A new study indicates bird species are going extinct at a much faster rate than biologists previously thought. The GLRC’s Lester Graham has more:
Transcript
A new study indicates bird species are going extinct at a much faster rate than biologists
previously thought. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Researchers at Stanford University, Duke University and the Missouri Botanical Garden
conducted a more thorough analysis of bird data. The analysis determined the number of
bird extinctions since the year 1500 is a lot higher than previously estimated. Peter
Raven is with the Missouri Botanical Garden. He says the study, published in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows a lot more bird species have
disappeared.
“Which makes the extinction over the last 500 years go from about 150 to about 500,
about one a year instead of about one every three or four years.”
Raven predicts another 1,250 bird species will go extinct by the end of this century.
That’s a rate about 100 times higher than the natural rate before human influence started
changing the earth.
For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.