The Holocene extinction, also referred to as the Anthropocene extinction or the sixth mass extinction, is an ongoing

extinction event An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp fall in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It occ ...

caused exclusively by human activities during the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

epoch. This extinction event spans numerous families of plants and animals, including

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

s, birds, reptiles,

amphibian Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

s, fish, and

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s, impacting both terrestrial and marine species. Widespread degradation of

biodiversity hotspot A biodiversity hotspot is a ecoregion, biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in ''The Environmentalist'' in 1988 and 1990, after ...

s such as

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

s and

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

s has exacerbated the crisis. Many of these extinctions are undocumented, as the species are often undiscovered before their extinctions. Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates and are accelerating. Over the past 100–200 years, biodiversity loss has reached such alarming levels that some conservation biologists now believe

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

activities have triggered a mass extinction, or are on the cusp of doing so. As such, after the "Big Five" mass extinctions, the Holocene extinction event has been referred to as the sixth mass extinction. However, given the recent recognition of the Capitanian mass extinction, the term seventh mass extinction has also been proposed. The Holocene extinction was preceded by the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions (lasting from 50,000 to 10,000 years ago), in which many large mammalsincluding 81% of

megaherbivore Megaherbivores (Greek :wiktionary:μέγας, μέγας megas "large" and Latin ''herbivora'' "herbivore") are large herbivores that can exceed in weight. The earliest herbivores to reach such sizes like the Pareiasauria, pareiasaurs appeare ...

swent extinct, a decline attributed at least in part to human (anthropogenic) activities. There continue to be strong debates about the relative importance of anthropogenic factors and climate change, but a recent review concluded that there is little evidence for a major role of climate change and "strong" evidence for human activities as the principal driver. Examples from regions such as

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

have shown how human colonization and

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

have led to significant biodiversity losses. In the 20th century, the human population quadrupled, and the global economy grew twenty-five-fold. This period, often called the Great Acceleration, has intensified species' extinction. Humanity has become an unprecedented "global superpredator", preying on adult

apex predator An apex predator, also known as a top predator or superpredator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that they occupy the hig ...

s, invading

habitats In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

of other species, and disrupting

food web A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community. Position in the food web, or trophic level, is used in ecology to broadly classify organisms as autotrophs or he ...

s. As a consequence, many scientists have endorsed Paul Crutzen's concept of the

Anthropocene ''Anthropocene'' is a term that has been used to refer to the period of time during which human impact on the environment, humanity has become a planetary force of change. It appears in scientific and social discourse, especially with respect to ...

to describe humanity's domination of the Earth. The Holocene extinction continues into the 21st century, driven by

anthropogenic Anthropogenic ("human" + "generating") is an adjective that may refer to: * Anthropogeny, the study of the origins of humanity Anthropogenic may also refer to things that have been generated by humans, as follows: * Human impact on the enviro ...

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

, human population growth, and increasing consumption—particularly among affluent societies. Factors such as rising meat production,

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...

, and the destruction of critical habitats compound these issues. Other drivers include overexploitation of natural resources,

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...

, and

-induced shifts in

ecosystems An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

. Major extinction events during this period have been recorded across all continents, including

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and various islands. The cumulative effects of

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ...

, and wetland destruction have further destabilized ecosystems. Decline in amphibian populations, in particular, serves as an early indicator of broader ecological collapse. Despite this grim outlook, there are efforts to mitigate

biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in Biodiversity, b ...

. Conservation initiatives, international treaties, and sustainable practices aim to address this crisis. However, these efforts do not counteract the fact that human activity still threatens to cause large amounts of damage to the biosphere, including potentially to the human species itself.

Background

Mass extinctions are characterized by the loss of at least 75% of

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

within a geologically short period of time (i.e., less than 2 million years). The Holocene extinction is also known as the "sixth extinction", as it is possibly the sixth mass extinction event, after the

Ordovician–Silurian extinction events The Late Ordovician mass extinction (LOME), sometimes known as the end-Ordovician mass extinction or the Ordovician–Silurian extinction, is the first of the "big five" major mass Extinction event, extinction events in Earth's history, occurring ...

, the

Late Devonian extinction The Late Devonian mass extinction, also known as the Kellwasser event, was a mass extinction event which occurred around 372 million years ago, at the boundary between the Frasnian and Famennian ages of the Late Devonian period.Racki, 2005McGh ...

, the

Permian–Triassic extinction event The Permian–Triassic extinction event (also known as the P–T extinction event, the Late Permian extinction event, the Latest Permian extinction event, the End-Permian extinction event, and colloquially as the Great Dying,) was an extinction ...

, the

Triassic–Jurassic extinction event The Triassic–Jurassic (Tr-J) extinction event (TJME), often called the end-Triassic extinction, marks the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, . It represents one of five major extinction events during the Phanerozoic, profoundly ...

, and the

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, also known as the K–T extinction, was the extinction event, mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth approximately 66 million years ago. The event cau ...

. If the Capitanian extinction event is included among the first-order mass extinctions, the Holocene extinction would correspondingly be known as the "seventh extinction". The

is the current geological

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided b ...

Overview

The precise timing of the Holocene extinction event remains debated, with no clear consensus on when it began or whether it should be considered distinct from the Quaternary extinction event. However, most scientists agree that human activities are the primary driver of the Holocene extinction. A 1998 survey conducted by the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

found that 70% of biologists acknowledged an ongoing anthropogenic extinction event. Some researchers suggested that the activities of earlier

archaic humans ''Homo'' () is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus ''Australopithecus'' and encompasses only a single extant species, ''Homo sapiens'' (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively calle ...

may have contributed to earlier extinctions, especially in

, and

. Even modest hunting pressure, combined with the vulnerability of large animals on isolated islands, is thought to have been enough to wipe out entire species. Only in the more recent stages of the Holocene have plants suffered extensive losses, which are also linked to human activities such as deforestation and land conversion.

Extinction rate

The contemporary rate of extinction is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the natural background extinction rate—the typical rate of species loss through natural evolutionary processes. One estimation suggested the rate could be as high as 10,000 times the background extinction rate, though this figure remains controversial. Theoretical ecologist Stuart Pimm has noted that the extinction rate for plants alone is 100 times higher than normal. While some argue that the current extinction rates have not yet reached the catastrophic levels of past mass extinctions, Barnosky et al. (2011) and Hull et al. (2015) point out that extinction rates during past mass extinctions cannot be fully determined due to gaps in the fossil record. However, they agree that the ongoing biodiversity loss is nonetheless unprecedented. Estimates of species lost per year vary widely—from 1.5 to 40,000 species—but all indicate that human activity is driving this crisis. In ''The Future of Life'' (2002), biologist Edward Osborne Wilson predicted that, if current trend continues, half of Earth's higher lifeforms could be extinct by 2100. More recent studies further support this view. A 2015 study on Hawaiian snails suggested that up to 7% of Earth's species may already be extinct. A 2021 study also found that only around 3% of the planet's terrestrial surface remains ecologically and

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

lly intact—areas that still have healthy populations of native species and minimal human footprint. A 2022 study suggests that if global warming continues, between 13% and 27% of terrestrial vertebrate species could be driven to extinction by 2100, with habitat destructions and co-extinctions accounting for the rest. The 2019 ''

Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services The ''Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services'' is a report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, on the global state of biodiversity. A summary for policymakers was relea ...

