Ray Dearlove is translocating rhinos to Australia to save them. Photo by Julia Salnicki

EXTINCTION. The very word suggests long ago and far away.  Dinosaurs, mastodons, woolly mammoth, saber tooth tigers, aurochs, the dodo,  fossils or remains preserved deep in the earth – the past that none of us can see or touch. In our new series of articles this spring,  you’ll find out that extinction is happening every day on the planet – often before we have identified species that have gone extinct.

Free diving on the Great Barrier Reef. The corals are deeply threatened.

Extinction poses threats to the whole web of life– from bees to the world’s largest mammals.  It is radiating all around us and all over the planet. Many of the threats are actually crime stories –smuggling live birds and animals, poaching, illegal hunting and trapping, illegal logging, overfishing.

Rajah, a male white Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) at Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. (Image ID: ANI019-00460). Joel Sartore. Photo rights reserved

Eminent biologist Dr. Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University (author of 20+ books) warned nearly 15 years ago that up to half of all species on Earth could be extinct within a century.  That means your grandchildren may grow up without the animals that inspired beloved books and movies– Babar the Elephant, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book or Aesop’s fable of the mouse and the lion.

Andre Bauma carrying one of his four rescued mountain gorillas. Courtesy of Getty

“Their fate will be sealed on our watch.”  So says John Calvelli of Wildlife Conservation  Society

You’re not sure there’s anything you can do. But you can!

Green News Update is offering you free information and tools in future stories to

• Get informed
• Have a voice
• Make smarter choices
• Take action

for smarter consumption, sustainable travel practices, enjoyable citizen science,  standing up for smart regulations and international policies.

Saving the world’s animals, birds, and marine life is not a spectator sport.

Schools of blue-striped grunts and Schoolmaster snappers at the Queen marine reserve. Copyright David Doubilet.

We are counting on you to help preserve and protect the planet’s biodiversity.

We stand for wildlife! (Wildlife Conservation Society)