Direct killing by humans pushing Earth’s biggest fauna toward extinction

January 30, 2019

CORVALLIS, Ore. – One hundred forty-three species of large animals are decreasing in number and 171 are under threat of extinction, according to new research that suggests humans’ meat consumption habits are primarily to blame.

Findings published today in Conservation Letters involved an analysis of 292 species of “megafauna” – species that are unusually large in comparison to other species in the same class.

“Direct harvest for human consumption of meat or body parts is the biggest danger to nearly all of the large species with threat data available,” said the study’s corresponding author, William Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the Oregon State University College of Forestry. “Thus, minimizing the direct killing of these vertebrate animals is an important conservation tactic that might save many of these iconic species as well as all of the contributions they make to their ecosystems.”

Ripple and colleagues in the College of Forestry were part of an international collaboration that built a list of megafauna based on body size and taxonomy.

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