'', published by the United Nations IPBES, estimated that about one million species are currently at risk of extinction within decades due to human activities. Organized human existence is jeopardised by increasingly rapid destruction of the systems that support life on Earth, according to the report, the result of one of the most comprehensive studies of the health of the planet ever conducted. Moreover, the 2021 ''Economics of Biodiversity'' review, published by the UK government, asserts that "biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history." According to a 2022 study published in '' Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment'', a survey of more than 3,000 experts says that the extent of the mass extinction might be greater than previously thought, and estimates that roughly 30% of species "have been globally threatened or driven extinct since the year 1500." In a 2022 report, IPBES listed unsustainable fishing, hunting, and

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucksPLOS One'' shows that around two million species are threatened with extinction, double the estimate put forward in the 2019 IPBES report. According to a 2023 study published in ''

PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of S ...

'', at least 73

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

of animals have gone extinct since 1500. If humans had never existed, the study estimates it would have taken 18,000 years for the same genera to have disappeared naturally, leading the authors to conclude that "the current generic extinction rates are 35 times higher than expected background rates prevailing in the last million years under the absence of human impacts" and that human civilization is causing the "rapid mutilation of the tree of life."

Attribution

There is widespread consensus among scientists that human activities—especially habitat destruction, resource consumption, and the elimination of species—are the main drivers of the current extinction crisis. Rising extinction rates among mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other groups have led many scientists to declare a global biodiversity crisis. Text and images are available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
.

Scientific debate

The description of recent extinction as a mass extinction has been debated among scientists. Stuart Pimm, for example, asserts that the sixth mass extinction "is something that hasn't happened yet—we are on the edge of it." Several studies posit that the Earth has entered a sixth mass extinction event, including a 2015 paper by Barnosky et al. and a November 2017 statement titled " World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice", led by eight authors and signed by 15,364 scientists from 184 countries which asserted, among other things, that "we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be extirpated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century." The

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named th ...

's 2020 '' Living Planet Report'' says that

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

populations have declined by 68% since 1970 as a result of

overconsumption Overconsumption describes a situation where consumers overuse their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this is the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater ...

population growth Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. The World population, global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025. Actual global human population growth amounts to aroun ...

, and

intensive farming Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of arable farming, crop plants and of Animal husbandry, animals, with higher levels ...

, which is further evidence that humans have unleashed a sixth mass extinction event; however, this finding has been disputed by one 2020 study, which posits that this major decline was primarily driven by a few extreme outlier populations, and that when these outliers are removed, the trend shifts to that of a decline between the 1980s and 2000s, but a roughly positive trend after 2000. A 2021 report in ''Frontiers in Conservation Science'' which cites both of the aforementioned studies, says "population sizes of vertebrate species that have been monitored across years have declined by an average of 68% over the last five decades, with certain population clusters in extreme decline, thus presaging the imminent extinction of their species," and asserts "that we are already on the path of a sixth major extinction is now scientifically undeniable." A January 2022

review article A review article is an article (publishing), article that summarizes the current Status quaestionis, state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline. A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze ...

published in ''Biological Reviews'' builds upon previous studies documenting biodiversity decline to assert that a sixth mass extinction event caused by anthropogenic activity is currently under way. A December 2022 study published in ''

Science Advances ''Science Advances'' is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal established in early 2015 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The journal's scope includes all areas of science. Hist ...

'' states that "the planet has entered the sixth mass extinction" and warns that current anthropogenic trends, particularly regarding climate and land-use changes, could result in the loss of more than a tenth of plant and animal species by the end of the century. 12% of all bird species are threatened with extinction. A 2023 study published in ''Biological Reviews'' found that, of 70,000 monitored species, some 48% are experiencing population declines from anthropogenic pressures, whereas only 3% have increasing populations. According to the

UNDP The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

's 2020

Human Development Report The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual Human Development Index report published by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The first HDR was launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist Ma ...

, ''The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene'': The 2022 ''Living Planet Report'' found that vertebrate wildlife populations have plummeted by an average of almost 70% since 1970, with agriculture and fishing being the primary drivers of this decline. Some scientists, including Rodolfo Dirzo and Paul R. Ehrlich, contend that the sixth mass extinction is largely unknown to most people globally and is also misunderstood by many in the scientific community. They say it is not the disappearance of species, which gets the most attention, that is at the heart of the crisis, but "the existential threat of myriad population extinctions."

Anthropocene

The abundance of species extinctions considered

, or due to human activity, has sometimes (especially when referring to hypothesized future events) been collectively called the "Anthropocene extinction". ''

'' is a term introduced in 2000. Some now postulate that a new geological epoch has begun, with the most abrupt and widespread extinction of species since the

66 million years ago. The term "anthropocene" is being used more frequently by scientists, and some commentators may refer to the current and projected future extinctions as part of a longer Holocene extinction. The Holocene–Anthropocene boundary is contested, with some commentators asserting significant human influence on climate for much of what is normally regarded as the

Epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided b ...

. Some experts mark the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene at the onset of the

industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

. They also note that the official use of this term in the near future will heavily rely on its usefulness, especially for Earth scientists studying late Holocene periods. It has been suggested that human activity has made the period starting from the mid-20th century different enough from the rest of the Holocene to consider it a new geological epoch, known as the Anthropocene, a term which was considered for inclusion in the timeline of Earth's history by the

International Commission on Stratigraphy The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), sometimes unofficially referred to as the International Stratigraphic Commission, is a daughter or major subcommittee grade scientific organization that concerns itself with stratigraphy, strati ...

in 2016, but the proposal was rejected in 2024.The Anthropocene
: IUGS-ICS Statement. March 20, 2024. To constitute the Holocene as an

, scientists must determine exactly when anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

began to measurably alter natural atmospheric levels on a global scale, and when these alterations caused changes to global climate. Using chemical proxies from Antarctic ice cores, researchers have estimated the fluctuations of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

(CO₂) and

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...

(CH₄) gases in the Earth's atmosphere during the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

and Holocene epochs. Estimates of the fluctuations of these two gases in the atmosphere, using chemical proxies from Antarctic ice cores, generally indicate that the peak of the Anthropocene occurred within the previous two centuries: typically beginning with the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

, when the highest greenhouse gas levels were recorded.

Human ecology

A 2015 article in ''Science'' suggested that humans are unique in ecology as an unprecedented "global superpredator", regularly preying on large numbers of fully grown terrestrial and marine

apex predators An apex predator, also known as a top predator or superpredator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that they occupy the hi ...

, and with a great deal of influence over food webs and climatic systems worldwide. Although significant debate exists as to how much human predation and indirect effects contributed to prehistoric extinctions, certain population crashes have been directly correlated with human arrival. Human activity has been the main cause of mammalian extinctions since the Late Pleistocene. A 2018 study published in ''

'' found that since the dawn of human civilization, the

biomass Biomass is a term used in several contexts: in the context of ecology it means living organisms, and in the context of bioenergy it means matter from recently living (but now dead) organisms. In the latter context, there are variations in how ...

of wild mammals has decreased by 83%. The biomass decrease is 80% for marine mammals, 50% for plants, and 15% for fish. Currently, livestock make up 60% of the biomass of all mammals on Earth, followed by humans (36%) and wild mammals (4%). As for birds, 70% are domesticated, such as poultry, whereas only 30% are wild.

Historic extinction

Human activity

Activities contributing to extinctions

Extinctions Africa Austrailia NAmerica Madagascar

Extinction of animals, plants, and other organisms caused by human actions may go as far back as the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

, over 12,000 years ago. There is a correlation between megafaunal extinction and the arrival of humans. Megafauna that are still extant also suffered severe declines that were highly correlated with human expansion and activity. Over the past 125,000 years, the average body size of wildlife has fallen by 14% as actions by prehistoric humans eradicated

megafauna In zoology, megafauna (from Ancient Greek, Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and Neo-Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately , this lower en ...

on all continents with the exception of Africa. Over the past 130,000 years, avian functional diversity has declined precipitously and disproportionately relative to phylogenetic diversity losses. Human civilization was founded on and grew from agriculture. The more land used for farming, the greater the population a civilization could sustain, and subsequent popularization of farming led to widespread habitat conversion. Habitat destruction by humans, thus replacing the original local ecosystems, is a major driver of extinction. The sustained conversion of biodiversity rich forests and wetlands into poorer fields and pastures (of lesser carrying capacity for wild species), over the last 10,000 years, has considerably reduced the Earth's carrying capacity for wild birds and mammals, among other organisms, in both population size and species count. Other, related human causes of the extinction event include

, hunting, pollution, the introduction in various regions of non-native species, and the widespread transmission of

infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...

s spread through livestock and crops.

Agriculture and climate change

Recent investigations into the practice of landscape burning during the

Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...

have a major implication for the current debate about the timing of the Anthropocene and the role that humans may have played in the production of greenhouse gases prior to the

. Studies of early hunter-gatherers raise questions about the current use of population size or density as a proxy for the amount of land clearance and anthropogenic burning that took place in pre-industrial times. Scientists have questioned the correlation between population size and early territorial alterations. Ruddiman and Ellis' research paper in 2009 makes the case that early farmers involved in systems of agriculture used more land per capita than growers later in the Holocene, who intensified their labor to produce more food per unit of area (thus, per laborer); arguing that agricultural involvement in rice production implemented thousands of years ago by relatively small populations created significant environmental impacts through large-scale means of deforestation. While a number of human-derived factors are recognized as contributing to rising atmospheric concentrations of CH₄ (methane) and CO₂ (carbon dioxide), deforestation and territorial clearance practices associated with agricultural development may have contributed most to these concentrations globally in earlier millennia. Scientists that are employing a variance of

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and paleoecological data argue that the processes contributing to substantial human modification of the environment spanned many thousands of years on a global scale and thus, not originating as late as the

. Palaeoclimatologist William Ruddiman has argued that in the early Holocene 11,000 years ago, atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels fluctuated in a pattern which was different from the Pleistocene epoch before it. He argued that the patterns of the significant decline of CO₂ levels during the last ice age of the Pleistocene inversely correlate to the Holocene where there have been dramatic increases of CO₂ around 8000 years ago and CH₄ levels 3000 years after that. The correlation between the decrease of CO₂ in the Pleistocene and the increase of it during the

implies that the causation of this spark of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere was the growth of human agriculture during the Holocene.

Climate change

Aridity ice age vs early holocene vs modern

One of the main theories explaining early Holocene extinctions is historic climate change. The climate change theory has suggested that a change in climate near the end of the late Pleistocene stressed the megafauna to the point of extinction. Some scientists favor abrupt climate change as the catalyst for the extinction of the megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene, most who believe increased hunting from early modern humans also played a part, with others even suggesting that the two interacted. In the Americas, a controversial explanation for the shift in climate is presented under the

Younger Dryas impact hypothesis The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (YDIH) proposes that the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) cool period (stadial) at the end of the Last Glacial Period, around 12,900 years ago was the result of some kind of cosmic event with specific details var ...

, which states that the impact of comets cooled global temperatures. Despite its popularity among nonscientists, this hypothesis has never been accepted by relevant experts, who dismiss it as a fringe theory.

Contemporary extinction

History

Contemporary

human overpopulation Human overpopulation (or human population overshoot) is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustainability, sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of wor ...

and continued

, along with

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

and per-capita consumption growth, prominently in the past two centuries, are regarded as the underlying causes of extinction. Inger Andersen, the executive director of the

United Nations Environment Programme The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the Declaration of the United Nati ...

, stated that "we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure. As far as biodiversity is concerned, we are at war with nature." Some scholars assert that the emergence of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

as the dominant economic system has accelerated ecological exploitation and destruction, and has also exacerbated mass species extinction. CUNY professor David Harvey, for example, posits that the

neoliberal Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...

era "happens to be the era of the fastest mass extinction of species in the Earth's recent history". Ecologist William E. Rees concludes that the "neoliberal paradigm contributes significantly to planetary unraveling" by treating the economy and the ecosphere as totally separate systems, and by neglecting the latter. Major lobbying organizations representing corporations in the agriculture, fisheries, forestry and paper, mining, and oil and gas industries, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, have been pushing back against legislation that could address the extinction crisis. A 2022 report by the climate think tank InfluenceMap stated that "although industry associations, especially in the US, appear reluctant to discuss the biodiversity crisis, they are clearly engaged on a wide range of policies with significant impacts on biodiversity loss." Giraffe koure niger 2006

The loss of animal species from ecological communities, defaunation, is primarily driven by human activity. This has resulted in empty forests, ecological communities depleted of large vertebrates. This is not to be confused with extinction, as it includes both the disappearance of species and declines in abundance. Defaunation effects were first implied at the Symposium of Plant-Animal Interactions at the University of Campinas, Brazil in 1988 in the context of Neotropical forests. Since then, the term has gained broader usage in conservation biology as a global phenomenon.

Big cat The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus ''Panthera'', namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard. All cats descend from the ''Felidae'' family, sharing similar musculature, c ...

populations have severely declined over the last half-century and could face extinction in the following decades. According to 2011

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

estimates: lions are down to 25,000, from 450,000; leopards are down to 50,000, from 750,000; cheetahs are down to 12,000, from 45,000; tigers are down to 3,000 in the wild, from 50,000. A December 2016 study by the Zoological Society of London, Panthera Corporation and

Wildlife Conservation Society The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a global 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) non-governmental organization, headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, with a mission to save "wildlife and wild places across the globe". Founded in ...

showed that cheetahs are far closer to extinction than previously thought, with only 7,100 remaining in the wild, existing within only 9% of their historic range. Human pressures are to blame for the cheetah population crash, including prey loss due to overhunting by people, retaliatory killing from farmers, habitat loss and the illegal wildlife trade. Populations of

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

s have experienced similar population decline. The term

pollinator decline Pollinator decline is the reduction in abundance of insect and other animal pollinators in many ecosystems worldwide that began being recorded at the end of the 20th century. Multiple lines of evidence exist for the reduction of wild pollinator p ...

refers to the reduction in abundance of insect and other animal pollinators in many ecosystems worldwide beginning at the end of the twentieth century, and continuing into the present day. Pollinators, which are necessary for 75% of food crops, are declining globally in both abundance and diversity. A 2017 study led by Radboud University's Hans de Kroon indicated that the biomass of insect life in Germany had declined by three-quarters in the previous 25 years. Participating researcher Dave Goulson of Sussex University stated that their study suggested that humans are making large parts of the planet uninhabitable for wildlife. Goulson characterized the situation as an approaching "ecological Armageddon", adding that "if we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse." A 2019 study found that over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction. The most significant drivers in the decline of insect populations are associated with

practices, along with pesticide use and climate change. The world's insect population decreases by around 1 to 2% per year. Ringtailed Lemurs in Berenty

Various species are predicted to become extinct in the near future, among them some species of

rhinoceros A rhinoceros ( ; ; ; : rhinoceros or rhinoceroses), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) in the family (biology), famil ...

primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

s, and

pangolin Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: '' Manis'', '' Phataginus'', and '' Smutsia''. ''Manis'' comprises four species found in Asia, while ' ...

s. Others, including several species of giraffe, are considered " vulnerable" and are experiencing significant population declines from anthropogenic impacts including hunting, deforestation and conflict. Hunting alone threatens bird and mammalian populations around the world. The direct killing of

for meat and body parts is the primary driver of their destruction, with 70% of the 362 megafauna species in decline as of 2019. Mammals in particular have suffered such severe losses as the result of human activity (mainly during the Quaternary extinction event, but partly during the Holocene) that it could take several million years for them to recover. Contemporary assessments have discovered that roughly 41% of amphibians, 25% of mammals, 21% of reptiles and 14% of birds are threatened with extinction, which could disrupt ecosystems on a global scale and eliminate billions of years of phylogenetic diversity. 189 countries, which are signatory to the

Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...

(Rio Accord), have committed to preparing a Biodiversity Action Plan, a first step at identifying specific

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

and habitats, country by country. A 2023 study published in ''

Current Biology ''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research artic ...

'' concluded that current biodiversity loss rates could reach a tipping point and inevitably trigger a total ecosystem collapse.

Recent extinction

Recent extinctions are more directly attributable to human influences, whereas prehistoric extinctions can be attributed to other factors. The

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

(IUCN) characterizes 'recent' extinction as those that have occurred past the cut-off point of 1500, and at least 875 plant and animal species have gone extinct since that time and 2009. Some species, such as the Père David's deer and the Hawaiian crow, are extinct in the wild, and survive solely in captive populations. Other populations are only locally extinct (extirpated), still existent elsewhere, but reduced in distribution, as with the extinction of

gray whale The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of , a weight of up to and lives between ...

s in the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

, and of the leatherback sea turtle in Malaysia. Since the Late Pleistocene, humans (together with other factors) have been rapidly driving the largest vertebrate animals towards extinction, and in the process interrupting a 66-million-year-old feature of ecosystems, the relationship between diet and body mass, which researchers suggest could have unpredictable consequences. A 2019 study published in ''

Nature Communications ''Nature Communications'' is a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio since 2010. It is a multidisciplinary journal that covers the natural sciences, including physics, chemistry, earth sciences, medic ...

'' found that rapid biodiversity loss is impacting larger mammals and birds to a much greater extent than smaller ones, with the body mass of such animals expected to shrink by 25% over the next century. Another 2019 study published in ''

Biology Letters ''Biology Letters'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Royal Society, established in 2005. It focuses on the rapid publication of short research articles, reviews, and opinion pieces across the biological sciences. The editor-in ...

'' found that extinction rates are perhaps much higher than previously estimated, in particular for bird species. The 2019 ''

'' lists the primary causes of contemporary extinctions in descending order: (1) changes in land and sea use (primarily agriculture and overfishing respectively); (2) direct exploitation of organisms such as hunting; (3) anthropogenic climate change; (4) pollution and (5) invasive alien species spread by human trade. This report, along with the 2020 '' Living Planet Report'' by the WWF, both project that climate change will be the leading cause in the next several decades. A June 2020 study published in ''

'' posits that the contemporary extinction crisis "may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible" and that its acceleration "is certain because of the still fast growth in human numbers and consumption rates." The study found that more than 500

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

species are poised to be lost in the next two decades.

Habitat destruction

Humans both create and destroy crop cultivar and

domesticated animal This page gives a list of domesticated animals, also including a list of domestication of animals, animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simp ...

varieties. Advances in transportation and industrial farming has led to

monoculture In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monocultures increase ease and efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting crops short-term, often with the help of machinery. However, monocultur ...

and the extinction of many cultivars. The use of certain plants and animals for food has also resulted in their extinction, including silphium and the

passenger pigeon The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (''Ectopistes migratorius'') is an bird extinction, extinct species of Columbidae, pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word ''passager'', meaning "passing by" ...

. It was estimated in 2012 that 13% of Earth's ice-free land surface is used as row-crop agricultural sites, 26% used as pastures, and 4% urban-industrial areas. In March 2019, '' Nature Climate Change'' published a study by ecologists from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, who found that over the next half century, human land use will reduce the habitats of 1,700 species by up to 50%, pushing them closer to extinction. That same month ''

PLOS Biology ''PLOS Biology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of biology. Publication began on October 13, 2003. It is the first journal published by the Public Library of Science. The editor-in-chief is Nonia Pariente. In ...

'' published a similar study drawing on work at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

, which found that "more than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and will almost certainly face extinction without conservation intervention". Since 1970, the populations of migratory freshwater fish have declined by 76%, according to research published by the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity and organization devoted to the worldwide animal conservation, conservation of animals and their habitat conservation, habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained London Zo ...

in July 2020. Overall, around one in three freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction due to human-driven habitat degradation and overfishing. Malayasia iko 2002169

Some scientists and academics assert that

industrial agriculture Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of crops and animals and animal products like eggs or milk. The methods of industrial agriculture include innovation in agricultural machinery and ...

and the growing demand for

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

is contributing to significant global

as this is a significant driver of

and habitat destruction; species-rich habitats, such as the

Amazon region The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

being converted to agriculture. A 2017 study by the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...

(WWF) found that 60% of biodiversity loss can be attributed to the vast scale of feed crop cultivation required to rear tens of billions of farm animals. Moreover, a 2006 report by the

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates ...

(FAO) of the United Nations, '' Livestock's Long Shadow'', also found that the livestock sector is a "leading player" in biodiversity loss. More recently, in 2019, the IPBES ''

'' attributed much of this ecological destruction to agriculture and fishing, with the meat and dairy industries having a very significant impact. Since the 1970s food production has soared to feed a growing human population and bolster economic growth, but at a huge price to the environment and other species. The report says some 25% of the Earth's ice-free land is used for cattle grazing. A 2020 study published in ''

'' warned that human impacts from housing, industrial agriculture and in particular meat consumption are wiping out a combined 50 billion years of Earth's evolutionary history (defined as phylogenetic diversity) and driving to extinction some of the "most unique animals on the planet," among them the

Aye-aye The aye-aye (''Daubentonia madagascariensis'') is a long-fingered lemur, a Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar with rodent-like teeth that perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger that they can use to catch grubs ...

lemur, the Chinese crocodile lizard and the

. Said lead author Rikki Gumbs: Urbanization has also been cited as a significant driver of biodiversity loss, particularly of plant life. A 1999 study of local plant extirpations in Great Britain found that urbanization contributed at least as much to local plant extinction as did agriculture.

Climate change

Climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

is expected to be a major driver of extinctions from the 21st century. Rising levels of carbon dioxide are resulting in influx of this gas into the ocean, increasing its acidity. Marine organisms which possess calcium carbonate shells or

exoskeleton An exoskeleton () . is a skeleton that is on the exterior of an animal in the form of hardened integument, which both supports the body's shape and protects the internal organs, in contrast to an internal endoskeleton (e.g. human skeleton, that ...

s experience physiological pressure as the carbonate reacts with acid. For example, this is already resulting in

coral bleaching Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to loss of Symbiosis, symbiotic algae and Photosynthesis, photosynthetic pigments. This loss of pigment can be caused by various stressors, such as changes in water temperature, light, ...

on various

s worldwide, which provide valuable habitat and maintain a high biodiversity. Marine

gastropods Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. Ther ...

, bivalves, and other invertebrates are also affected, as are the organisms that feed on them. Some studies have suggested that it is not climate change that is driving the current extinction crisis, but the demands of contemporary human civilization on nature. However, a rise in average global temperatures greater than 5.2 °C is projected to cause a mass extinction similar to the "Big Five" mass extinction events of the Phanerozoic, even without other anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity.

Overexploitation

Overhunting can reduce the local population of game animals by more than half, as well as reducing population density, and may lead to extinction for some species. Populations located nearer to villages are significantly more at risk of depletion. Several conservationist organizations, among them IFAW and HSUS, assert that trophy hunters, particularly from the United States, are playing a significant role in the decline of giraffes, which they refer to as a "silent extinction". The surge in the mass killings by poachers involved in the illegal ivory trade along with habitat loss is threatening

African elephant African elephants are members of the genus ''Loxodonta'' comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant (''L. africana'') and the smaller African forest elephant (''L. cyclotis''). Both are social herbivores with grey skin. ...

populations. In 1979, their populations stood at 1.7 million; at present there are fewer than 400,000 remaining. Prior to European colonization, scientists believe Africa was home to roughly 20 million elephants. According to the Great Elephant Census, 30% of African elephants (or 144,000 individuals) disappeared over a seven-year period, 2007 to 2014. African elephants could become extinct by 2035 if poaching rates continue. Number of African elephants

Fishing has had a devastating effect on marine organism populations for several centuries even before the explosion of destructive and highly effective fishing practices like trawling. Humans are unique among predators in that they regularly prey on other adult

s, particularly in marine environments; bluefin tuna,

blue whale The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known ever to have existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...

North Atlantic right whale The North Atlantic right whale (''Eubalaena glacialis'') is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena'', all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their sl ...

s, and over fifty species of sharks and rays are vulnerable to predation pressure from human fishing, in particular commercial fishing. A 2016 study published in ''Science'' concludes that humans tend to hunt larger species, and this could disrupt ocean ecosystems for millions of years. A 2020 study published in ''

'' found that around 18% of marine megafauna, including iconic species such as the

Great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocea ...

, are at risk of extinction from human pressures over the next century. In a worst-case scenario, 40% could go extinct over the same time period. According to a 2021 study published in ''Nature'', 71% of oceanic shark and ray populations have been destroyed by

(the primary driver of ocean defaunation) from 1970 to 2018, and are nearing the "point of no return" as 24 of the 31 species are now threatened with extinction, with several being classified as critically endangered. Almost two-thirds of sharks and rays around coral reefs are threatened with extinction from overfishing, with 14 of 134 species being critically endangered.

Disease

The decline of amphibian populations has also been identified as an indicator of environmental degradation. As well as habitat loss, introduced predators and pollution, Chytridiomycosis, a fungal infection accidentally spread by human travel, globalization, and the wildlife trade, has caused severe population drops of over 500 amphibian species, and perhaps 90 extinctions, including (among many others) the extinction of the

golden toad The golden toad (''Incilius periglenes'') is an extinct species of true toad that was once abundant in a small, high-altitude region of about in an area north of the city of Monteverde, Costa Rica. It was endemic to elfin cloud forest. Also c ...

in Costa Rica, the Gastric-brooding frog in Australia, the Rabb's Fringe-limbed Treefrog and the extinction of the Panamanian golden frog in the wild. Chytrid fungus has spread across Australia, New Zealand, Central America and Africa, including countries with high amphibian diversity such as

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

s in

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

and

. '' Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans'' is a similar infection currently threatening

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

s. Amphibians are now the most endangered vertebrate group, having existed for more than 300 million years through three other

mass extinction An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp fall in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It occ ...

s. Millions of bats in the US have been dying off since 2012 due to a fungal infection known as white-nose syndrome that spread from European bats, who appear to be immune. Population drops have been as great as 90% within five years, and extinction of at least one bat species is predicted. There is currently no form of treatment, and such declines have been described as "unprecedented" in bat evolutionary history by Alan Hicks of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Between 2007 and 2013, over ten million beehives were abandoned due to colony collapse disorder, which causes

worker bee A worker bee is any female bee that lacks the reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee and carries out the majority of tasks needed for the functioning of the hive. While worker bees are present in all eusocial bee species, the term is rar ...

s to abandon the

queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

. Though no single cause has gained widespread acceptance by the scientific community, proposals include infections with '' Varroa'' and ''Acarapis''

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...

; various

pathogen In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of"), in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a Germ theory of d ...

s; genetic factors; immunodeficiencies; loss of habitat; changing

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as '' Melipona'' stingless bees are ...

practices; or a combination of factors.

By region

Megafauna In zoology, megafauna (from Ancient Greek, Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and Neo-Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately , this lower en ...

were once found on every continent of the world, but are now almost exclusively found on the continent of Africa. In some regions, megafauna experienced population crashes and trophic cascades shortly after the earliest human settlers. Worldwide, 178 species of the world's largest mammals died out between 52,000 and 9,000 BC; it has been suggested that a higher proportion of African megafauna survived because they evolved alongside humans. The timing of South American megafaunal extinction appears to precede human arrival, although the possibility that human activity at the time impacted the global climate enough to cause such an extinction has been suggested.

Africa

Africa experienced the smallest decline in megafauna compared to the other continents. This is presumably due to the idea that African megafauna evolved alongside humans, and thus developed a healthy fear of them, unlike the comparatively tame animals of other continents.

Eurasia

Unlike other continents, the megafauna of Eurasia went extinct over a relatively long period of time, possibly due to climate fluctuations fragmenting and decreasing populations, leaving them vulnerable to over-exploitation, as with the

steppe bison The steppe bison (''Bison'' ''priscus'', also less commonly known as the steppe wisent and the primeval bison) is an extinct species of bison which lived from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. During the Late Pleistocene, it was widely dist ...

