About 600,000 species have become extinct in just the last 50 years. Name 3. Anybody miss them?

There are an estimated 14 million species of plants, animals, insects, and other living things on this planet right now. On average, a species goes extinct after about a 10 million year run. If we belabor the point and sacrifice our creature comforts, spend billions of dollars to help these critters, and manage to stretch their existence another few centuries, it’s still the same. We all die.

Nearly every single species that has ever existed – that’s 99.9% of them – are now extinct. As many as 50% of today’s 370,000 known animal species could be extinct by 2100.

However – including birds, frogs, and marine mammals – it’s estimated that at least 2.6 million animal species are alive today. We just haven’t identified most of them yet. Almost 5,000 of the known animal species currently are at risk for extinction (that’s less that 2 hundredths of one percent of all estimated living species). They include the following 27 more familiar species, so say “bye-bye” to…

Lions
Tigers
Polar Bears
Elephants
Blue Whales
Snow Leopards
Pandas
Gorillas
Chimpanzees
Bonobos
African Wild Dogs
Black Rhinos
Spotted Owls
Leatherback Sea Turtles
Red Wolves
Bactrian Camels
Giant Armadillos
California Condors
Hawaiian Crows
Whooping Cranes
Cave Catfish
New Zealand Dolphins
Tree Kangaroos
Sea Otters
Devil Rays
Jaguars
King Rats

Like I said, these critters are goners. No matter what. Deal with it.

O.C. DeeDee

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