The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Korlbert Summary

In the book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert there are a lot of examples that are going on in the world today and also examples of things that started when the first human being was around. This book talks about how we are in the sixth mass extinction, and that is caused by humans. Overall the book goes chapter by chapter and talks about the different mass extinctions there have been, and how they were caused, but also the book talks about different species that have gone extinct and the reasons why. For example the book talks about golden frogs that are located in Panama and how they were seen everywhere located in El Valle de Anton, but they suddenly started disappearing. They were disappearing because of a chytrid fungis cause by humans, when humans travel they were bring this fungis to different places, this ended up killing the frogs (Chapter 1, Kolbert). That is just one example, but throughout the book Kolbert talks about different extinctions like this and what caused them.

The book that I had chosen to read was Buried Onions by Gary Soto. I found the book by looking at the reading list and after reading the description decided that it seemed the most interesting as I enjoy reading about social issues that some people have to live with.

Humans played a major role in the extinction of large mammals because hunters possibly killed them off. They were also slaughtered with knives and stampeded over cliffs at that time at which their species became less and less. to extinction in a period already providing great stress due to the receding ice sheets as the last glacial maximum came to an end. Later, this would mean a lack of analogues

I did actually really like this book. I was not sure if I was going to enjoy it when the project was first assigned, but after reading for a while, I became really interested

The sheer number of animals outway the number of people, yet so many animals are becoming extinct every day one by one they are disappearing. The Red List is one of the more infamous websites, has over 7600 animals on record. To understand these matters researchers go deep into examination looking into the causes and effects

Species are at risk from human activities and other things, one primary cause of human extinction is that humans are overpopulated on planet Earth. . From the land destroying, and people overfishing in oceans and lakes have driven half of the world's marine and land species to extinction. For humans

Habitat destruction, deforestation, ozone depletion, global warming, and poaching. These actions and ecological happenings are creating a world where animals are going extinct at rapid rates. Our world is on the brink of what scientists believe is the sixth mass extinction. Unlike the five previous mass extinction, the latest one killing a majority of the dinosaurs, the main causes for this current extinction are anthropogenic reasons, not natural events.

The West African Black Rhinoceros, the Caribbean Monk Seal, the Tasmanian tiger, And the Javan Tiger all have one thing in common, they are now extinct. And the reason? The reason is all around you. In the 3.5 billion years Earth has sustained life, there have been five major extinctions in the past 500 million years caused by natural disasters. Today, there are about sixty-six known species that are either endangered or vulnerable to extinction. Due to human activity, we are now undergoing a worldwide devastation that has caused a high loss of species and a massive destruction to our ecosystem known as, the Holocene extinction.

Climate change is a common factor in what causes mammals to become endangered and later extinct. Climate change mostly caused extinction for two out of every three large mammals in the world. Some mammals that went into extinction because of global warming were: Mammoths, Arabian gazelle, Bulldog rat Central rock rat, Columbian hutia, Corozal rat, Corsican shrew, Cuban spider monkey, Curacao sloth, Dark flying fox, Darling Downs hopping mouse, Darwin’s Galapagos mouse, Dinosaurs… etc. Over the years climate change has increasingly been at fault for the massive loss of mammals dying off. Huge loses of mammals are occurring all over the world, or becoming endangered. It starts when the little mammals can’t adapt to the rapid changing of the weather then it slowly starts to affects the larger mammals. “Climate change affects the little guy first and then, through them, the bigger guys. Today we see humans taking out the bigger animals and climate change affecting the smaller animals. So we can expect to see some pretty dramatic changes in the ecosystem” (Barnosky 3).

From the 17th century to 20th century, over 300 years, countries gradually becoming modern and human civilization developed rapidly. We changed the earth little by little, we paid more attention on how to improve the technique we had, at the same time we forgot to protect our environment which resulted many species of animals are in danger of becoming extinct. From a research it shows there are 16,928 listed endangered and 905 are already extinct.

Scientists abase their extinction theories off one of commonly known piece of information: that there was a change in climate around the time of the K-T boundary. Both major theories support this idea, and both believe that something blocked out the Sun for many months. This stopped the photosynthesis in plants, the base of the food chain. Without plants, the food chain was majorly affected. A domino effect happened, and one species died out after another. Eventually all species of dinosaurs died out. Scientists know that there was a global climatic change, but are not sure how it happened.

From 1970 to 2006, about one-third of the vertebrae species of animals have been considered to be endangered of extinction (Generation Extinction). Nearly fifty percent of primates and thirty percent of amphibian species are already extinct or are endangered of becoming extinct. The Greater and Lesser Scaup duck species of ducks, from Canada, have plummeted from right around six million to about three and half million (Martin). There are many reasons why are disappearing in the rate that they are but, habitat destruction, using unethical methods of hunting, and diseases from starvation and dehydration the majors.

Across the world, animal extinction is a problem causing thousands of animals to die each year. Throughout time hundreds of animals are being slaughtered across the world. Some of the animals that we may know and love are slowly becoming extinct. Although it may not be animals such as our precious dogs or adorable kittens, there are animals in the world slowly declining in their population size. Animals such as rhinos, eagles, and different species of fish are becoming endangered and some are on the brink of extinction. Animal extinction is a problem that is gaining recognition across the world. The most known causes of animal extinction are habitat fragmentation, poaching, and deforestation.

Eleven species of animals have gone extinct over the past two centuries. To many people, this statement would not shock them. They will just see it as a statistic. Many others though; would want to do something to stop this from happening. Problems include natural disasters, homes being taken away or destroyed, hunted for their feathers or the fur that they provide; There are many factors as to why these animals disappear but people are the number one cause as to why animals decline so rapidly in numbers.

32.2% of animals are abandoned, 12.4% hoarded, 11.4% shot, 8.7% used for fighting, 7.0% beaten, 5.6% tortured, 2.5% thrown, 2.5% stabbed, 2.1% burned, and the rest are kicked, choked, hung, drowned, and burned(Statistics). Animals like orcas, tigers, dolphins, leopards, elephants, blue whales, sea turtles, sea lions, monkeys, pandas, tortoises, hippopotamuses, polars bears, rhinos, great white sharks, beluga whales, jaguars, bison, narwhals, brown bears, gorillas, and penguins are going extinct(Species List). The list of animals going extinct gets bigger and bigger every year. The extinction of animals is increasing because of animal experimentation, animal captivity, and in-home abuse.