I know I’ve listed this statistic before, but it is now 10 years old. BBC just published this updated study and, as you may have guessed, it seems the situation has worsened.

The Red List of Threatened Species says populations of more than half of mammalian species are falling, with Asian primates particularly at risk.

The biggest threat to mammals is loss of habitat, including deforestation.

Loss of habitat is of course due to human activity. Drilling, minning, deforesting, agriculture, livestock, vaccuming the oceans - building subdivisions, parking lots, stripmalls, golf courses, airports, immigration walls…..and so on.

This may be an under-estimate, the authors caution, as there is not enough data to make an assessment in more than 800 cases. The true figure could be nearer to one- third.

“Within our lifetime, hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live,” said Julia Marton-Lefevre, director-general of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which publishes the Red List.

This is an interesting map. I wish we could see different versions of it through the last 500 years though. Even the differences within the last 200 years, 100 years, would be shocking in and of itself.