(''Bison priscus''). The warming of the arctic region caused the rapid decline of grasslands, which had a negative effect on the grazing megafauna of Eurasia. Most of what once was mammoth steppe was converted to

mire A peatland is a type of wetland whose soils consist of Soil organic matter, organic matter from decaying plants, forming layers of peat. Peatlands arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, du ...

, rendering the environment incapable of supporting them, notably the

woolly mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African ...

. However, all these megafauna had survived previous interglacials with the same or more intense warming, suggesting that even during warm periods, refugia may have existed and that human hunting may have been the critical factor for their extinction. In the western Mediterranean region, anthropogenic forest degradation began around 4,000 BP, during the Chalcolithic, and became especially pronounced during the Roman era. The reasons for the decline of forest ecosystems stem from agriculture, grazing, and mining. During the twilight years of the

Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...

, forests in northwestern Europe rebounded from losses incurred throughout the Roman period, though deforestation on a large scale resumed once again around 800 BP, during the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history between and ; it was preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended according to historiographical convention ...

. In southern China, human land use is believed to have permanently altered the trend of vegetation dynamics in the region, which was previously governed by temperature. This is evidenced by high fluxes of charcoal from that time interval.

Americas

There has been a debate as to the extent to which the disappearance of

at the end of the last

glacial period A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

can be attributed to human activities by hunting, or even by slaughter of prey populations. Discoveries at Monte Verde in South America and at Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania have caused a controversy regarding the Clovis culture. There likely would have been human settlements prior to the Clovis culture, and the history of humans in the Americas may extend back many thousands of years before the Clovis culture. The amount of correlation between human arrival and megafauna extinction is still being debated: for example, in

Wrangel Island Wrangel Island (, ; , , ) is an island of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the List of islands by area, 92nd-largest island in the world and roughly the size of Crete. Located in the Arctic Ocean between the Chukchi Sea and East Si ...

in Siberia the extinction of dwarf

s (approximately 2000 BC) did not coincide with the arrival of humans, nor did megafaunal mass extinction on the South American continent, although it has been suggested climate changes induced by anthropogenic effects elsewhere in the world may have contributed. Glyptodon old drawing

Comparisons are sometimes made between recent extinctions (approximately since the

) and the Pleistocene extinction near the end of the last

. The latter is exemplified by the extinction of large herbivores such as the

and the carnivores that preyed on them. Humans of this era actively hunted the

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

and the

mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

, but it is not known if this hunting was the cause of the subsequent massive ecological changes, widespread extinctions and climate changes. The ecosystems encountered by the first Americans had not been exposed to human interaction, and may have been far less resilient to human made changes than the ecosystems encountered by industrial era humans. Therefore, the actions of the Clovis people, despite seeming insignificant by today's standards could indeed have had a profound effect on the ecosystems and wild life which was entirely unused to human influence. In the Yukon, the mammoth steppe ecosystem collapsed between 13,500 and 10,000 BP, though wild horses and woolly mammoths somehow persisted in the region for millennia after this collapse. In what is now Texas, a drop in local plant and animal biodiversity occurred during the Younger Dryas cooling, though while plant diversity recovered after the Younger Dryas, animal diversity did not. In the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

, multiple terrestrial species went extinct around the same time as human arrival, but direct evidence for an anthropogenic cause of their extinction remains lacking. In the montane forests of the Colombian Andes, spores of coprophilous fungi indicate megafaunal extinction occurred in two waves, the first occurring around 22,900 BP and the second around 10,990 BP. A 2023 study of megafaunal extinctions in the Junín Plateau of

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

found that the timing of the disappearance of megafauna was concurrent with a large uptick in fire activity attributed to human actions, implicating humans as the cause of their local extinction on the plateau.

New Guinea

Humans in New Guinea used volcanically fertilised soil following major eruptions and interfered with vegetation succession patterns since the Late Pleistocene, with this process intensifying in the Holocene.

Australia

Australia was once home to a large assemblage of megafauna, with many parallels to those found on the African continent today. Australia's fauna is characterized by primarily

marsupial Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a r ...

mammals, and many reptiles and birds, all existing as giant forms until recently.

Humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

arrived on the continent very early, about 50,000 years ago. The extent human arrival contributed is controversial; climatic drying of Australia 40,000–60,000 years ago was an unlikely cause, as it was less severe in speed or magnitude than previous regional climate change which failed to kill off megafauna. Extinctions in Australia continued from original settlement until today in both

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

and

animals Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a ...

, while many more animals and

have declined or are endangered. Due to the older timeframe and the soil chemistry on the continent, very little subfossil preservation evidence exists relative to elsewhere. However, continent-wide extinction of all genera weighing over 100 kilograms, and six of seven genera weighing between 45 and 100 kilograms occurred around 46,400 years ago (4,000 years after human arrival) and the fact that megafauna survived until a later date on the island of

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

following the establishment of a land bridge suggest direct hunting or anthropogenic ecosystem disruption such as fire-stick farming as likely causes. The first evidence of direct human predation leading to extinction in Australia was published in 2016. A 2021 study found that the rate of extinction of Australia's megafauna is rather unusual, with some generalistic species having gone extinct earlier while highly specialized ones having become extinct later or even still surviving today. A mosaic cause of extinction with different anthropogenic and environmental pressures has been proposed. The arrival of invasive species such as feral cats and cane toads has further devastated Australia's ecosystems. Since European colonisation Australia has lost over 100 plant and animal species, including 10% of its mammal species, the highest of any continent.

Caribbean

Human arrival in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

around 6,000 years ago is correlated with the extinction of many species. These include many different genera of ground and arboreal sloths across all islands. These sloths were generally smaller than those found on the South American continent. ''

Megalocnus ''Megalocnus'' ("great sloth" in Greek) is a genus of extinct ground sloths that were native to Cuba during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. They were among the largest of the Caribbean sloths (Megalocnidae), with individuals estimated to ha ...

'' were the largest genus at up to , '' Acratocnus'' were medium-sized relatives of modern two-toed sloths endemic to

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

, '' Imagocnus'' also of Cuba, '' Neocnus'' and many others.

Macaronesia

The arrival of the first human settlers in the

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

saw the introduction of invasive plants and livestock to the archipelago, resulting in the extinction of at least two plant species on

Pico Island Pico Island (''Ilha do Pico,'' ) is an island in the Central Group, Azores, Central Group of the Portugal, Portuguese Azores. The landscape features an eponymous volcano, Mount Pico, Ponta do Pico, which is the highest mountain in Portugal, the A ...

. On

Faial Island Faial Island (), also known as Fayal Island, is a Portugal, Portuguese island of the Central Group or ''Grupo Central'' of the Azores, in the Atlantic Ocean. The Capelinhos volcano is the westernmost point of the island and is considered the we ...

