http://loveforlife.com.au/node/122

Insects, Birds And Fish Dying In The Millions

Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 8:24 AM
Subject: [stonewoodcircle] Wildlife deaths (assortment of articles)

Million Fish Die In Colorado
At Once - 'A Lack Of Oxygen'?
From Judith Moriarty
noahshouse @ comcast.net

3-10-7

Colorado River



I was having a cup of tea in the kitchen when I heard a 'brief' blurb on the
news telling of a million fish that had died in the Colorado River (covering
an area of 7 miles). The reason given was 'lack of oxygen'. I waited to hear
more on evening broadcasts (pictures) and there was NOTHING just that 30
second announcement. When I went searching I found that this was not an
aberration pertaining just to the Colorado, but was happening in all parts
of the country (rivers & lakes) and to put the people, who blame farmer's
fertilizer at ease, many of these areas had no farms anywhere near them.
Tens of thousands of fish have been found in California, Oregon, Washington
State, Pennsylvania, and the Potomac etc. Looking further, I found that this
is happening world wide, from Romania to China! Combine these massive
die-offs with thousands of dead whales, sea turtles, porpoises, birds, honey
bees, and butterflies.well, it's not hard to reason that the planet is
dying. These massive deaths appear to be reported only locally and never
making it to the national scene or an all out alarm by the EPA or
environmental (corporate sponsored) groups?



Colorado River



The Gulf of Mexico has a DEAD ZONE that is approximately 7,000 square miles!
Oregon has a DEAD ZONE off of its coast the size of Rhode Island. NO ALARM
bells. I can understand this depraved indifference, since massive pollution,
(84,000 gallons a day) from a landfill holding 2.3 MILLION TONS of putrid
garbage is contaminating ground water and rivers in my own state (NH). When
our state Department of Environmental Services held a hearing in the little
town of Bethlehem (northern NH) they had the audacity to tell a citizen, who
held a jar aloft, with this rusted polluted water that 'iron is good for
you'. Sending the website 'Goliath Trust' and photos off to the Governor,
Executive Council, and various legislators, was met with SILENCE. Moral:
Corporate polluters, military testing (sonar), corporate HOG farmers, etc,
take precedence over the health of the nation and our waters...

SOURCE: http://www.rense.com/general75/mill.htm

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Up to one million fish found dead in Thai river

Tue Mar 13, 3:07 AM ET

BANGKOK (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of farmed fish have been found dead in
one of Thailand's key rivers, the fisheries department said Tuesday,
prompting fears that factories were polluting the waterway.

Parts of the central provinces of Ang Thong and Ayutthaya along the Chao
Phraya river were officially declared disaster zones Tuesday, after the fish
started dying there on Sunday night.

Officials said they were still trying to determine what had caused the
deaths of up to one million caged tubtim fish, a type of tilapia, at
different locations along the river about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of
Bangkok.

Jaranthada Karnsasuta, director general of the fisheries department, said a
sudden lack of oxygen in the water killed the fish.

"Oxygen in water is very poor. Some reported zero to 0.5 percent of oxygen
in the water, while fish need more than three percent to survive," he told
AFP.

He said they were currently investigating two possible explanations -- that
a sugar boat which capsized earlier this month released toxic byproducts
into the river, or that upstream factories had polluted the waterway.

Local villagers and farmers suspect that factories, including one that
produces the food additive monosodium glutamate, had released untreated
water into the Chao Phraya, which flows down to the capital Bangkok,
Jaranthada said.

It was less likely to have been caused by the capsized boat, he said, as the
accident happened March 3 and the fish would have been affected earlier.

The Ministry of Agriculture will compensate fish farmers for their losses,
which total about 40 million baht (1.3 million dollars), Jaranthada said.

An official in Ang Thong told AFP that the public health ministry had
reassured him that the dead fish were not poisonous to humans, but added
that they would be buried rather than entering the food chain.

Jaranthada said that the quality of water on the affected stretch of the
Chao Phraya was improving after the irrigation department released clean
water from an upstream dam.

SOURCE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070313/sc_afp/thailandenvironmentfish_0703...

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Dead birds rain down on towns half a world apart

It could be the plot of a horror film, but in two towns on opposite sides of
the world the mysterious phenomenon of thousands of dead birds dropping out
of the sky is all too real.

Officials are baffled by the unexplained deaths which have affected
Australia and the U.S.

Three weeks ago thousands of crows, pigeons, wattles and honeyeaters fell
out of the sky in Esperance, Western Australia.

Then last week dozens of grackles, sparrows and pigeons dropped dead on two
streets in Austin, Texas.

As birds continue to die in Esperance and the town's dawn chorus remains
eerily silent, vets in both countries have been unable to establish a cause
of death - despite carrying out a large number of autopsies on the birds.

Wildlife officials from Western Australia's Department of Environment and
Conservation said they were baffled by the "catastrophic event" but
emphasised the deaths had nothing to do with a severe storm which recently
struck the area, as the birds had started dying before then. District nature
conservation coordinator Mike Fitzgerald said: "It's very substantial.

"We estimate several thousand birds are dead, although we don't have a clear
number because of the large areas of bushland."

Birds Australia, the country's largest bird conservation group, said it had
not heard of a similar occurrence.

"You'd have to call it a most unusual event and one that we'd all have to be
concerned about," said chief executive Graeme Hamilton.

Dr Fiona Sunderman, chief veterinary officer of the Department of
Agriculture and Food, suspects the cause of death is some form of toxic
poisoning.

Esperance resident Michelle Crisp, who normally sees hundreds of birds
roosting in her garden, counted 80 dead ones in one day.

"It went to the point where we had nothing, not a single bird," she said.
"It was like a moonscape - just horrible."

In Texas, officials are also working on the toxic poisoning theory. Adolfo
Valadez, medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human
Services, said it might be weeks before any conclusive results were known.

Such was the concern that the birds suffered deliberate toxic poisoning that
several streets were closed in Austin while police and fire crews checked
the area for any substance that might be of harm to humans.

"This was a precautionary measure. We certainly take these kinds of thing
seriously, especially following 9/11," said Mr Valadez. "It may be a matter
of time before we know what happened and why it happened. There is no threat
to public health."

Federal officials in Washington said they were monitoring the situation, but
a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said: "There is no
credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or
Austin at this time."

SOURCE:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_ar...

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Honeybees Dying At Alarming Rate

Honeybees are dying off at an alarming rate in almost half the country. It's
a mystery scientists are calling "colony collapse disorder." Now, some
Ark-La-Tex beekeepers are beginning to see the same signs.

Bees are far more than a picnic inconvenience. They are the givers of honey
and the providers of pollination to 14-billion dollars in U.S. crops. Even
clover needs bees. "Lots of farmers put this on their land and it requires
pollination by bees and other pollinating insects," said beekeeper James
Aulds, as he grabbed a handful of clover from the ground.

SOURCE: http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=6157930&nav=0RY5bYXn

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Mystery of the vanishing bees

VISALIA, California: David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his
life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his
boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

In 24 states across America, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as
their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate,
threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous
crops, including California almonds, one of the nation's most profitable.

"I have never seen anything like it," Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond
orchard here beginning to bloom. "Box after box after box are just empty.
There's nobody home."

The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that
honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to
supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. Beekeepers have fought
regional bee crises before, but this is the first U.S. national affliction.

In a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying off in search of
pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody
knows why.

Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps
becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to
the cold.

As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to
call "colony collapse disorder," growers are becoming openly nervous about
the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for
bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis.

Along with recent stresses on the bees themselves, as well as on an industry
increasingly under consolidation, some fear this disorder may force a
breaking point for even large beekeepers.

A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate
more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly
fruits, vegetables and nuts.

"Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to
pollinate that food," said Zac Browning, vice president of the American
Beekeeping Federation.

The bee losses are ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with
some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than
70 percent. Beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20 percent in the off-season
to be normal.

Beekeepers are the nomads of the agriculture world, working in obscurity in
their white protective suits and frequently trekking around the country with
their insects packed into 18-wheel trucks, looking for pollination work.

