New study finds a 58% decline in world wildlife since 1970

By UFBI Fellow Joan Meiners

To kick off our blog, we provide a short overview of a recent report by the Living Planet, researchers at the Zoological Society of London, and the World Wildlife Federation suggesting that global wildlife populations have declined by nearly 60% since 1970.  Hardest hit are animals in lakes, rivers and wetlands (which may also be some of the less well-monitored wildlife).  Their analyses focused on vertebrates, and cover only 6% of those species, but the declines are still alarming, and the causes are clearly human-driven.  They estimate that vertebrate wildlife populations will continue to decline by up to 2% every year, unless we can change our global habits.  Some are criticizing the methods these researchers used, however, saying it is not possible to make specific estimates given uncertainty in the data.  To read more and follow this story, navigate to this link.  And to hear more about research like this, keep checking back on our blog to learn about what the University of Florida Biodiversity Institute Graduate Fellows are working on to help increase understanding of global biodiversity patterns.