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Vertebrate Population Dropped by 60 Percent Since 1970, Report Says

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The world's vertebrate population has dropped by roughly 60 percent since 1970, according to a report by the WWF. (Piotr Trojanowski/Dreamstime.com)

By    |   Tuesday, 30 October 2018 01:16 PM EDT

The world's vertebrate population has dropped by roughly 60 percent since 1970, according to a report by the WWF conservation organization.

The report, which was based upon data from The Living Planet Index provided by the Zoological Society of London, analyzed various mammal, fish, bird, reptilian, and amphibious populations across the globe between 1970 and 2014.

According to the data gathered, there has been an overall decline of 60 percent in these population sizes across the world, although South and Central America suffered the most dramatic decline of 89 percent since 1970.

The report further noted that, on a global scale, the area of minimally disturbed forests had declined by 92 million hectares between 2000 to 2013.

According to the LPI, there are several other notable findings, NBC News noted.

The hedgehog has declined by 75 percent between 2002 and 2014 in urban areas in the U.K., while the grey partridge has fallen by 85 percent between 1970 and 2004.

Additionally, the African grey parrot population in southwest Ghana has decreased by 98 percent between 1992 and 2014 while in the oceans, almost 6 billion tons of fish and invertebrates have been extracted since the 1950s.

The report reflects similar findings highlighted in previous studies.

Most recently, a report published earlier this month noted that insects are disappearing from the national forest in Puerto Rico.

In the new study posted by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates.

Last month, a separate study found a dramatic decline in populations of the monarch butterfly in the U.S.

"Loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and to jeopardize ecosystem services," the abstract of the study in the journal PLOS One stated.

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TheWire
A recent report released by conservation organization WWF says the world's vertebrate population has dropped by roughly 60 percent since 1970.
vertebrate, population, drop
302
2018-16-30
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 01:16 PM
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