Adapt or die, silly animals.
“Extinction rates are rising by a factor of up to 1,000 above natural rates. Every hour, three species disappear. Every day, up to 150 species are lost. Every year, between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct,” he said.
“The cause: human activities.”
A “Red List” of endangered species, however, lists only 784 species driven to extinction since 1500 — ranging from the dodo bird of Mauritius to the golden toad of Costa Rica.
Craig Hilton-Taylor, manager of the list compiled by the World Conservation Union grouping 83 governments as well as scientists and environmental organizations, said the hugely varying figures might both be right, in their way.
“The U.N. figures are based on loss of habitats, estimates of how many species lived there and so will have been lost,” he told Reuters. “Ours are more empirical — those species we knew were there but cannot find.”
So, every year something between 1 and 55,000 species are lost. Thanks for clearing that up.
Not So Fast 