83% of wild mammals gone - Cost of human civilization

[packman]

Imagine all the animals on Earth: Lions and giraffes, monkeys, penguins and bears. All those exist, sure, but you're far more likely to come across cows, chickens, cows and more cows.

That's how Ron Milo, a biologist at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, broke down a new globe-spanning study for The Guardian.The work, a census of life on Earth, found 83% of all wild mammals have vanished amid the rise of human civilization.

With more humans came demand for more livestock — think farmed pigs and cattle — which now makes up 60% of all mammals, as measured by biomass, the study found. And farmed poultry now makes up 70% of all birds on Earth.

Just 4% of all mammals today live in the wild.



https://www.pnj.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/23/humans-destroyed-83-all-wild-mammals-new-study-finds/639184002/

[Crash2Parties]

1. While I don't doubt what we've done to wild animals & I think it's terrible (& short sighted)

Many of those numbers are disingenuous. Yes, 4% of mammals live in the wild but that's because we tend toward highly concentrated (and cruel) factory farming. 2000 cows per acre, that sort of thing.

Anyway, yes we're destroying the environment, the ecosystems and yes our livestock management is a big part of that.