8 ms·

Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years (2014)

99 points by Red_Tarsius 9y ago

shivrajrath 9y ago
Steep incline in usage of synthetics and synthetic pollution might also be a leading cause. We might have to use everything biodegradable and for long. No wonder cancer, premature babies, allergies have increased in past years.
JohnStudio 9y ago
Does anyone know the source of those stats? "steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analyzing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species" Logistically speaking, I'd like to know how they tracked that. I've seen how caribou are tracking in Canada rather effectively (http://mffp.gouv.qc.ca/the-wildlife/hunting-fishing-trapping/caribou-migration-monitoring-by-satellite-telemetry/?lang=en http://mffp.gouv.qc.ca/the-wildlife/hunting-fishing-trapping...) However, specifics of their research I'd find very interesting if indeed I could see it sited. Any help?
- gramstrong 9y ago
  Not by tracking, really, but I'd assume by population sampling. Rough counting of a species in an area or on a migration path, and then comparing it to historical data.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    There was a more recent study about insects in Europe confirming your assumption. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-14/global-population-flying-insects-crashing-dangerously-fast https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-14/global-population-fly...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bjoli 9y ago
  Fish species used for food have been tracked in various studies, ranging from about 50-90% decline in 100 years in the 5ish studies I have read. On my mobile with shitty 2g right now,but googling overfishing or fish pupolation is always recommended
jefflombardjr 9y ago
This article is from 2014. The fact that it is 2018 and we still have to convince people this is a bad thing is alarming.
- goatlover 9y ago
  Problem is how many people really care enough to do much about it?
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    I think it's more brutal than that. How many humans are we willing to kill (or watch them die) in order to do much about it? Most humans care some about animals, but they care more about humans. (Yes, I am well aware that the developed world could accept a lower standard of living, and that would help. I question whether it's enough. And yes, I am aware that that is not an excuse for the developed world to do nothing.)
    - prepend 9y ago
      This is a good point as while there’s not an agreed upon formula for how many nonhumans are worth a human, I’m certain that the vast majority will prioritize human life over animals. Fortunately, the human growth rate is stabilizing so hopefully we can figure out how to have humans grow to a natural equilibrium AND keep diverse ecosystem. If the question is framed as either humans or animals, society will end up with only zoos, farms, and humans.
      - Parcissons 9y ago
        Sorry, to curb your optimism. The limitation on humans, does not correlate with reduced ressource consumption. That flatline is multiplied with the ideal of a western lifestyle, which results in a ecological footprint as if everyone was his own large third world family. My personal optimism regarding the wildlife comes from nature having assault weapons too- allergic substances, poisonous plants and multi-resistant vegies and bacterias and plagues. Ebola is the protector of monkeys- so if to carry ebola means your tribe is safe - that is a sickness that is a bonus point for continued existance. Same goes for nearly every human negative trait. Mother earth takes a long time to recover, but when she does, boy will she beat us to pulp. My assumption is, that even if global warming is not wipe us of the planet, we will be living in domed communitys by the end of the century, simply because every sentient and non-sentient beeing is profiting from beeing resistant to all we got and effective at killing us.
dflock 9y ago
Not coincidentally, the human population has doubled in the same timeframe. Is everyone else screaming inside, or is it just me?
- graeme 9y ago
  Planetary carrying capacity has to go somewhere. More humans + human animals and crops = fewer wild plants or animals That's just an intuitive thought, I am not sure if it is necessarily correct in all cases. It certainly at least correlates.
  - derpaderp1 9y ago
    Hmm maybe people could stop having so many babies. No that's crazy right?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Santosh83 9y ago
  Many of us also despair, but the world at large thunders on. Humanity seems to be collectively determined to march full speed ahead and face any problems as they happen. Sadly this means the planet is going to lose a majority of its genetic and ecological diversity, and that is going to be a great loss to us from several angles, but modern society and our economic structures are simply not placing value in such intangibles.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  Only a few people, I think. It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and instead of panicking, just shrugged. There are probably fifty times a day I feel a deep seated dreadxiety about something I'm doing. Wearing synthetic fibre. Finding out a soap has triclosan in it. Using a disposable nappy. Eating an avocado. Eating fish (appropriately enough, eating said synthetic fibres in that fish). And yet I have colleagues who toss aluminium cans into the garbage when the recycling is RIGHT NEXT TO IT and they do. Not. Care. I don't know what to do. Individual action is meaningless - every gallon of gas I don't burn just makes it cheaper for someone else. Maybe even the driver who wants to mow me down. I despair.
bornonline1 9y ago
This is so sad.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
What if say 200 years from now, we have a human population of 20 billion people where everyone lives like the current top 10% of people in the USA. There is long life-expectancy, very low childhood mortality. Low inequality. There are however no wild animals on land. Every land animal is either a pet, livestock, or in a zoo or preserve. Except for the limited species above, every other land species is extinct (but their DNA is preserved). Would the above scenario be one that is appealing to you. Is wildlife and ecological diversity a good apart from its human benefit? Is human good worth harming ecological diversity for?
- collyw 9y ago
  I am reading your post wondering how that could happen. Wildlife disappearing is not the problem is merely as symptom of the problem - too many people.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
    We have much more people on earth than we had 500 years ago. We probably have much less wildlife than before. However, people now on average live longer, healthier lives than before. As humans, we are much, much better off than we were 500 years ago. Wildlife as a whole is probably worse off than it was 500 years ago. Thus, it is not an impossible scenario to have humans thriving, but wildlife in serious danger.
    - collyw 9y ago
      > As humans, we are much, much better off than we were 500 years ago. That's very subjective and depends on what you are measuring. Sure we have less conflict, less people in absolute poverty, but we also have more people in slavery than any time in history.
  - ebcode 9y ago
    I don't think it's the number of people that matter, but rather the behavior of those people. It appears that humanity lived in balance (Lotka-Volterra style) with the rest of the inhabitants of the planet until the invention of agriculture, which is still relatively recent. The transitions that led from agriculture to walled cities to city-states to modern nation-states all occurred within the past 10,000 years or so. Whereas the oldest known human fossil is something like a million years old. Divide that 10,000 by the million years our species has been on this planet, you get 1%. So for 99% of humanity's time on the planet we probably behaved a lot like most of the other land mammals. Something happened that led to the changes in our behavior, and we are now facing the consequences of our collective actions for the past thousands of years. It looks like we'll need to change even more before it's too late.
burfog 9y ago
It would continue even if we disappeared today. We have spread invasive species all over the place. Many of them haven't even been noticed yet. This includes stuff like soil fungus. Even when we do notice, we do nothing. Cats are a huge problem, but obsessed cat lovers are well-organized politically. They show up in force at every town council and country commissioner meeting where a cat issue comes up, defending stuff like giant feral cat colonies right next to the beach where endangered beach mice should be reseeding the grass that holds the beach in place. [edit: getting my cat lover downmods... but this is an actual problem causing beach erosion in Florida, and there is indeed a giant cat colony in my area that isn't more than 500 feet from the beach] If we disappeared today, the extinctions would just continue.
- nojvek 9y ago
  Feral cats in Australia are seen as pests in some region.

