Some of the world’s largest, most spectacular and unheralded mammals are silently slipping away, due to more than disease and habitat fragmentation, deforestation or wildlife trade.
Some of the world’s largest, most spectacular and unheralded mammals are silently slipping away, due to more than disease and habitat fragmentation, deforestation or wildlife trade. According to a new study, ultimately species including Tibetan wild yaks and Patagonia’s huemul, Bhutan’s takin and Vietnam’s saola, even Africa’s three species of zebras and wildebeest, have suffered massive reductions over the last several decades because of rampant human population growth.
And unless human behavior changes in unprecedented ways, these scientists warn that future communities of these mammals will never resemble those of the recent past or even today.
The findings are based on the results of a study, “Disassembled food webs and messy projections: modern ungulate communities in the face of unabating human population growth,” published June 9 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
Joel Berger, lead author of the study and a professor at Colorado State University, said that the time for action is now to improve humanity’s future.
Read more at Colorado State University
Photo Credit: Fotogalilea via Wikimedia Commons