Once the domain of hobbyists with a handful of backyard hives, beekeeping
has become increasingly commercial and consolidated. Over the last two
decades, the number of beehives, now estimated by the U.S. Agriculture
Department to be 2.4 million, has dropped by a quarter and the number of
beekeepers by half.

Pressure has been building on the bee industry. The cost of maintaining
hives, also known as colonies, is rising, along with the strain on bees of
being bred to pollinate rather than just make honey.

And beekeepers are losing out to suburban sprawl in their quest for spots
where bees can forage for nectar to stay healthy and strong during the
pollination season.

"There less beekeepers, less bees, yet more crops to pollinate," Browning
said. "While this sounds sweet for the bee business, with so much added loss
and expense due to disease, pests and higher equipment costs, profitability
is actually falling."

About 15 worried beekeepers convened in Florida this month to brainstorm
with researchers on how to cope with the extensive bee losses.

Investigators are collecting samples and exploring a range of theories for
the colony collapses, including viruses, a fungus and poor bee nutrition.

They are also studying a group of pesticides that were banned in some
European countries, including France, to see if they are somehow affecting
bees' innate ability to find their way back home.

It could just be that the bees are stressed out. Bees are being raised to
survive a shorter off-season, to be ready to pollinate once the almond bloom
begins in February. That has most likely lowered their immunity to viruses.

Mites have also damaged bee colonies, and the insecticides used to try to
kill mites are harming the ability of queen bees to spawn as many worker
bees. The queens are living half as long as they did just a few years ago.

Researchers are also concerned that the willingness of beekeepers to truck
their colonies from coast to coast could be adding to bees' stress, helping
to spread viruses and mites and otherwise accelerating whatever is
afflicting them.

Dennis van Engelsdorp, a bee specialist with the state of Pennsylvania who
is part of the team studying the bee colony collapses, said the "strong
immune suppression" investigators have observed "could be the AIDS of the
bee industry," making bees more susceptible to other diseases that
eventually kill them off.

Growers have tried before to do without bees. In past decades, they have
used everything from giant blowers to helicopters to mortar shells to try to
spread pollen across the plants.

More recently, researchers have been trying to develop "self-compatible"
almond trees that will require fewer bees. One company is even trying to
commercialize a "blue orchard bee" that is stingless and works at colder
temperatures than the honeybee.

Beekeepers have endured two major mite infestations since the 1980s, which
felled many hobbyist beekeepers, and three cases of unexplained disappearing
disorders as far back as 1894. But those episodes were confined to small
areas, van Engelsdorp said.

Today, the industry is in a weaker position to deal with new stresses. A
flood of imported honey from China and Argentina has depressed honey prices
and put more pressure on beekeepers to take to the road in search of
pollination contracts. Beekeepers are trucking tens of billions of bees
around the country every year.

California's almond crop, by far the biggest in the world, now draws more
than half of the country's bee colonies in February. The crop has been both
a boon to commercial beekeeping and a burden, as pressure mounts for the
industry to fill growing demand.

Spread over 580,000 acres, or about 235,000 hectares, stretched across 300
miles, or 480 kilometers, of California's Central Valley, the crop is
expected to grow to 680,000 acres by 2010.

Beekeepers now earn many times more by renting their bees out to pollinate
crops than they do producing honey. Two years ago a shortage of bees for the
California almond crop caused bee rental prices to jump, drawing beekeepers
from the East Coast.

This year, the price for a bee colony is about $135, up from $55 in 2004,
said Joe Traynor, a bee broker in Bakersfield, California.

A typical bee colony ranges from 15,000 to 30,000 bees. But beekeepers'
costs are also on the rise. In the past decade, fuel, equipment and even bee
boxes have doubled and tripled in price.

The cost to control mites has also risen, along with the price of queen
bees, which cost about $15 each, up from $10 three years ago.

To give bees energy while they are pollinating, beekeepers now feed them
protein supplements and a liquid mix of sucrose and corn syrup carried in
tanker-sized trucks costing $12,000 per load.

Over all, Bradshaw figures, in recent years he has spent $145 a hive
annually to keep his bees alive, for a profit of about $11 a hive, not
including labor expenses.

