Elephants, Rhinos and Other Large Plant-Eaters Face Extinction, Study Says Scientists see a bleak future for large herbivores

Elephants, Rhinos and Other Large Plant-Eaters Face Extinction, Study Says Scientists see a bleak future for large herbivores

  Elephants are
large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Two species are traditionally recognized, the African elephant. The world’s major
plant-eating animals like elephants and rhinoceroses are facing dramatic
population losses due to poaching and resource destruction, with 60% of large
herbivores endangered by extinction, according to new scientific studies recently
disclosed and closely reported by time

Grass-grazing giants like elephants, hippopotamuses and black rhinoceroses
only occupy a tiny fraction of their historical ranges, according to the study
in Science
Advances
, and the loss of herbivores over 100kg (220lb) is likely result in
“enormous ecological and social costs.”

The loss of large herbivores has been endemic in Africa for years, but the
study sheds new light on the widespread loss of large animals due to over
hunting for meat—some one billion people rely on wild meat for subsistence.

Hunting and land-use changes have a devastating effect on those species,
with habitat loss due to deforestation and meat hunting having a particularly
negative effect. The number of forest elephants in central Africa declined by
62% between 2002 and 2011, and some 100,000 elephants were poached between 2010
and 2012.