Do you like animals? Their nice, furry, cuddly and cute – well at least for most of the domesticated pets we have. But regardless if they’re adorable or not, the thing is wild animals are dying by the truckload and multitudes of entire species are going extinct. It is truly a sad state of affairs for our wildlife and it is without a doubt an extinction crisis. Never before in human history has our planet seen wildlife decimated on the scale that is happening now. Scientists predict that more than 1 million species are on the way to extinction in the coming decades of the 21st century. We are officially in the 6th extinction crisis, after the previous 5 known extinction waves in geological history.

That said, we should know that extinction is something that happens normally but if it’s happening normally, extinction happens at a rate of 1 to 5 species per year. This is also known as the natural extinction rate. However, we are currently seeing an extinction rate anywhere between 1000-10000 faster than normal which is nothing short of catastrophic. But why the order of magnitude disparity in the extinction rate estimate you ask? It seems 1000 is very different to 10000 right? Yes, that’s right and it’s because we don’t know exactly how biodiverse our world truly is even with all our technological advancements. Though through our current knowledge and estimates alone, without knowing the exact numbers, there is without a doubt that the extinction crisis is real.

But here’s the punchline: unlike previous extinction waves, the current extinction crisis is driven almost entirely by human activities. These include introduction of exotic species, loss of habit through various means such as deforestation and pollution, and (you guessed it) human-induced climate change. Every species’ extinction further drives imbalances and damage to inter-species dependencies in the ecosystem. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. 🙁

*Featured image is of a sea turtle. Nearly all sea turtle species are now classified as endangered, with three of the seven existing species being critically endangered.