S6 E8: 100 Seconds to Midnight: The Story of the Sixth Mass Extinction

WEBVTT

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My name is Keeley, and I
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Hi, guys, dark Cast Network, come on over to the Dark

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you get past the true crime and scary

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science. Hello, and welcome to
Cause of Death one hundred seconds to midnight.

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I'm your host, Jackie Moranti.
In the last fifty years, we've

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lost more than four thousand and species
that are vital to their habitats. These

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animals played an important role in the
support of their ecosystems. Some were predators,

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some were prey, but they all
had one natural enemy man. As

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humans grew in numbers, these animals
were overhunted, exposed to pesticides, and

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driven into smaller and smaller habitats.
The land was needed for the King of

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the beasts. It's ninety seconds to
midnight, and our wildlife suffers under the

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heavy burden of human encroachment, from
logging to drilling for oil, over development

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of wild lands to water diversion.
Animals are disappearing, never to be seen

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again. Now I can't talk about
the four thousand species that have gone extinct

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over the last fifty years. That
would take forever. But I can talk

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about a few that have disappeared over
the last ten years. And keep in

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mind, the important point of this
episode is why some of these animals were

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magnificent and fierce and some were small
and colorful. They were all valuable to

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their habitats, and they're all mist
We are in the sixth mass extinction event.

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This event started anywhere from a thousand
to ten thousand years ago, and

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during this extinction we've seen a steady
decline in our biodiversity. Every life form

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is affected by this event, including
bacteria, fungi, plants, mammals,

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birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates. The previous five mass

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extinction events were caused by natural phenomena. The Ice Age was the first mass

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extinction, which occurred at the end
of the Ordovician period about four hundred and

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forty four million years ago. That
event lasted about a million years and wiped

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out eighty six percent of the species
that lived on the planet at that time.

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The last mass extinction event was believed
to be caused by an asteroid hitting

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the Earth. This was called the
Cretaceous Tertiary extinction and it happened around sixty

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five million years ago. This mass
extinction is called the Holocene or Anthroposcene extinction.

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Holocene is the geologic period in which
the event takes place. Anthroposcene has

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a much darker meaning. It refers
to the actions of man as the cause

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for the extinction. Mass extinction is
defined as the disappearance of approximately seventy five

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percent of the species on Earth in
a geologically short period of time, faster

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than new species can replace them.
The Anthropocene extinction is occurring at rates that

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are one hundred to one thousand times
higher than previous extinction events. Those events

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had background extinction rates. Currently,
our background rates are very low. A

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background extinction rate is a pre human
extinction rate, and these are normal evolutionary

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processes and extinctions. Animals will go
extinct without the help of man, but

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this time man is the cause of
the extinction rates. Data from a UN

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report published in twenty nineteen stated that
in a few decades at least one million

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species could be wiped out. Okay, so a few animals and plants become

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extinct, Who cares there are always
more animals, right, Well, let's

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talk about what would happen if we
lose a million species over a few decades.

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Our food supply would be threatened.
Plants depend on pollinating animals, and

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about one third of our food supply
comes from plants. Even cash crops can't

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survive without bees, bats, and
butterflies as pollinators. Crop pests would also

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thrive and take over as predator populations
dropped off. Frogs and bats eat a

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lot of bugs, and without them, bugs would become more plentiful. Soil

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quality would become affected. To microorganisms
in soil promote plant growth by cycling nutrients

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and breaking down crop residues. Allowing
the soil to be sapped from its nutrients

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will cause a decline in food production. Thirty five percent of land suitable for

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crop production has been degraded by humans
since nineteen fifty, largely due to commercial

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farming and deforestation. Deforestation affects rainfall
patterns. Evapo transporation is the process in

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which moisture is returned to the atmosphere
through evaporation and plant transporation. Without it,

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the land dries out. Much of
our fresh water comes from wetlands that

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purify and redistribute it. The Himalayan
Water Tower is an example of this.

