A thousand species of mammals are in immediate danger of extinction

This is according to reports given this week at the World Conservation Congress held in Barcelona * Mammals are a measure of all biological diversity

At the World Conservation Congress held this week in Barcelona, ​​Spain, it was reported that about a quarter of the mammal populations in our area are in retreat. Out of over 4,000 species of mammals whose populations are retreating, over a thousand are on the brink of extinction.

According to the study, 45 thousand different species of animals are in danger of extinction due to human takeover of the habitats, climate change and intensive hunting. Of these, about 450 mammals are in real danger of extinction, if not those that have already disappeared, an increase of over 50% within a decade.

Of the 2008 endangered species, 188 were classified under the "critically endangered" category, the worst after extinction. Prominent on the list are the sea lions living in the Caspian Sea, whose population has dwindled by 90%, and the Iberian schooner, of which only a few dozen remain, and Arabian tigers, of which only 84-143 adults remain. A Cuban rodent named Hutia, has not been seen for 40 years.

Most sources of information and communication report the negative findings, when you add and check it turns out that the mammals in this case are a measure (indicator) of the entire biological diversity in our environment. Tiny frogs and gorillas, hidden medicinal plants and huge forest trees, "ornamental" fish, corals and whales, molluscs, marsupials, insects and tigers, will disappear from our environment. A new report shows that an increase of two degrees will result in the destruction of more than half of the penguin population.

The list is long and continuous... everyone is disappearing from our surroundings, that is, a quarter of all the flora and fauna on our planet is disappearing, an eighth! on the brink of immediate extinction.

These are data that can only be seen in the geological past during periods of mass extinction. The disappearance of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, the extinction of 95% of the biological diversity about 250 million years ago, and so on. That is, we are in a geological period of mass extinction.

There are two fundamental differences between the great extinctions in the geological past of our planet and the current extinction, the first is that in the past the extinctions were caused by natural factors: volcanic eruptions, impact of a celestial body, radiation, etc., today the extinction is caused by a species that grows in a natural environment... a mammal "upper". The second difference is the speed and rate of extinction, in the past extinctions lasted over millions of years, the current extinction... a thousand times faster and more,

In the distant future, geologists will be able to determine that the human extinction occurred within a thousand years... or maybe less. If there are still those who hesitate or do not agree with the definition of "human extinction", here are a number of reasons for extinction:

• habitat loss due to deforestation, drying up of lakes and wetlands;
• "Occupation" for agricultural areas, wild hunting, wild fishing, emissions of pollutants into the air, in other words poisoning the atmosphere
• One of the most harmful and alarming phenomena that increases due to human activity is the "red tide"; ("red tides") due to the warming of the oceans and, moreover, due to excess fertilizers that seep into the water, toxic algae blooms proliferate that "steal" oxygen from the water and thus cause the mass death of all animals in days over vast and growing areas,

The factor whose effects are being discovered more and more is climate change or in less washed-out words - global warming. It turns out that one of the side effects of global warming is the outbreak of viral diseases that disappeared or were previously limited to small areas, diseases caused by parasites and spread by insects such as malaria "rise" north to the warmed areas, tick fever (lyme disease) appears in wide areas and growing in America and harming animals and people.

Because of a change in the rainfall regime in Central Africa, Ebola and its "cousin" Marburg appear in large areas, the two deadly diseases are spreading throughout Africa and affecting great apes (and man). Many diseases spread among wild animals and it is assumed that in the next phase humans will also pass, similar to bird flu, tick fever and others.

In a list that its authors have given the name "Deadly Dozen", the authors describe a list of 12 causes of diseases that will break out due to the warming, among the "expected" epidemics are tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, bird flu, intestinal parasites, rabies, fever- African cleft, yellow fever and other diseases that already affect wild animals, farm animals and humans.

According to the theories that explain evolution, the fit ones therefore survive: species that survived extinction constituted the "ancestors" of the biological diversity in our environment, including the ancestor of the species that today causes mass extinction, therefore the question arises where the seed of disaster was sown, whether it was possible to prevent its germination of that seed, can nature protect itself from its creatures, and most importantly, will those sprouts of the seed of calamity be able to understand their actions and be able to see the calamity they are causing, to see and stop the extinction?

Because the time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there will be control of the human population for the sake of the environment.