© Julio Yeste, Four Oaks, Dave M. Hunt, Mikhail Blajenov, KMW Photography, and KajornyotMany of the world's big animals could disappear by the end of the century if conservation measures aren't taken. Some of the animals under threat include: the Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) (CR), black rhino (Diceros bicornis) (CR), and Bengal tiger, (Panthera tigris tigris) (EN). Some lesser-known species at risk include the African wild ass (Equus africanus) (CR), Visayan warty pig (Sus cebifrons) (CR), and banteng (Bos javanicus) (EN).
One day, your grandchildren may open their science textbooks and read about elephants, tigers and lions as majestic, extinct creatures that once roamed the Earth like woolly mammoths and
Triceratops.
That is the message of a new paper, written by dozens of conservation biologists from around the world.
The authors argue that many of the
the world's biggest beasts could be extinct by 2100 if drastic measures are not taken. To forestall that future, governments and conservation organizations should implement several steps to prevent the mass extinction, the scientists report.
"To underline how serious this is, the rapid loss of biodiversity and megafauna, in particular, is an issue that is right up there with, and perhaps even more pressing than,
climate change," Peter Lindsey, lion program policy initiative coordinator at conservation organization Panthera and a senior co-author of the paper, said in a statement.
Comment: The increasingly common mass die-offs of species both large and small indicates a fundamental shift in our environment, presaging the next cyclic cataclysm: