Mass extinction predicted

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley warn that we are on the brink of pushing the planet into its sixth mass extinction if something isn’t done soon. With the steep decline in populations of many animal species, from frogs and fish to tigers, some scientists have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that occurred only five times before during the past 540 million years.

However, it isn’t too late to save these critically endangered mammals and other species, and bring us up short of a tipping point which would lead to the planet’s sixth mass extinction. It is very important to devote resources and legislation toward species conservation if we don’t want to be the species whose activity caused a mass extinction, note the team.

After looking at the list of threatened species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the team concluded that if all mammals now listed as “critically endangered,” “endangered” and “threatened” go extinct, whether that takes several hundred years or 1,000 years, Earth will be in a true mass extinction. The findings highlight how essential it is to save critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable species, to ensure the Earth’s biodiversity remains in pretty good shape.