Sixth extinction of world's wildlife faster than feared
世界自然基金会公布的报告显示，受人类活动影响，野生动物第六次大灭绝已经开始。
The sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is appearing more quickly than feared, scientists have warned. More than 30 percent of animals with a backbone, fishes, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, are declining in both range and population.
It provides muchneeded data about the threat to wildlife, mapping the dwindling ranges and populations of 27,600 species. Forty percent of them, including rhinos, orangutans, gorillas and many big cats, are surviving on 20 percent or less of the land they once lived.
Several species of mammals that were relatively safe one or two decades ago are now endangered, including cheetahs, lions and giraffes, the study showed.
Globally, the mass dieoff, deemed to be the sixth in the last halfbillion years, is the worst since threequarters of life on Earth, including the nonavian dinosaurs, were wiped out 66 million years ago by a giant meteor impact.
The main drivers of wildlife decline are habitat loss, overconsumption, pollution, invasive species, disease, as well as poaching in the case of tigers, elephants, rhinos and other large animals prized for their body parts.
Climate change is considered to become a major threat in the coming decades, with some animals, most famously polar bears, already in decline due to rising temperatures and changing weather patterns.
The massive loss of populations and species reflects our lack of empathy to all the wild species that have been our companions since our origins.