99 points by Red_Tarsius 9y ago

Steep incline in usage of synthetics and synthetic pollution might also be a leading cause. We might have to use everything biodegradable and for long. No wonder cancer, premature babies, allergies have increased in past years.

JohnStudio 9y ago

Does anyone know the source of those stats? "steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analyzing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species" Logistically speaking, I'd like to know how they tracked that. I've seen how caribou are tracking in Canada rather effectively (http://mffp.gouv.qc.ca/the-wildlife/hunting-fishing-trapping/caribou-migration-monitoring-by-satellite-telemetry/?lang=en http://mffp.gouv.qc.ca/the-wildlife/hunting-fishing-trapping...) However, specifics of their research I'd find very interesting if indeed I could see it sited. Any help?

gramstrong 9y ago
Not by tracking, really, but I'd assume by population sampling. Rough counting of a species in an area or on a migration path, and then comparing it to historical data.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  There was a more recent study about insects in Europe confirming your assumption. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-14/global-population-flying-insects-crashing-dangerously-fast https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-14/global-population-fly...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bjoli 9y ago
Fish species used for food have been tracked in various studies, ranging from about 50-90% decline in 100 years in the 5ish studies I have read. On my mobile with shitty 2g right now,but googling overfishing or fish pupolation is always recommended

jefflombardjr 9y ago

This article is from 2014. The fact that it is 2018 and we still have to convince people this is a bad thing is alarming.

goatlover 9y ago
Problem is how many people really care enough to do much about it?
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  I think it's more brutal than that. How many humans are we willing to kill (or watch them die) in order to do much about it? Most humans care some about animals, but they care more about humans. (Yes, I am well aware that the developed world could accept a lower standard of living, and that would help. I question whether it's enough. And yes, I am aware that that is not an excuse for the developed world to do nothing.)
  - prepend 9y ago
    This is a good point as while there’s not an agreed upon formula for how many nonhumans are worth a human, I’m certain that the vast majority will prioritize human life over animals. Fortunately, the human growth rate is stabilizing so hopefully we can figure out how to have humans grow to a natural equilibrium AND keep diverse ecosystem. If the question is framed as either humans or animals, society will end up with only zoos, farms, and humans.
    - Parcissons 9y ago
      Sorry, to curb your optimism. The limitation on humans, does not correlate with reduced ressource consumption. That flatline is multiplied with the ideal of a western lifestyle, which results in a ecological footprint as if everyone was his own large third world family. My personal optimism regarding the wildlife comes from nature having assault weapons too- allergic substances, poisonous plants and multi-resistant vegies and bacterias and plagues. Ebola is the protector of monkeys- so if to carry ebola means your tribe is safe - that is a sickness that is a bonus point for continued existance. Same goes for nearly every human negative trait. Mother earth takes a long time to recover, but when she does, boy will she beat us to pulp. My assumption is, that even if global warming is not wipe us of the planet, we will be living in domed communitys by the end of the century, simply because every sentient and non-sentient beeing is profiting from beeing resistant to all we got and effective at killing us.