"A couple of farmers have asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'" Bradshaw
said.

"I ask myself the same thing. But it is a job I like. It is a lifestyle. I
work with my dad every day. And now my son is starting to work with us."

Aulds works the 350-hives for Hummer & Son Louisiana Honey in Bossier City.
"There are very few feral bees in this area," added Aulds who explained that
most wild bees locally died off in the early '90's thanks to mites.

"Bees do not take care of themselves. That's why there's beekeepers," said
Aulds. Operations like Hummer & Son are now hired by farmers for pollination
help so their animals can still graze and grow.

Aulds said half the country's bees are in Calfornia, helping pollinate huge
crops, especially almonds. But there's trouble this year as California bee
farmer Louis Rosburg described. "Disappeared. There's nothing there. There's
no bees on the ground anywhere. There's just a completely empty hive."

Scientists fear that everything from viruses and mites to fungi and
pesticides could be to blame for the mysterious "colony collapse disorder,"
with bees dying off by the hundreds of thousands. Aulds said, "since we live
in a global economy with instant travel of stuff, we have all the diseases
from all over the world in the United States."

He isn't ready to say colony collapse disorder is here or not but conceded
that they are seeing a lot more bees dying. Typically a honey farm like
Hummer & Son might see a 10-percent reduction in bees over wintertime. This
time it's 30 percent. What would make them start to panic? Aulds estimated
that another twenty percent drop and they would begin to change their
strategies.

Hummer & Son is expected to add several hundred more hives to compensate for
their winter loss and then keep their fingers crossed that the worst is
over. They now rent out bees to 8-family farms for pollination. And since
this is a relatively new venture for them they expect to sign up many more.

SOURCE: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/27/business/bees.php

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why are the Frogs Dying?

2/15/07

Ponds and swamps are becoming eerily silent. The familiar melody of ribbits,
croaks and chirps is disappearing as a mysterious killer fungus wipes out
frog populations around the globe, a phenomenon likened to the extinction of
dinosaurs.

Scientists from around the world are meeting Thursday and Friday in Atlanta
to organize a worldwide effort to stem the deaths by asking zoos, aquariums
and botanical gardens to take in threatened frogs until the fungus can be
stopped.

The aim of the group called Amphibian Ark is to prevent the world's more
than 6,000 species of frogs, salamanders and wormlike sicilians from
disappearing. Scientists estimate up to 170 species of frogs have become
extinct in the past decade from the fungus and other causes, and an
additional 1,900 species are threatened.

"This is the precedent of a disease working its way across an entire species
on the scale of all mammals, all birds or all fish," said Joseph Mendelson,
curator of herpetology at Zoo Atlanta and an organizer of Amphibian Ark.
"Humans would be absolutely stupid if they didn't pay attention to that."

Amphibians - of which frogs make up the majority - are a vital part of the
food chain, eating insects that other animals don't touch and connecting the
world of aquatic animals to land dwellers. Without amphibians, the insects
that would go unchecked would threaten public health and food supplies.

Amphibians also serve important biomedical purposes. Some species produce a
chemical used as a pain reliever for humans; one species is linked to a
chemical that disables the virus that causes AIDS.

Amphibian Ark wants zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums in each country to
take in at least 500 frogs from a threatened species to protect them from
the killer fungus, which is called chytrid fungus. Each frog would get
cleaned to make sure it doesn't introduce the scourge into the protected
area.

The group estimates it will cost between $400 million and $500 million to
complete the project. It is launching a fundraising campaign next year to
create an endowment.

The scientists say the amphibian collection is simply a stopgap. It buys
time and prevents more species from going extinct while researchers figure
out how to keep amphibians from dying off in the wild.

The fungus isn't the only thing that's deadly to amphibians it's just
killing them faster than development, pollution and global warming, said
George Rabb, the retired head of the Chicago's Brookfield Zoo and a leader
in Amphibian Ark. Scientists will have to closely monitor frog populations
rereleased into the wild once the fungus is eliminated, he said.

"Right now with global warming and the garbage heap we put in the
atmosphere, there are going to be risks," said Rabb, one of the country's
leading conservation scientists. "That's why we'll need people from other
professional fields epidemiology, climate change."

