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Page added on January 20, 2017
World’s primates facing extinction crisis
Gorillas, monkeys, lemurs and other primates are in danger of becoming extinct, and scientists say it’s our fault that our closest living relatives are in trouble, a new international study warns.
About 60 percent of the more than 500 primate species are “now threatened with extinction” and 3 out of 4 primate species have shrinking populations, according to a study published in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances .
While scientists had tracked dwindling numbers of individuals and groups of primates in forests around the world, this is the first big-picture look. The result was “a bigger wake-up call” than previously thought, said researcher Paul Garber of the University of Illinois.
“The outlook is not very good,” said Garber, who recently returned from the jungles of Brazil studying marmosets.
The decline has been blamed on human activities including hunting, mining and oil drilling. Logging, ranching and farming have also destroyed precious habitat in Africa, Asia and South America.
Primates, which include apes, monkeys and humans, have forward-facing eyes and grasping ability that set them apart from other mammals. Scientists study them to learn about human behavior and evolution.
Much of the problems faced by primates are recent. For example, the Grauer’s gorilla dropped from a population of 17,000 in 1995 to just about 3,800 now, mostly from bushmeat hunting and mineral mining, the study found.
25 Comments on "World’s primates facing extinction crisis"
Sissyfuss on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 9:49 am
” Primates, which include apes, monkeys, and humans”. Uh Oh.
penury on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 10:19 am
You can look at the study done on primates and realistically extropulate(sic) this into almost every other species on earth. We could ignore the “jelly fish”
Sissyfuss on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 10:52 am
The look on Trumps face during the inauguration is one of a primate facing extinction.
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 11:10 am
Climate change and mass migration: a growing threat to global security
https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2017/01/19/climate-change-and-mass-migration-growing-threat-global-security
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 4:39 pm
NASA Data Shows the Rate of Global Warming is Accelerating — 2016 is Third Consecutive Hottest Year on Record
“Over just the past three years, global temperatures have risen by about 0.4 degrees Celsius. This was an extreme acceleration in the rate of warming. One that is unmatched in all of the past 136 years of climate record keeping.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/01/20/nasa-data-shows-the-rate-of-global-warming-is-accelerating-2016-is-third-consecutive-hottest-year-on-record/
DerHundistlos on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 7:14 pm
Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, declared (as if a do nothing congress is a badge of honor) that the 113th Congress will not protect a single new acre of public land as a Park, National Monument or Wilderness Area. Last years congress was the first ever in 72 years of tradition that failed to expand land’s open to the public and to protect flora and fauna. To exacerbate the Republican War on the Natural World, a bill is sailing through congress that would, for the first time in the history of the US, begin selling off “surplus” public lands to the highest bidder.
DerHundistlos on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 7:55 pm
@ Ape
Thanks for continuing to provide excellent links!!!!
Trump Assumes Presidency with Lowest Ever Approval:
By the way, just over a third of Americans approve of President-elect Donald Trump, according to a new poll released hours before his inauguration.
The survey from Fox News showed that 37 percent of Americans approve of Trump ahead of his inauguration, while 54 percent do not.
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 8:05 pm
Thanks fer saying, DerHundistlos.
DerHundistlos on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 8:06 pm
@ Ape
Well deserved. We are each effecting positive change in our own way. Don’t stop.
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 8:08 pm
I wonder if Boat was in attendance?
Houston’s Flooding Symposium Gets Flooded Out
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bisnow/2017/01/20/houstons-flooding-symposium-gets-flooded-out/#df201db7d049
Well he’s a boat, so It wouldn’t effect him like the others.
I hope he’s got boat insurance.
Insurance claims begin rolling in after flooding
http://www.chron.com/business/bizfeed/article/Insurance-claims-being-rolling-in-10869847.php
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 8:14 pm
Thai floods harm key region for world’s rubber
“Weeks of flooding because of unseasonal downpours have killed 45 people and brought a halt to rubber tapping at the height of the season in a key area of the world’s biggest exporter of natural rubber.
Concerns over what that could mean for global supply have fueled a rally in international prices to near a four-year peak.
As a result of the floods, Thai output is expected to fall by 7.6 percent this year to 4.38 million tonnes, down from the 4.74 million tonnes previously expected, the Rubber Authority of Thailand told Reuters.
Thailand accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world’s natural rubber, most of which is used in car tires. Nearly two-thirds of Thailand’s rubber growing area is in the south.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-floods-rubber-idUSKBN1540YI
I’m not worried. All my rubbers are latex and I even turn them inside out, so I get the ribbed pleasure. To hell with her – I paid for them plus I’m also doing all the work.