dflock 9y ago

Not coincidentally, the human population has doubled in the same timeframe. Is everyone else screaming inside, or is it just me?

graeme 9y ago
Planetary carrying capacity has to go somewhere. More humans + human animals and crops = fewer wild plants or animals That's just an intuitive thought, I am not sure if it is necessarily correct in all cases. It certainly at least correlates.
- derpaderp1 9y ago
  Hmm maybe people could stop having so many babies. No that's crazy right?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Santosh83 9y ago
Many of us also despair, but the world at large thunders on. Humanity seems to be collectively determined to march full speed ahead and face any problems as they happen. Sadly this means the planet is going to lose a majority of its genetic and ecological diversity, and that is going to be a great loss to us from several angles, but modern society and our economic structures are simply not placing value in such intangibles.
CalRobert 9y ago
Only a few people, I think. It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and instead of panicking, just shrugged. There are probably fifty times a day I feel a deep seated dreadxiety about something I'm doing. Wearing synthetic fibre. Finding out a soap has triclosan in it. Using a disposable nappy. Eating an avocado. Eating fish (appropriately enough, eating said synthetic fibres in that fish). And yet I have colleagues who toss aluminium cans into the garbage when the recycling is RIGHT NEXT TO IT and they do. Not. Care. I don't know what to do. Individual action is meaningless - every gallon of gas I don't burn just makes it cheaper for someone else. Maybe even the driver who wants to mow me down. I despair.

bornonline1 9y ago

This is so sad.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

What if say 200 years from now, we have a human population of 20 billion people where everyone lives like the current top 10% of people in the USA. There is long life-expectancy, very low childhood mortality. Low inequality. There are however no wild animals on land. Every land animal is either a pet, livestock, or in a zoo or preserve. Except for the limited species above, every other land species is extinct (but their DNA is preserved). Would the above scenario be one that is appealing to you. Is wildlife and ecological diversity a good apart from its human benefit? Is human good worth harming ecological diversity for?

collyw 9y ago
I am reading your post wondering how that could happen. Wildlife disappearing is not the problem is merely as symptom of the problem - too many people.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
  We have much more people on earth than we had 500 years ago. We probably have much less wildlife than before. However, people now on average live longer, healthier lives than before. As humans, we are much, much better off than we were 500 years ago. Wildlife as a whole is probably worse off than it was 500 years ago. Thus, it is not an impossible scenario to have humans thriving, but wildlife in serious danger.
  - collyw 9y ago
    > As humans, we are much, much better off than we were 500 years ago. That's very subjective and depends on what you are measuring. Sure we have less conflict, less people in absolute poverty, but we also have more people in slavery than any time in history.
- ebcode 9y ago
  I don't think it's the number of people that matter, but rather the behavior of those people. It appears that humanity lived in balance (Lotka-Volterra style) with the rest of the inhabitants of the planet until the invention of agriculture, which is still relatively recent. The transitions that led from agriculture to walled cities to city-states to modern nation-states all occurred within the past 10,000 years or so. Whereas the oldest known human fossil is something like a million years old. Divide that 10,000 by the million years our species has been on this planet, you get 1%. So for 99% of humanity's time on the planet we probably behaved a lot like most of the other land mammals. Something happened that led to the changes in our behavior, and we are now facing the consequences of our collective actions for the past thousands of years. It looks like we'll need to change even more before it's too late.

burfog 9y ago

It would continue even if we disappeared today. We have spread invasive species all over the place. Many of them haven't even been noticed yet. This includes stuff like soil fungus. Even when we do notice, we do nothing. Cats are a huge problem, but obsessed cat lovers are well-organized politically. They show up in force at every town council and country commissioner meeting where a cat issue comes up, defending stuff like giant feral cat colonies right next to the beach where endangered beach mice should be reseeding the grass that holds the beach in place. [edit: getting my cat lover downmods... but this is an actual problem causing beach erosion in Florida, and there is indeed a giant cat colony in my area that isn't more than 500 feet from the beach] If we disappeared today, the extinctions would just continue.

nojvek 9y ago
Feral cats in Australia are seen as pests in some region.