• Question: Why are so many species getting extinct?

    Asked by tylerd2017 to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 8 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Probably lots of different factors but it’s likely that humans are having an impact on this. Things like climate change, pollution and habitat loss are all driven by humans and can have a serious impact. it is a really difficult issues because there are now so many humans and all with differing needs and motivations. Each individual will need to do what they can to slow species loss

    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      In short I think humans actually. We have changed the world we live in so much that we are forcing extinction on species. We are spreading all over the world and moving into new habitats all the time – thereby inducing human-wildlife conflict (animals and humans living in the same place), we are also in moving into new areas or taking things down for resources (look at palm oil) destroying the homes of animals and causing segregation of habitats (where animals used to have large home ranges these are being chopped up and in some cases in rarer species this is causing separation of species into small clusters), we are causing global warming on a massive scale which means that some slower breeders can’t adapt to the change in environments and finally, sadly, we are actually persecuting animals – killing them for their skin, teeth, tusks, horns, etc.

      I read a paper a couple of years ago now I think which actually said that we were facing a sixth mass extinction and it was being named the Anthropocene Extinction. Here is a link to a short article The Guardian wrote on that paper if you want to have a look: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/oct/20/the-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Species become extinct when the environment in which they live changes faster than they can get used to, or adapt, or alternatively move away though not all species are capable of moving. These days, the greatest causes of ecological change are climate change and habitat loss. Sadly, the likelihood that we (humans) are responsible, through our activities, for both climate change and habitat loss is very high. To halt these extinctions we need to 1) reverse our goals from expanding businesses to optimising them so we stop destroying so much habitat, and 2) change our technologies to more environmentally friendly ones that reduce greenhouse gases for example. We have a long way to go still, if we’re to stop the ongoing mass extinction that is happening all around us. :/

    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Species are always going extinct, but there are a lot of species going extinct at the moment due to all the changes that humans are making to the world, like covering the surface with buildings, chopping down forests and changing the climate with pollution. There have been big extinctions before but the current one is very big.

    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 12 Mar 2017:

      I agree with all my colleagues that humans are probably the root cause of the mass number of extinctions. Fortunately, there are many conservation biologists, politicians and the public vying for a better future of the planet, hopefully we will be fast enough to prevent our very own extinction!

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