rapid slide towards mass megafauna extinctions are the same ones that have been in play for centuries and millennia now — the expansion of agriculture and livestock grazing, the attendant wild habitat loss, deforestation, and over-hunting (often owing to demand from the wealthy; ie as with the extinction of the European lion during the growth days of the Roman Republic/Empire owing to a demand for lion pelts).
    Roughly 59% of the world’s biggest mammalian carnivore species, and 60% of the largest herbivores, are now categorized as being threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
    These animals are of license vitally important to the ecosystems and regions in which they live — the loss of large herds of migrating herbivores is associated with vastly increased rates of desertification in dry-land regions; the loss of large carnivores with attendant ecosystem collapses owing to lack of predators; etc.

    http://planetsave.com/2016/08/01/st...on-crisis-worlds-remaining-megafauna-mammals/

    Declaration: http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/07/25/biosci.biw092.full
     

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