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 8:39 pm
‘What should be pristine white is littered with blue’ – Timo Lieber’s Arctic photography
His aerial shots of the lakes forming on the Arctic ice cap are a beautiful but chilling reminder of the impact of climate change
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jan/19/what-should-be-pristine-white-is-littered-with-blue-timo-liebers-arctic-photography
DMyers on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 9:42 pm
DerHundistlos, your name would suggest a German Hispanic. Did I get that right? Strikes me as a very rare combo.
I don’t understand your indignity over selling “surplus” public lands. Let’s imagine that these lands were truly surplus, in that they serve no economic purpose. Then what would be so bad about selling them to someone who might put them to profitable use?
Federal land grabs are not always good for nature, I assure you. Because, whatever the federal government may say, it doesn’t give a shit about the good of nature.
Hubert on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 9:56 pm
In 50 years, half of all big animals will disappear from the face of this Earth.
Sixth Extinction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDQV1hiLpQQ&t=1092s
DMyers on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 10:16 pm
Frankly, in my opinion, an extinction is an extinction. This idea that we must, or have a duty to, prevent an extinction in progress is simply way beyond reasonable. Sit back and be a part of it all.
Some say we’re next. I’m good with that. Extinction happens, as we used to say.
Kathy C on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 5:21 am
DMyers, I like that “extinction happens”. We are in fact not the first species to cause their own extinction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
“Oceanic cyanobacteria, which evolved into multicellular forms more than 2.3 billion years ago (approximately 200 million years before the GOE),[6] are believed to have become the first microbes to produce oxygen by photosynthesis.[7] Before the GOE, any free oxygen they produced was chemically captured by dissolved iron or organic matter. The GOE was the point in time when these oxygen sinks became saturated, at which point oxygen, produced by the cyanobacteria, was free to escape into the atmosphere.
Cyanobacteria: Responsible for the buildup of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere
The increased production of oxygen set Earth’s original atmosphere off balance.[8] Free oxygen is toxic to obligate anaerobic organisms, and the rising concentrations may have destroyed most such organisms at the time. Cyanobacteria were therefore responsible for one of the most significant extinction events in Earth’s history.”
We are just the first self aware species to extinct ourselves with our own wastes. What’s more we have the knowledge to know what we are doing. And it looks like we will do a more complete job of self extincting than the anaerobes some of whom found niches in which they could survive (like soil and puncture wounds).
Thus intelligence and self awareness were only temporarily more “fit”, and those traits will be selected out of the DNA mix on this planet.
Sit back and watch is good advice….of course it is all we can do, unless one likes hitting their head against a wall while implacable Ma Nature does what she will.
Dredd on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 6:09 am
They can’t survive without competent habitat.
Kathy C on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 8:04 am
Dredd yes habitat, environment is everything to natural selection. What is “fit” changes as the environment changes. Nothing is unilaterly fit. Anaerobic bacteria are fit in low oxygen environs.
Peter Ward in his book Under a Green Sky, makes the case that the “fitness” of sulfur eating bacteria may soon rise.
Mammals have only be “fit” for a short span in earth’s history and we are about to become “unfit” as the environment changes.
Sissyfuss on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 11:27 am
Keep spreading the truth, Kathy. You don’t seem like the type of person that can tolerate the falsehoods of the corporatocracy.
Hello on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 2:49 pm
And in another story I was told negros are aplenty. Which one is true, now?
GregT on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 3:13 pm
“We are each effecting positive change in our own way.”
How on earth do you consider promoting hate and intolerance of your own duly elected president as positive Derhun? And how do you believe, in your twisted little mind, that by doing so you are going to change anything?
Honestly, what the fuck is wrong with you people?
Apneaman on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 4:40 pm
Hello, did your mom tell you that story? I heard she was an expert on negros. Labour of love.
Apneaman on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 5:28 pm
Humans, not climate change, wiped out Australian megafauna
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-humans-climate-australian-megafauna.html
Alright kids let’s everybody sing along………
If you’re a cancer and you know it – clap your hands
CLAP! CLAP!
If you’re a cancer and you know it – clap your hands
CLAP! CLAP!
If you’re a cancer and you know it then the extinctions in your wake will surely show it
If you’re a cancer and you know it – clap your hands
CLAP! CLAP!
Sissyfuss on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 7:41 pm
You wil never find a more efficient and effective killing machine than man.Except for an asteroid perhaps.
JR on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 9:57 pm
Damn… wrong primates.