, the decline of '' Prunus lusitanica'' has been hypothesized by some scholars to have been related to the tree species being endozoochoric, with the extirpation or extinction of various bird species drastically limiting its seed dispersal. Lacustrine ecosystems were ravaged by human colonization, as evidenced by hydrogen isotopes from C₃₀ fatty acids recording hypoxic bottom waters caused by eutrophication in Lake Funda on Flores Island beginning between 1500 and 1600 AD. The arrival of humans on the archipelago of

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

caused the extinction of approximately two-thirds of its endemic bird species, with two non-endemic birds also being locally extirpated from the archipelago. Of thirty-four land snail species collected in a subfossil sample from eastern Madeira Island, nine became extinct following the arrival of humans. On the Desertas Islands, of forty-five land snail species known to exist before human colonization, eighteen are extinct and five are no longer present on the islands. '' Eurya stigmosa'', whose extinction is typically attributed to climate change following the end of the Pleistocene rather than humans, may have survived until the colonization of the archipelago by the Portuguese and gone extinct as a result of human activity. Introduced mice have been implicated as a leading driver of extinction on Madeira following its discovery and settlement by humans. In the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

, native thermophilous woodlands were decimated and two tree taxa were driven extinct following the arrival of its first humans, primarily as a result of increased fire clearance and soil erosion and the introduction of invasive pigs, goats, and rats. Invasive species introductions accelerated during the

Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which Seamanship, seafarers fro ...

when Europeans first settled the

Macaronesia Macaronesia (; ) is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic, North Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of list of islands in the Atlantic Oc ...

n archipelago. The archipelago's laurel forests, though still negatively impacted, fared better due to being less suitable for human economic use. Cabo Verde, like the Canary Islands, witnessed precipitous deforestation upon the arrival of European settlers and various invasive species brought by them in the archipelago, with the archipelago's thermophilous woodlands suffering the greatest destruction. Introduced species, overgrazing, increased fire incidence, and soil degradation have been attributed as the chief causes of Cabo Verde's ecological devastation.

Pacific

Archaeological and paleontological digs on 70 different

Pacific islands The Pacific islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of several ...

suggested that numerous species became extinct as people moved across the Pacific, starting 30,000 years ago in the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about . History The first inhabitants of the archipela ...

and

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

. It is currently estimated that among the bird species of the Pacific, some 2000 species have gone extinct since the arrival of humans, representing a 20% drop in the biodiversity of birds worldwide. In Polynesia, the Late Holocene declines in avifaunas only abated after they were heavily depleted and there were increasingly fewer bird species able to be driven to extinction. Iguanas were likewise decimated by the spread of humans. Additionally, the endemic faunas of Pacific archipelagos are exceptionally at risk in the coming decades due to rising sea levels caused by global warming. Lord Howe Island, which remained uninhabited until the arrival of Europeans in the South Pacific in the 18th century, lost much of its endemic avifauna when it became a whaling station in the early 19th century. Another wave of bird extinctions occurred following the introduction of black rats in 1918. The endemic megafaunal meiolaniid turtles of Vanuatu - representing the final members of a group that had existed for over 100 million years - became extinct immediately following the first human arrivals and remains of them containing evidence of butchery by humans have been found. The arrival of humans in

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

marked the commencement of coastal forest and mangrove decline on the island. The archipelago's megafauna - such as the large, flightless galliform '' Sylviornis'' - was still extant when humans arrived, but indisputable evidence for the anthropogenicity of their extinction remains elusive. In Fiji, the giant iguanas '' Brachylophus gibbonsi'' and '' Lapitiguana impensa'' both succumbed to human-induced extinction shortly after encountering the first humans on the island. In

American Samoa American Samoa is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States located in the Polynesia region of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. Centered on , it is southeast of the island count ...

, deposits dating back to the period of initial human colonisation contain elevated quantities of bird, turtle, and fish remains caused by increased predation pressure. On Mangaia in the

Cook Islands The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...

, human colonisation was associated with a major extinction of endemic avifauna, along with deforestation, erosion of volcanic hillsides, and increased charcoal influx, causing additional environmental damage. On Rapa in the Austral Archipelago, human arrival, marked by the increase in charcoal and in

taro Taro (; ''Colocasia esculenta'') is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, stems and Petiole (botany), petioles. Taro corms are a ...

pollen in the palynological record, is associated with the extinction of an endemic palm. Henderson Island, once thought to be untouched by humans, was colonised and later abandoned by Polynesians. The ecological collapse on the island caused by the anthropogenic extinctions is believed to have caused the island's abandonment. The first human settlers of the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands () are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the Hawaii (island), island of Hawaii in the south to nort ...

are thought to have arrived between 300 and 800 AD, with European arrival in the 16th century. Hawaii is notable for its

endemism Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

of plants,

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

, insects, mollusks and

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

; 30% of its organisms are endemic. Many of its species are endangered or have gone extinct, primarily due to accidentally introduced species and livestock grazing. Over 40% of its bird species have gone extinct, and it is the location of 75% of extinctions in the United States. Evidence suggests that the introduction of the Polynesian rat, above all other factors, drove the ecocide of the endemic forests of the archipelago. Extinction has increased in Hawaii over the last 200 years and is relatively well documented, with extinctions among native snails used as estimates for global extinction rates. High rates of habitat fragmentation on the archipelago have further reduced biodiversity. The extinction of endemic Hawaiian avifauna is likely to accelerate even further as anthropogenic global warming adds additional pressure on top of land-use changes and invasive species.

Madagascar

Within centuries of the arrival of

humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

around the 1st millennium AD, nearly all of Madagascar's distinct,

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

, and geographically isolated megafauna became extinct. The largest animals, of more than , were extinct very shortly after the first human arrival, with large and medium-sized species dying out after prolonged hunting pressure from an expanding human population moving into more remote regions of the island around 1000 years ago. as well as 17 species of "giant" lemurs. Some of these lemurs typically weighed over , and their fossils have provided evidence of human butchery on many species. Other megafauna present on the island included the

Malagasy hippopotamus Several species of Malagasy hippopotamus (also known as Malagasy pygmy hippopotamus or Madagascan pygmy hippopotamus) lived on the island of Madagascar but are now believed to be extinct. The animals were very similar to the extant hippopotamus ...

es as well as the large flightless

elephant bird Elephant birds are extinct flightless birds belonging to the Order (biology), order Aepyornithiformes that were native to the island of Madagascar. They are thought to have gone extinct around 1000 CE, likely as a result of human activity. Eleph ...

s, both groups are thought to have gone extinct in the interval 750–1050 AD. Smaller fauna experienced initial increases due to decreased competition, and then subsequent declines over the last 500 years. All fauna weighing over died out. The primary reasons for the decline of Madagascar's biota, which at the time was already stressed by natural

aridification Aridification is the process of a region becoming increasingly arid, or dry. It refers to long term change, rather than seasonal variation. It is often measured as the reduction of average soil moisture content. It can be caused by reduced preci ...

, were human hunting, herding, farming, and forest clearing, all of which persist and threaten Madagascar's remaining taxa today. The natural ecosystems of Madagascar as a whole were further impacted by the much greater incidence of fire as a result of anthropogenic fire production; evidence from Lake Amparihibe on the island of Nosy Be indicates a shift in local vegetation from intact rainforest to a fire-disturbed patchwork of grassland and woodland between 1300 and 1000 BP.

