February 22 2007

Text By Meera Sethi

According to recent research conducted by the aptronymically named scientist Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical Garden, one species of bird vanishes from the earth every year: an extinction rate that is about four times higher than previously thought. That rate is climbing, too—it is believed that by 2100 the number will surge to 10 species a year, and that by that time we will have lost, irrevocably, a total of 12% of all known bird species.

Scientists estimate that this represents a rate of extinction 100 times higher than what it would have been without the influence of human activities like hunting, habitat destruction, and the clumsy introduction of non-native predators, competitors, and diseases into delicate ecosystems.

We truly hold them in our hands.