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It's fed by rivers and wetlands,
and it supplies about two billion people with

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fresh water. If these ecosystems collapse, there would be more algae ballooms,

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less vegetation, and humans would lose
fresh water supplies. Natural cover plants like

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trees protect the earth from wildfires and
flooding. Salt marshes and mangrove forests buffer

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against ocean swells and hurricanes. I
want you to notice how forests are coming

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up in almost every example here.
Here's another one. Forests help us fight

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climate change by creating carbon sinks.
Without them, we would be emitting even

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more greenhouse gases into the environment.
The lack of water, crop failures,

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lack of grace for livestock, and
the disappearance of animals to hunt for food

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would cause mass migrations as people move
to other places where they might be able

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to find more resources. This would
cause conflicts, if not all at wars

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over dwindling resources. Mass extinction could
impact our health through contact. It opens

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the door to introducing new diseases when
we enter new habitats or as animals flee

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theirs to find new places to live, we have a greater chance of contacting

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these animals, giving rise to the
opportunity for spillover of new pathogens. One

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of the best examples of this is
the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in twenty

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fourteen. It was believed to have
started when children were playing in a hollowed

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out tree that was home to bats. If we lose too much of our

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natural habitat, it could also weaken
our ability to fight off disease. For

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instance, if we lose the order
of bats, there will be more mosquitoes

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and more mosquito bites. This gives
rise to the threat of more vector borne

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diseases that could have been curbed if
we had just kept the bats. We

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depend on many plants and fungi to
help us recover from disease. Too.

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Many treatments for heart disease, Parkinson's
and various cancers have their bases in nature.

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And then there's the threat to our
mental health. I love to be

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outside and I love wildlife. A
small stream runs beside the company that I

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work for. When I first moved
here, I was thrilled to see wild

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turkeys, herons, and even groundhogs
living around the stream. I had never

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seen a groundhog before. They didn't
live in the West where I spent most

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of my life. Every day before
work, when I leave for lunch,

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and after work, I look for
the groundhogs. When they're out, I

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spend a few minutes watching them.
I even talk to them. I've seen

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hawks and frogs and lizards around the
stream too. It just makes me feel

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better to see these wild creatures after
a long day at work or on the

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way in when I know it's going
to be a long day. The field

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behind the apartment where I live is
filled with fireflies. I go out at

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night and I watch them as well. Some nights there are only a few

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here and there, but there have
been nights when the entire field is covered

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in fireflies. It's an amazing site. I've lived in cities where there weren't

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many critters to watch and enjoy,
and it sucked. It did affect my

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mental health not to have birds chittering
or little fuzzy things running around. When

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people are separated from wildlife, it's
referred to as ecological grief. This is

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defined as physical ecological losses, loss
of environmental identity, or anticipated future ecological

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loss. It's important to people who
live in wild places that those places remain

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wild. Let's take a quick break
to hear from my sponsors, and then

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I'll come back and we'll talk about
the causes of the Holocene extinction. Did

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you know that planting cover crops in
fall will help replenish the soil for spring.

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Cover crops at Organic Biomass keep the
soil bacteria healthy, add nitrogen and

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other nutrients so that when spring comes
around, you're ready to plant vegetables and

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fruits and the soil is ready to
support them. Cover crops also attract pollinators

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to your gardens. I've talked a
lot about how important bats are, but

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you also want to attract bees,
butterflies, and other beneficial insects. Amphibians

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are struggling with fungal disease, and
planting cover crops may also give them a

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safe place to hibernate for the winter. Cover crops improve soil structure and prevent

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erosion. Whether you're planting backyard gardens, containers, or raised beds, cover

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crops will keep your soil healthy.
It costs less than twenty five dollars for

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most backyard gardens, and the improvement
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expires October thirty first, twenty twenty three.

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The current biodiversity crisis can be boiled
down to five root causes. Firstly,

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we've changed the way that we use
the land and the sea. The

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area of the world that's been unaltered
or untouched by humans is shrinking. About

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a third of the entire world is
reserved for agriculture or livestock. Between nineteen

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eighty and the year two thousand,
about one hundred million hectares of tropical forests

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disappeared. A hectare is ten thousand
square meters or about two and a half

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acres of land. The Wakida is
a small porpoise that lives in the Pacific

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Ocean. It mostly lives along the
coast of California north in Mexico. To

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date, there are only about ten
left in the wild. There has been

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one calf sighting, so biologists aren't
giving up hope that the species could bounce

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back, but it's the most endangered
animal currently known. The vaquita often get

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caught in gill nets used by commercial
fishermen. Once they're trapped in the nets,

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they can escape and they drown.
The Mexican government has banned the use

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of gillnets for commercial fishing, but
enforcing that band has been challenging. In

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an effort to save the vakeda from
extinction, Mexico and California have created protected

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areas of ocean so that they can
be safe from industrialized fishing. Another example

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is the pinta giant tortoise. This
species was declared extinct on June twenty four,

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twenty twelve, when Lonesome George,
the last surviving member, died.

