Eminent ecologists warn humans are causing a mass extinction event, but paleontologists and statisticians have called

such comparison to the dinosaurs into doubt. The vast majority of extinctions have been in the tropical Americas. Freshwater fish are especially vulnerable, with more than a quarter listed as threatened. ilson !As the area of habitat falls, the number of species living in it drops proportionally by the third root to the sixth root" #onservationists fear that the arches of entire ecosystems will fall once a few !$eystone" species are removed.

%umans have done a lot of damage to our world. According to eminent ecologists we are causing mass extinction so sever that it hasn&t been seen since the age of the end of dinosaurs '( million years ago. This comparison though is put to doubt by paleontologists an statisticians. From )obert *. *ay&s rough estimate he says the extinction rate accelerated during the past +,, years to roughly +,,,, times what it was before humans showed up. From a survey of biologists ta$en in +--., /, percent said they believed that a mass extinction is in progress0 a third of them expected to lose 1, to (, percent of the world&s species within 2, years. %ow these calculations are determined is hard to do. To put numbers on this theory you must $now three things3 the natural 4or !bac$ground"5 extinction rate, the current rate and whether the pace of extinction is steady or changing. The first step is to wor$ out the mean life span of a species from fossil records explains ilson. 6n a +--( article, *ay used a similar method to ilson to compute the bac$ground rate. %e relied on estimates that put the mean species life span at five million to ten million years, but he came up with a rate five to ten times lower than ilson&s. ith other attempts that followed after ilson and *ay figuring out the current extinction rate became harder to find and there were some uncertainties about the method. This article is very informative. As for my opinion on it, yes there is a possibility humans might create a mass extinction as for the fact that it will be as big as the dinosaur extinction 6&m unsure about that. 7ecause the numbers are hard to calculate, it&s difficult to ma$e a decision you are not +,,8 confident about. 7ut 6 no doubt believe that because of humans animals are becoming extinct. e tear down their habitat to build roads, houses, ect. For our own selfish uses instead of thin$ing about how this action will effect them.

So What? This is important because it brings attention to us, how our actions are really affecting life for animals. 6t shows how in a matter of time we could possibly $ill off a large percentage of the animals that are alive now. 6f things don&t begin to change now, we are heading down a road which leads to an unhealthy earth. What if..? hat if there was a mass extinction what would happen; 6f this occurred the death of all these animals would create problems for the food chain for the other animals that may have survived. <ot only that, but we depend on some of those animals either as a source of food or for the existence of the plants that provide oxygen for us.

Says Who? The article was written by . ayt 9ibbs, but their where some scientists and researchers who contributed to the information found. The two 6 remember are )obert *. *ay and E.:. ilson.

What Does This Remind Me Of? This reminds me of the article hich =pecies ill >ive. 6 thought of this article first because it tal$s about extinction. hat it was mainly about though is how we have to pic$ and chose which specie is worth saving compared to other endangered animals. 6n this article though there isn&t tal$ about choosing just actions, but it runs along the same lines.