Scientists aren't quite sure of the fungus's origin, but they suspect it
might be Africa. The African clawed frog, which carries the fungus on its
skin and is immune to its deadly effects, has been shipped all over the
world for research.

The clawed frog was also used in hospitals in the 1940s as a way to detect
pregnancy in women. It produces eggs when injected with the urine of a
pregnant woman.

The fungus works like a parasite that makes it difficult for the frogs to
use their pores, quickly causing them to die of dehydration. It has been
linked to the extinction of amphibians from Australia to Costa Rica.

Last month, Japan reported its first cases of frog deaths from the fungus,
prompting research groups to declare an emergency in the country. On the
Caribbean island of Dominica, the fungus has almost wiped out the mountain
chicken, a frog species considered an island delicacy.

At Yosemite National Park in California, the mountain yellow-legged frog is
close to extinction. The park has only 650 frog populations left, but 85
percent are infected with the fungus and the growing quiet along the park's
lakes is evident as many of the frogs are dying off.

SOURCE: http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=6093761

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On the Net:

University of California-Berkley's AmphibiaWeb: http://www.amphibiaweb.org

Amphibian Ark: http://www.amphibianark.org/

Zoo Atlanta: http://www.zooatlanta.org

Species dying off at unprecedented rate, researchers say
15,589 species are at risk of extinction and least 15 have gone extinct
in the past 20 years, conservationists say

Posted Nov. 18, 2004
Courtesy World Conservation Union
and World Science staff

From the mighty shark to the humble frog, species are dying off faster than
ever before, according to a new report billed as the most comprehensive
evaluation ever conducted of the world's biodiversity.

The announcement was made at the World Conservation Union's World
Conservation Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, this week. The findings are
based on a report called the Global Species Assessment, released by a
consortium of conservation groups in conjunction with the union's annual
"Red List" of threatened species.

"There is some good news," said a statement released by the World
Conservation Union, an environmental organization, this week regarding the
findings. "Conservation measures are already making a difference - a quarter
of the world's threatened birds have benefited from such measures. What is
needed is more of them, and to focus them better."

The Global Species Assessment shows trends in biodiversity over four years
since the last major analysis in 2000, and it includes, for the first time,
complete assessments of amphibians, cycads (an ancient group of plants) and
conifers, as well as regional case studies. It also highlights which species
are at greatest risk of extinction, where they occur, and the many threats
facing them.

"Governments are starting to realise the value of biodiversity and the
critical role it plays in their peoples' well-being. Species provide food,
medicine, fuel, and building materials. They help filter water, decompose
waste, generate soil and pollinate crops. Recognition of this is growing but
governments need to mobilize far more resources," said David Brackett,
Chairman of IUCN's Species Survival Commission.

In 1996 it was revealed that one in eight birds (12%) and one in four
mammals (23%) were threatened with extinction (falling into the Critically
Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable categories). This infamous line-up has
now been joined by one in three amphibians (32%) and almost half (42%) of
turtles and tortoises, according to the World Conservation Union.

With amphibians relying on freshwater, their catastrophic decline is a
warning about the state of the planet's water resources, the report said.
Even though the situation in freshwater habitats is less well known than for
terrestrial, early signs show it is equally serious. More than half (53%) of
Madagascar's freshwater fish are threatened with extinction.

The vast ocean depths are providing little refuge to many marine species
which are being over-exploited to the point of extinction. Nearly one in
five (18%) of assessed sharks and rays are threatened.

Many plants have also been assessed, but only conifers and cycads have been
completely evaluated with 25% and 52% threatened respectively.

For the first time, the assessment includes the Red List Index, a new tool
for measuring trends in extinction risk. This shows overall changes in
threat status (projected risk of extinction) over time for a particular
group. It will be important for measuring changes in biodiversity. Red List
Indices are currently available for birds and amphibians, and show that
their status has declined steadily since the 1980s.

