Next mass extinction is close: US study

Berkeley

The world is close to its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, scientists warned yesterday, and humans could be among the first victims.

The study by Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley said that the planet has not been losing species at this rate from the time the era of dinosaurs ended 66 million years ago.

The study "shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," said co-author Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University professor of biology.

And humans are likely to be among the species lost, said the study -- which its authors described as "conservative" -- published in the journal Science Advances.

"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico.

The analysis is based on documented extinctions of vertebrates, or animals with internal skeletons such as frogs, reptiles and tigers, from fossil records and other historical data.

The causes of species loss range from climate change to pollution to deforestation and more.