Gemini884 t1_isd4wg8 wrote
Reply to comment by sonic_tower in Animal populations have shrunk an average of 69% over the last half-century and are continuing to decline, a report says, and we've got limited time to try to fix it. by mossadnik
“In the last 50 years, Earth has lost 68% of wildlife, all thanks to us humans” (India Times)
“Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds” (The Guardian)
“We’ve lost 60% of wildlife in less than 50 years” (World Economic Forum)
These are just three of many headlines covering the Living Planet Index. But they are all wrong. They are based on a misunderstanding of what the Living Planet Index shows.
https://ourworldindata.org/living-planet-index-decline - explainer article from ourworldindata
"Recent analyses have reported catastrophic global declines in vertebrate populations. However, the distillation of many trends into a global mean index obscures the variation that can inform conservation measures and can be sensitive to analytical decisions. For example, previous analyses have estimated a mean vertebrate decline of more than 50% since 1970 (Living Planet Index).Here we show, however, that this estimate is driven by less than 3% of vertebrate populations; if these extremely declining populations are excluded, the global trend switches to an increase. The sensitivity of global mean trends to outliers suggests that more informative indices are needed. We propose an alternative approach, which identifies clusters of extreme decline (or increase) that differ statistically from the majority of population trends.We show that, of taxonomic–geographic systems in the Living Planet Index, 16 systems contain clusters of extreme decline (comprising around 1% of populations; these extreme declines occur disproportionately in larger animals) and 7 contain extreme increases (around 0.4% of populations). The remaining 98.6% of populations across all systems showed no mean global trend."
weakhamstrings t1_isf4eu9 wrote
These are great sources here and cool to read, thanks for sharing.
However, this comment only makes sense because the headline isn't specific enough. With regards to what most folks think of when we say "animals" (other than farm animals), the studies you linked aren't really reflective of that.
We are talking "mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians" here and the original article (linked at the beginning of OP's article) also specifies the losses by region which is also exceptionally important
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