From reading various sources, the planet RECENTLY has lost significant (>20) % of
1) frogs (30% or something)
2) bees (50%)
3) mass (unexplained) death of birds reported from the USA to Australia.

These are pillars of the biosphere as we know it.

Yeah, there is 90% less fish in oceans too. Seems human locust is about to graze pastures dead.

I see no sources here. Links for your percentages?

you cannot correlate from this that the end is near.

Oh well, had to end sometime.

The Global Amphibian Assessment, an international convention of amphibian biologists, indicated in 2004 that over a third of the world's amphibian species are threatened, making them the most threatened group of animals on the planet. More than 120 species have likely become extinct since the 1980s, and around two-thirds of the South American harlequin frog species vanished in the 1980s and 1990s. The decline of amphibians in protected habitats has puzzled conservation biologists for nearly 20 years.

Recent research suggests that climate change may be driving widespread frog extinctions. Results of a study published in the January 2006 Nature journal reveal how warming alters a fatal skin fungus affecting frogs. The article says hundreds of species around the world are teetering on the brink of extinction or have already become extinct.

"Disease is the bullet that's killing the frogs," said J. Alan Pounds, the study's lead scientist from the Tropical Science Center in Costa Rica. "But climate change is pulling the trigger. Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians, and soon will cause staggering losses of biodiversity," he said.

According to the study, rising temperatures favor the chytrid fungus, which seems to kill frogs mostly in cool highlands or during winter—implying that low temperatures make it more deadly. National Science Foundation program director Sam Scheiner said their study "demonstrates the complex nature of global climate change, including how climate affects the spread of disease, and why these must be integrated if we are to understand and reduce threats to species extinctions."

Scheiner says the message goes beyond amphibians: "global warming and the accompanying emergence of infectious diseases are a real and immediate threat to biodiversity and a growing challenge for humankind."

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Largest_mass_extinction_in_65_million_years_underw ay,_scientists_say

Honey bees in US facing extinction
By Michael Leidig in Vienna
Last Updated: 2:20am GMT 14/03/2007



Albert Einstein once predicted that if bees were to disappear, man would follow only a few years later.

That hypothesis could soon be put to the test, as a mysterious condition that has wiped half of the honey bee population the United States over the last 35 years appears to be repeating itself in Europe.

Experts are at a loss to explain the fall in honey bee populations in America, with fears of that a new disease, the effects of pollution or the increased use of pesticides could be to blame for "colony collapse disorder". From 1971 to 2006 approximately one half of the US honey bee colonies have vanished.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/14/wbees14.xml

According to a new report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), birds are suffering increasing effects from global warming. The result may be a major extinction. (The full report is found here, in pdf format. A summary of the report can be found at the WWF site also.)

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The researchers found declines of up to 90 percent in some bird populations, as well as total and unprecedented reproductive failure in others.

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They estimate that bird extinction rates could be as high as 38 percent in Europe, and 72 percent in northeastern Australia, if global warming exceeds two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels - currently it is 0.8ºC above those levels.


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"We are seeing migratory birds failing to migrate, and climate change pushing increasing numbers of birds out of synchrony with key elements of their ecosystems," Mallon said. The report, "Bird Species and Climate Change: The Global Status Report," reviews more than 200 scientific articles on birds in every continent to build up a global picture of climate change impacts.

http://www.seasabres.com/%5CSafty-education%5CEducation%5CEnviornment%5Ctroubleseas. htm

Ninety percent of the big fish have already been caught. Will rampant overfishing cause the ocean’s ecosystems to collapse? No one knows.