Cataclysmic Decline in Global Wildlife, Says WWF Report

**Freedom** · 10-31-2018 01:14 PM

Action is needed now to halt cataclysmic decline in global wildlife, says WWF report

https://vancouversun.com/news/world/...c-5074d362a66d

Global vertebrate populations have fallen by 60 per cent since 1970 as human activity destroys their natural habitats in grasslands, forests, waterways and oceans, the organisation said in the Living Planet Report 2018.

Over the past 50 years expanding agricultural activity and the over-exploitation of natural resources to feed a growing world population, particularly its booming middle class, has pushed many ecosystems to the brink of collapse. “Humans are living beyond the planet’s means and wiping out life on earth in the process,” the report warns.

**Freedom** · 10-31-2018 01:19 PM

Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds

The huge loss is a tragedy in itself but also threatens the survival of civilisation, say the world’s leading scientists

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...r-report-finds

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.

The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.

“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”

“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTDDtc0WAAAaAzO.jpg[img]

**walrus** · 10-31-2018 02:25 PM

Yet we chastise cats for killing too many birds

**Freedom** · 10-31-2018 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by walrus

Yet we chastise cats for killing too many birds

Cats killing songbirds is indirectly the result of human activity too, and has been a factor in the decline and even the extinction of many species.

Humans bring cats into environments where they don't belong, nearly every household has a pet cat or sometimes several cats.

Humans also brought destructive rats into Britain, North America, and numerous Islands both rattus rattus (aka roof rat, black rat, bubonic plague rat) and rattus norvegicus (aka brown rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat), and that's played a role in the decline of many species.

Current range of rattus norvegicus:

**walrus** · 10-31-2018 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by Freedom

Originally Posted by walrus

Yet we chastise cats for killing too many birds

Cats killing songbirds is indirectly the result of human activity too, and has been a factor in the decline and even the extinction of many species.

Humans bring cats into environments where they don't belong, nearly every household has a pet cat or sometimes several cats.

Humans also brought destructive rats into Britain, North America, and numerous Islands both rattus rattus (aka roof rat, black rat, bubonic plague rat) and rattus norvegicus (aka brown rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat), and that's played a role in the decline of many species.

Current range of rattus norvegicus:

Ya human activity has decimated many animal populations. Cats kill things that flutter about and move quick, humans kill everything

**Dark Lord Al** · 11-01-2018 04:05 AM

Unfortunately as the human population grows the natural habitats for wildlife to live in are diminished. Mans the need for food and resources increases and it all has a knock on effect.
Very sad to see noble animals slaughtered for medicine etc.

**Gandalf** · 11-01-2018 08:44 AM

I agree. Those that argue there is room for more people are making excuses for greed and irresponsibility. Why anyone needs more than a child or 2 max is beyond me. An average of 6 per woman in some countries is grotesque. I would like mire nature and more human self control for the sake of a sustainable planet.