Conservation saves 48 species from extinction Wildlife plummets 2/3rds in 50 years

Newcastle, Sept. 10: Up to 48 bird and mammal extinctions have been prevented by conservation efforts since a global agreement to protect biodiversity, according to a new study. The Iberian lynx, California condor and pygmy hog are among animals that would have disappeared without reintroduction programmes, zoobased conservation and formal legal protections since 1993, research led by scientists at Newcastle University and BirdLife International found. The study, published in the journal Conservation Letters, estimates that extinction rates for birds and mammals would have been three to four times higher over that period, which was chosen because 1993 is when the UN Convention on Biological Diversity came into force, said The Guardian.

Since then, 15 bird and mammal species have become extinct or are strongly suspected to have disappeared. But researchers say that between 28 and 48 bird and mammal species were saved. They include the Puerto Rican amazon, a small parrot that had dwindled to only 13 wild individuals in 1975, and was saved from extinction by a reintroduction programme in a state park on the Caribbean island.

The original group was wiped out by hurricanes in 2017. In Mongolia, around 760 Przewalski’s horses roam the steppes once again, despite having become extinct in the wild in 1960. Reintroduction efforts in the early 90s mean there is now a selfsustaining wild population of the animals.

Paris, Sept. 10: Global animal, bird and fish populations have plummeted more than two-thirds in less than 50 years due to rampant over-consumption, experts said Thursday in a stark warning to save nature in order to save ourselves.

Human activity has severely degraded three quarters of all land and 40 percent of Earth’s oceans, and our quickening destruction of nature is likely to have untold consequences on our health and livelihoods.

The Living Planet Index, which tracks more than

4,000 species of vertebrates, warned that increasing deforestation and agricultural expansion were the key drivers behind a

68 percent average decline in populations between

1970 and 2016.

It warned that continued natural habitat loss increased the risk of future pandemics as humans expand their presence into ever closer contact with wild animals.

2020’s Living Planet Report, a collaboration between WWF International and the Zoological Society of London, is the 13th edition of the biennial publication tracking wildlife populations around the

Dr Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International and instigator of the study, said the findings showed that commitworld. WWF International director general Marco Lambertini said of the staggering loss of Earth’s biodiversity since 1970. “It’s an accelerating decrease that we’ve been monitoring for 30 years and it continues to go in the wrong direction,” he said.

“In 2016 we documented a 60 percent decline, now we have a 70 percent decline. “All this is in a blink of an eye compared to the millions of years that many species have been living on the planet,” Lambertini added. ments to prevent future species loss were “achievable and essential to sustain a healthy planet”.