"The extermination of the buffalo has been a veritable tragedy of the animal world." -Theodore Roosevelt
Most people know what extinction is: the complete loss of a particular species, and what a mass extinction is: the loss of a huge number of species in a small timeframe. There have been five mass extinction so far in history, all caused by natural forces, such as atmospheric changes or asteroids. We are now, however, in the process of a sixth mass extinction, which happens to be the first mass extinction of sixty-five million years (when the dinosaurs went extinct). If you were to wait one hour and then read this page again, by the time you got back, four species would have gone extinct. The normal rate of extinctions is one species every four years. The main reason for the huge discrepancy is: us. Read this page to discover how we cause species to go extinct, what problems result from extinction, and what species we are predicted to lose.
Causes: We cause extinctions of animals by: -Polluting the world, which leads to loss of inhabitable lands, food, and water, and can poison animals. We release so much carbon dioxide, for example, that the ocean is forced to absorb the excess, causing to ocean acidification and loss of a stable habitat for sea life. Water can be tainted by the chemicals that factories thoughtlessly dump, and will be unsafe for animals to drink, yet they have no way of knowing. (This also hurts us, as people downstream from any factory are getting the waste in their water. And the amounts of waste are huge! Factories have quotas for how much they can dump each DAY.) -Hunting and/or poaching; many times, people will not think about how an animal is declining in numbers until it is gone (such as in the case of the Passenger Pigeon). While pure hunting would not necessarily cause extinction of a species, excessive hunting combined with other stresses on the animal (also probably caused by us) can push species to extinction. The Woolly Mammoth, for example, went extinct due to a combination of climate change and excessive hunting as the Ice Age ended. -Introducing species, which compete with native animals for food and land, or use the native life as easy prey. -Industrial development, which makes noise and pollution, disturbing the land that a species might inhabit and adding much extra stress
Problems: Perhaps the biggest problem that we face as a result is not the extinction of species that everybody is familiar with (e.g. the Dodo Bird or the Passenger Pigeon), but the extinction of species that have not been formally "discovered." Life on Earth is incredibly diverse, and we are only aware of a fraction of the species that are estimated to really live in, say, a rainforest. Right now, we are losing species before we knew they existed, and it is too late to save any DNA for future studies or to discover some miracle medicinal properties. If it is nearly impossible to calculate the numerous benefits of species we do know about, the Earth is being deprived of all of the unknown benefits of this other life. There is also something called the ECOSYSTEM. This is the delicate balance between all life, and any one species that dies out could have multiple more species that depend on them, which have multiple species depending on them, and so on. The Dodo Bird, for example, used to spread the seeds of a type of tree that could only grow when its seeds had passed through the digestive tract of the bird. Now those trees are nearly gone. People in the past have disregarded extinctions as unimportant, but just be aware that each extinction we cause has innumerable consequences. Considering that we lose four species each hour, that makes a lot of consequences.
On the Brink of Extinction: The following percentages of each given group are near extinction: Amphibians: 33% Birds: 31% Fish: 21% Invertebrates: 30% Reptiles: 21% Mammals: 50% Plants: 68% Overall, the most amphibians are being put at risk due to new, ravaging diseases, and we will likely lose most amphibian life in the future. Birds are also very threatened, as much of the already extinct population consists of various birds. In reality, it is hard to predict exactly what species we will lose, and how much of life is headed for extinction. If anything, however, most of our guesses are gross underestimates, considering the amount of life that we have yet to see and take into account.
In Conclusion: Seeing as there are six billion of us on this planet, most people do not worry about Homo sapiens going extinct. But this is a real possibility, as we depend on other life for everything, such as the air we breathe or the food that we eat. In short, enough species going extinct will lead to the extinction of most life on Earth, and we are not going to be magically spared.
Sources: "The Extinction Crisis." The Extinction Crisis. Center for Biological Diversity, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. "Species Extinction and Human Population." Diversity and Extinctions. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. "BBC Wildlife Found Website - Almost Extinct." This Is Not ADVERTISING. N.p., 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York: Henry and Holt Company, 2014. Print.