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During the nineteenth century, whalers hunted
the tortoises for food, but more recently

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their habitat in the Galapagos Islands has
been destroyed by deforestation after the locals introduced

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goats into their habitat. Hunting and
poaching have driven several animals to extinction.

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Protected species around the world are still
targeted for their pelts, their meat,

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or their horns. The illegal exploitation
of animals is one of the most profitable

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illegal activities known. Every branch of
wildlife has been involved in this trade in

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one way or another. One animal
that went extinct to to this was the

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West African black rhinoceros. This was
a subspecies of the black rhinoceros. The

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rhinoceros was declared extinct in twenty eleven. They last existed in Cameroon, but

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after an intense survey of the land, biologists didn't find any signs of living

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West African black rhinos. They were
hunted into extinction by poachers who only wanted

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their horns. The horns of the
rhinoceros are prized for the belief that they

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are an aphrodisiac. Climate change,
of course, is wreaking havoc on several

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species, from corals to mammals.
Climate change is one of the biggest factors

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in the Anthropocene extinction. The bramble
Ka Malammas may have been the first mammal

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to have gone extinct due to climate
change. The Malammas was a rodent that

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lived on an island off of Australia
and was last seen in two thousand and

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nine. Its habitat was just nine
feet above sea level, and when the

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sea level rose on Brown Bouquet,
it caused inundation events that killed the plants

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where little milamas sheltered. This in
turn contributed to the extinction of the species.

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The fourth root causes pollution. Noah
estimates that over one hundred million marine

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animals die per year because of plastic
pollution. Other pollutants, such as oil

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and gas cause even more depths.
The Beijier River dolphin had traveled the Yanksea

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River for twenty million years. It
was wiped out in less than fifty years

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by overfishing boat traffic pollution and poaching. In two thousand and six, scientists

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from the Beiji Foundation traveled the Yanksee
River for more than two thousand miles in

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search of the dolphin that had once
populated the river, and none were found.

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There haven't been any sightings of them
since two thousand and two. The

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fifth root cause is invasive alien species. This is caused by people bringing species

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from one place to another. Often
these species don't have natural predators in the

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area, and they take over the
environment. The Mariam viviparous tree snail was

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declared extinct in the wild in two
thousand and nine. When the African land

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snail was introduced to Tahiti in nineteen
sixty seven, is a food source,

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the snails escaped captivity and began to
destroy crops. Biologists then attempted to control

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that snail by introducing the rosy wolf
snail as a predator in nineteen seventy seven.

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The rosy wolf snail also preyed upon
the tree snail and all the other

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native snail species. Several species of
tree snail still exist in captivity and it's

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thought that they might be reintroduced,
but the rosy wolf snail is still out

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there, and it's hungry. There
are more causes of extinction that can be

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attributed to man, and we've talked
about one of them quite a bit in

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this season. It's disease. The
splendid poison frog made its home in the

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Cordia Central Impanama. It was declared
extinct in twenty twenty. It was last

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seen in nineteen ninety two. Biologists
believe that the species went extinct due to

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an outbreak of frog fungal disease in
nineteen ninety six, but deforestation and habitat

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degradation had already caused a significant decline
in the species. Politics and litigation are

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currently a double edged sword when it
comes to wildlife conservation. In twenty nineteen,

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Donald Trump tried to pare down the
Endangered Species Act to only include the

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most critically endangered. The Endangered Species
Act has saved several species from extinction,

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including the California condor, the grizzly
bear, and our nation's emblem, the

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bald eagle. Trump wanted to give
all that up so that oil and gas

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production could take over the habitats that
are so desperately needed by not only those

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species, but about a thousand others. The Endangered Species Act was coming under

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fire during the Trump administration, and
the Department of the Interior was going to

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let it happen. The idea was
to curb the ways that species could be

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added to the list and lengthen the
process for getting them on that list in

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the first place. The Secretary of
the Interior, David Bernhardt, said that

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the way that the Act was being
carried out was not effectively administered, and

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that cutbacks to the law would ensure
that resources could go where they would do

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the most good. Presumably he meant
in the pockets of the oil companies.

