Earth's Wildlife Faces Rapid and Alarming Decline, Study Shows

A new study published in the journal Biological Reviews claims that human destruction of global wildlife is occurring at an alarming rate, leading to defaunation, or the global-scale decline of animal biodiversity. The study argues that extinction has traditionally been tracked by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List conservation categories, but this does not show the full picture. The study found that 48% of species examined are currently undergoing population decline, 49% are stable and 3% are increasing. The authors argue that tracking population changes can prove an indispensable tool to predict the future of a species and can lend a much more nuanced understanding of a species' standing than a Red List categorization alone can provide.