Animal populations ‘have halved since 1970’.
Earth’s wild vertebrate populations have dropped to one-half the size they were in the 1970s,
according to an analysis of more than 3,000 species.
Researchers from the WWF wildlife NGO, headquartered in Woking, UK, and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) aggregated data on 10,380 populations from 3,038 species into an index of the health of the five main groups of vertebrates — mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and amphibians.
Set at 1 in 1970, this index has decreased to 0.48 (meaning by 52%) since then, according to their latest report.
Source:
Nature News Blog / 29 Sep 2014