{"id":1960,"date":"2019-05-24T06:43:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T06:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greentrends.mn\/?p=1960"},"modified":"2019-05-24T06:43:18","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T06:43:18","slug":"humans-causing-shrinking-of-nature-as-larger-animals-die-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/?p=1960&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Humans causing shrinking of nature as larger animals die off"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0<\/span>Larger animals such as rhinos are particularly vulnerable as they are more frequently targeted by humans. Photograph: Baz Ratner\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n
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Humanity\u2019s ongoing destruction of wildlife will lead to a shrinking of nature, with the average body size of animals falling by a quarter, a study predicts.<\/p>\n

The researchers estimate that more than 1,000 larger species of mammals and birds will go extinct in the next century, from rhinos to eagles. They say this could lead to the collapse of ecosystems that humans rely on for food and clean water.<\/p>\n

Humans have wiped out most large creatures from all inhabited continents apart from Africa over the last 125,000 years. This annihilation will accelerate rapidly in the coming years, according to the research.<\/p>\n

The future extinctions can be avoided if radical action is taken to protect wildlife and restore habitats, and the scientists say the new work can help focus efforts on key species.<\/p>\n

Animal populations have\u00a0fallen by 60%\u00a0since 1970, suggesting a\u00a0sixth mass extinction\u00a0of life on Earth is under way caused by the razing of wild areas, hunting and intensive farming. Scientists\u00a0said this month\u00a0that human society was in danger from the decline of the Earth\u2019s natural life-support systems, with half of natural ecosystems now destroyed and a total of a million species at risk of extinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is worrying that we are losing these big species when we don\u2019t know their full role,\u201d said Robert Cooke, at the University of Southampton, who led the new research. \u201cWithout them, things could begin to degrade quite quickly. Ecosystems could start to collapse and become not what we need to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Carbone, of the ZSL Institute of Zoology in London, said: \u201cThis study predicts extinction rates that dwarf those recorded between recent ice ages and suggests that larger species are the most vulnerable. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if the situation for many larger animals is worse than the researchers suggest as their decline is exacerbated by selective poaching and the illegal wildlife trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research,\u00a0published in the journal Nature Communications, analysed five traits of 15,500 species of mammals and birds, including body mass, breadth of habitat, diet and the length of time between generations. They combined these with data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2019s\u00a0red list of threatened species, which estimates the likelihood of extinction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Larger animals such as rhinos are particularly vulnerable as they are more frequently targeted by humans. Photograph: Baz Ratner\/Reuters Humanity\u2019s ongoing destruction of wildlife will lead to a shrinking of nature, with the average body size of animals falling by a quarter, a study predicts. The researchers estimate that more than 1,000 larger species of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1962,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960\/revisions\/1962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greentrends.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}