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Conservationists agree that the law needs an
overhaul, but they want to get the

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wheels of bureaucracy to move faster,
not slower. And while the current Secretary

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of the Interior, Deb Hallen says
that the Endangered Species Act will be maintained,

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we don't know what the next presidential
administration will do. When you can't

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get your way in America, you
sue someone. And litigation over land rights

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has gone all the way to the
highest court in the land. In some

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cases. Yes, land developers are
suing the frogs, the bears, the

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wolves. The Department of the Interior
and the Fish and Wildlife Service for their

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right to build unprotected lands. Recently, the Supreme Court has decided that it's

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time to take another look at the
Endangered Species Act. Currently, thirteen hundred

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plants and animals are protected under this
law, but lobbyists for land development and

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oil companies are suing to get their
grubby hands on what little wild lands are

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left. The Endangered Species Act was
put into law in nineteen seventy three and

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it hasn't been revised since nineteen ninety
two. But during the thirty years since,

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several lawsuits, mostly from land developers, have been argued for the right

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of developers to build on public lands. A landmark case was argued in twenty

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eighteen in Warehouser Company versus United States
Fish and Wildlife Service. The Warehouser Company

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argued that the land that they owned
in a section of Saint Tammany Parish,

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Louisiana, should be cleared for development. This section was called Unit one,

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and it was deemed a critical habitat
for the dusky gopher frog. This frog

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had been placed on the endangered species
list in two thousand and one. Warehouser

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argued that since the frog hadn't been
seen in that habitat for decades. Unit

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one met the qualifications for an abandoned
critical habitat. The unit had been used

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as a commercial timber plant for many
years, and the frogs had since moved

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to Mississippi. The Fish and Wildlife
Service argued that the land still met the

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criteria for critical habitat whether the frogs
moved or not. This habitat had rare,

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high quality breeding ponds and it was
separated from other frog populations. The

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land would dry out in summer,
allowing the frogs to breed without concern for

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predation. The owners submitted a report
saying that if the land was allowed to

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remain a critical habitat, it would
block their efforts to develop it and the

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company would lose about thirty three million
dollars in profit. The Unit one landowners

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was a group of family developers led
by the Ware Hazard Company, and they

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argued that the land had become a
closed canopy forest due to the logging,

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and the frog prefers an been canopy
forest for its habitat. The Fish and

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Wildlife Service lost in district court,
but before the developers could build anything,

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the Supreme Court got it's shot at
the case. Without getting into a lot

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of legalies, suffice it to say
that the Supreme Court ruled that the habitat

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must first be a habitat so it
couldn't be abandoned, and that economic impact

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had to be taken into account before
any land was designated as a critical habitat.

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Wherehauser was cleared to develop, the
ponds had to be diverted and the

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area had to be filled in before
they could actually build. But they were

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cleared to do it, and it
was a blow to the Fish and Wildlife

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Service. But as far as I
know, the dusky gopher frog is still

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hopping along in Mississippi. E and
E Knew has found that there were fifty

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three ESA actions taken by the Fish
and Wildlife Service between January first of twenty

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twenty two and May first of twenty
twenty three. These actions included listings of

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threatened or endangered species and designation of
critical habitats. Of these fifty three actions,

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thirty eight of them involved lawsuits.
Jonathan Wood, the vice president of

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law and Policy at the Property and
Environment Research Center, told E and E.