"Although 15,589 species are known to be threatened with extinction, this
greatly underestimates the true number as only a fraction of known species
have been assessed. There is still much to be discovered about key
species-rich habitats, such as tropical forests, marine and freshwater
systems or particular groups, such as invertebrates, plants and fungi, which
make up the majority of biodiversity," says Craig Hilton-Taylor, the World
Conservation Union's Red List Programme Officer.

People, either directly or indirectly, are the main reason for most species'
declines. Habitat destruction and degradation are the leading threats but
other significant pressures include over-exploitation for food, pets, and
medicine, introduced species, pollution and disease. Climate change is
increasingly recognised as a serious threat.

"It is clear that the situation facing our species is serious and getting
worse. We can continue to assess and bemoan the loss of the world's
biodiversity or we can act! We must refocus and rethink the way in which
society must respond to this global threat," says Achim Steiner, the World
Conservation Union's Director General.

"While most threats to biodiversity are human-driven, human actions alone
can prevent many species from becoming extinct. There are many examples of
species being brought back from the brink including the southern white rhino
and black-footed ferret, and thousands of dedicated people around the world
are doing their utmost to reverse the extinction rate," he added. "But this
cannot continue to be the task of the environmental community alone.
Governments and business must commit to these efforts as well".

Since the release of the 2003 Red List, more than 15,633 new entries have
been added and 3,579 species reassessed. There are now 7,266 threatened
animal species and 8,323 threatened plant and lichen species. A total of 784
plant and animal species are now recorded as Extinct with a further 60 known
only in cultivation or captivity.

Since 2003, there have been some notable changes to the list, including some
marked deteriorations, like the St Helena olive (from Extinct in the Wild to
Extinct), the Hawaiian crow (from Critically Endangered to Extinct in the
Wild), the Balearic shearwater (From Near Threatened to Critically
Endangered), the giant Hispaniolan galliwasp lizard (from Near Threatened to
Critically Endangered), and an African begonia, Begonia oxyanthera (from
Near Threatened to Vulnerable).

But there have also been some improvements, such as the European otter (from
Vulnerable to Near Threatened) and the Christmas Island Imperial pigeon
(from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable).

The 2004 assessment shows that threatened species are often concentrated in
densely populated areas, particularly in much of Asia and parts of Africa. A
major conservation challenge will therefore be to reconcile the demands of
large numbers of people on the environment, whilst protecting the
biodiversity upon which so many people's livelihoods depend.

The importance of international support in safeguarding biodiversity is
critical says the assessment. Many countries with a high concentration of
threatened species have a low Gross National Income (GNI) per capita and are
unable to implement the required conservation measures without international
assistance.

Some key findings from the Global Species Assessment

* Numbers of threatened species are increasing across almost all the major
taxonomic groups.
* The marine environment is not as well known as the terrestrial environment
but initial findings show that marine species are just as vulnerable to
extinction as their terrestrial counterparts.
* Freshwater habitats are also poorly known, but recent surveys reveal that
many aquatic species are threatened with extinction.
* Most threatened birds, mammals, and amphibians are located on the tropical
continents - Central and South America, Africa south of the Sahara, and
tropical South and Southeast Asia. These regions contain the tropical
broadleaf forests which are believed to harbour the majority of the earth's
living terrestrial and freshwater species.
* Australia , Brazil, China, Indonesia and Mexico hold particularly large
numbers of threatened species.
* Countries with high numbers of threatened species and relatively low GNI
include Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia,
Madagascar, Peru and the Philippines.
* The world's list of extinctions increases - from 766 in 2000 to 784
documented extinctions since 1500 AD.
* Although estimates vary greatly, current extinction rates are at least one
hundred to a thousand times higher than background, or "natural" rates.
* Over the past 20 years, 27 documented extinctions or extinctions in the
wild have occurred but this underestimates the true number that have taken
place.
* While the vast majority of extinctions since 1500 AD have occurred on
oceanic islands, over the last 20 years, continental extinctions have become
as common as island extinctions.
* Humans have been the main cause of extinction and continue to be the
principle threat to species at risk of extinction.
* Habitat loss, introduced species, and over-exploitation are the main
threats, with human-induced climate change becoming an increasingly
significant problem.

SOURCE: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/041118_extinctionfrm.htm