New Zealand

New Zealand is characterized by its geographic isolation and island biogeography, and had been isolated from mainland Australia for 80 million years. It was the last large land mass to be colonized by humans. Upon the arrival of

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

n settlers in the late 13th century, the native biota suffered a catastrophic decline due to deforestation, hunting, and the introduction of invasive species. The extinction of all of the islands' megafaunal birds occurred within several hundred years of human arrival. The moa, large flightless

ratite Ratites () are a polyphyletic group consisting of all birds within the infraclass Palaeognathae that lack keels and cannot fly. They are mostly large, long-necked, and long-legged, the exception being the kiwi, which is also the only nocturnal ...

s, were thriving during the Late Holocene, but became extinct within 200 years of the arrival of human settlers, as did the enormous Haast's eagle - their primary predator - the omnivorous adzebills and at least two species of large, flightless geese. The Polynesians also introduced the

Polynesian rat The Polynesian rat, Pacific rat or little rat (''Rattus exulans''), or , is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the brown rat and black rat. Contrary to its vernacular name, the Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asi ...

, which may have consumed avian eggs and chicks. This may have put some pressure on other birds, but at the time of early European contact (18th century) and colonization (19th century), the bird life was nonetheless prolific. The megafaunal extinction happened extremely rapidly despite a very small population density, which never exceeded 0.01 people per km². Extinctions of parasites followed the extinction of New Zealand's megafauna. With them, the Europeans brought various

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

including ship rats, possums, cats and mustelids which devastated native bird life, some of which had adapted flightlessness and ground nesting habits, and had no defensive behavior as a result of having no native mammalian predators. The kākāpō, the world's biggest parrot, which is flightless, now only exists in managed breeding sanctuaries. New Zealand's national emblem, the kiwi, is on the endangered bird list.

Mitigation

Stabilizing human populations; reining in

, decreasing economic demands, and shifting them to economic activities with low impacts on biodiversity; transitioning to

plant-based diets A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods. It encompasses a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of fiber-rich plant products such as vegetables ...

; and increasing the number and size of terrestrial and marine protected areas have been suggested to avoid or limit

and a possible sixth mass extinction. Rodolfo Dirzo and Paul R. Ehrlich suggest that "the one fundamental, necessary, 'simple' cure, ... is reducing the scale of the human enterprise." According to a 2021 paper published in '' Frontiers in Conservation Science'', humanity almost certainly faces a "ghastly future" of mass extinction, biodiversity collapse, climate change, and their impacts unless major efforts to change human industry and activity are rapidly undertaken. Reducing human population growth has been suggested as a means of mitigating climate change and the biodiversity crisis, although many scholars believe it has been largely ignored in mainstream policy discourse. An alternative proposal is greater agricultural efficiency & sustainability. Lots of non-arable land can be made into arable land good for growing food crops. Mushrooms have also been known to repair damaged soil. A 2018 article in ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'' advocated for the global community to designate 30% of the planet by 2030, and 50% by 2050, as

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

s to mitigate the contemporary extinction crisis. It highlighted that the human population is projected to grow to 10 billion by the middle of the century, and consumption of food and water resources is projected to double by this time. A 2022 report published in ''

'' warned that 44% of Earth's terrestrial surface, or , must be conserved and made "ecologically sound" to prevent further biodiversity loss. In November 2018, the UN's biodiversity chief Cristiana Pașca Palmer urged people worldwide to pressure governments to implement significant protections for wildlife by 2020. She called biodiversity loss a "silent killer" as dangerous as

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

but said it had received little attention by comparison. "It's different from climate change, where people feel the impact in everyday life. With biodiversity, it is not so clear but by the time you feel what is happening, it may be too late." In January 2020, the UN

drafted a Paris-style plan to stop biodiversity and ecosystem collapse by setting the deadline of 2030 to protect 30% of the Earth's land and oceans and to reduce pollution by 50%, to allow for the restoration of ecosystems by 2050. The world failed to meet the Aichi Biodiversity Targets for 2020 set by the convention during a summit in Japan in 2010. Of the 20 biodiversity targets proposed, only six were "partially achieved" by the deadline. It was called a global failure by Inger Andersen, head of the

: Some scientists have proposed keeping extinctions below 20 per year for the next century as a global target to reduce species loss, which is the biodiversity equivalent of the 2 °C climate target, although it is still much higher than the normal background rate of two per year prior to anthropogenic impacts on the natural world. An October 2020 report on the "era of pandemics" from IPBES found that many of the same human activities that contribute to

and

, including

and the

wildlife trade Wildlife trade refers to the exchange of products derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions. It can involve the trade of living or dead individuals, tis ...

, have also increased the risk of future

pandemics A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic dis ...

. The report offers several policy options to reduce such risk, such as taxing meat production and consumption, cracking down on the illegal wildlife trade, removing high disease-risk species from the legal wildlife trade, and eliminating subsidies to businesses which are harmful to the environment. According to marine zoologist John Spicer, "the COVID-19 crisis is not just another crisis alongside the biodiversity crisis and the climate change crisis. Make no mistake, this is one big crisis—the greatest that humans have ever faced." In December 2022, nearly every country on Earth, with the United States and the

Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...

being the only exceptions, signed onto the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreement formulated at the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) which includes protecting 30% of land and oceans by 2030 and 22 other targets intended to mitigate the extinction crisis. The agreement is weaker than the Aichi Targets of 2010. It was criticized by some countries for being rushed and not going far enough to protect endangered species.

Notes

References

External links

The Extinction Crisis
. Center for Biological Diversity.
Vanishing: The extinction crisis is far worse than you think
. CNN. December 2016.
Biologists say half of all species could be extinct by end of century
, ''The Guardian,'' 25 February 2017

, ''The Independent,'' 31 May 2017
Human activity pushing Earth towards 'sixth mass species extinction,' report warns
. CBC. Mar 26, 2018
'Terror being waged on wildlife', leaders warn
. ''The Guardian.'' October 4, 2018.
Earth Is on the Cusp of the Sixth Mass Extinction. Here's What Paleontologists Want You to Know
. '' Discover''. December 3, 2020.
What the Extinction Crisis Took From the World in 2022
. ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

''. December 22, 2022.
Extinction crisis puts 1 million species on the brink
.

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

. December 23, 2022.
Exclusive: Huge chunk of plants, animals in U.S. at risk of extinction
. Reuters. February 6, 2023. {{DEFAULTSORT:Holocene Extinction Species made extinct by human activities Extinction

Extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

Environmental impact by effect Human ecology Human impact on the environment Anthropocene Extinction events hu:Pleisztocén-holocén becsapódási esemény

Background

Overview

Extinction rate

Attribution

Scientific debate

Anthropocene

Human ecology

Historic extinction

Human activity

Activities contributing to extinctions

Agriculture and climate change

Climate change

Contemporary extinction

History

Recent extinction

Habitat destruction

Climate change

Overexploitation

Disease

By region

Africa

Eurasia

Americas

New Guinea

Australia

Caribbean

Macaronesia

Pacific

Madagascar

New Zealand

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links