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Quote the pile up of lawsuits has
led some agencies and landowners to feel

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like litigation targets rather than conservation partners. End quote be that, as it

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may, the lawsuits are getting the
Fish and Wildlife Service to act quicker to

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00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:59.640
get species added to the list of
endangered animals. The ESA frequently misses deadlines,

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and this draws legal action from the
left, while the right complains that

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the agency is hiding the number of
species that have been recovered. In an

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analysis done by the Defenders of Wildlife, it was found that about four hundred

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species lacked a required recovery plan and
almost nine hundred plans are outdated. While

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litigation can harm a species, sometimes
the animals win. A prime example came

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from the Emperor penguins. The Center
for Biological Diversity petitioned for the penguins to

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be added to the endangered species list
in twenty ten. Four years later,

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the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed that
the penguins were endangered, but nothing happened

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00:29:52.039 --> 00:29:57.039
until twenty twenty two, when the
Center for Biological Diversity filed the suit against

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the Fish and Wildlife Service for not
getting the penguins declared endangered in a timely

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00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:08.279
manner. That's what finally got the
ball rolling and in November of twenty twenty

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two, the penguins were added to
the Threatened Species list. The penguins habitat

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has been threatened by climate change.
Emperor penguins live on the sea ice of

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Antarctica. They never set foot on
land. They even breed on the frozen

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00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:33.119
sea. Their populations have declined up
to fifty percent in some areas, and

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00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:40.079
one colony of the Antarctic Peninsula has
been totally wiped out. As the oceans

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00:30:40.119 --> 00:30:44.359
warm and the sea ice melts,
the habitats of the penguins become threatened,

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00:30:44.759 --> 00:30:56.799
and this in turn threatens their survival. Lawsuits have become a necessary evil for

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00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:02.960
the conservationist groups. While litigation can
move things along a bit quicker, it

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00:31:03.079 --> 00:31:07.960
also puts the Fish and Wildlife Service
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in

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00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:14.960
a bind. They spend so much
time in courtrooms that other tasks get put

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00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:21.200
to the back burner and the agencies
get even more behind. Lawyers are expensive,

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00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:26.160
and this leads to a lack of
employees to file paperwork and release documents.

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The moral of the story is that
we can't add politics to the list

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of things that are causing the Holocene
extinction. The animals are having a hard

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00:31:41.839 --> 00:31:52.359
enough time with the other problems that
man has created. At some point and

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very soon, we need to reverse
the effects that we've had on our environment.

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00:31:56.839 --> 00:32:00.759
Because we're all connected. We may
not see the negative outcomes of losing

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00:32:00.759 --> 00:32:07.119
a species here and a species there
yet, but it's coming. We don't

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00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:14.720
want to wait until it's too late. While humans get greedier and develop more

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00:32:14.839 --> 00:32:19.440
land, drill for more oil,
and exploit animals for food and sport,

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00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:25.279
forty percent of amphibians, thirty three
percent of coral reefs, and over a

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00:32:25.440 --> 00:32:35.440
third of marine mammals are threatened with
extinction. We're losing species faster than normal

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00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:39.680
extinction rates can replace them, and
we don't even realize how important they are

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00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:45.720
to us. It's ninety seconds to
midnight and time is running out for the

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00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:53.960
critically endangered. Will the human race
follow them into extinction? I want to

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00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:58.519
thank you all for listening to Cause
of Death one hundred seconds to midnight.

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00:32:58.799 --> 00:33:02.720
Please check out the show notes for
more information on the Holocene extinction and the

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00:33:02.799 --> 00:33:08.720
small contributions we can all make to
reverse it. There's always something we can

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00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:15.480
do. Generate less trash, don't
waste food. Garden wisely and sustainably.

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00:33:15.759 --> 00:33:23.480
Drive less little things can make a
big difference. Check out my sponsor for

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00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:28.880
this month's True Leaf Market. It's
time to put your gardens to rest for

313
00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:32.599
the winter, and True Leaf Market
can keep your soil healthy with a variety

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00:33:32.680 --> 00:33:37.920
of cover plants that provide nutrients for
the soil. I'm going to be doing

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00:33:37.920 --> 00:33:42.839
a short mini so next week with
the owner of True Leaf Market, Parker

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00:33:42.920 --> 00:33:45.599
Garlets, and I are doing a
virtual meat so that he can talk about

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00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:51.759
the advantages of cover plants as opposed
to just letting the gardens die or covering

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00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:55.599
them with straw. I'm thrilled to
have him on. True Leaf is one

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00:33:55.640 --> 00:34:00.799
of my favorite sponsors. After that, I'll be taking a short hiatus so

320
00:34:00.839 --> 00:34:05.160
that i can get caught up on
the podcast and gear up for the show

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00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:09.800
that I'm starting with my daughter Jessica. We've got some really neat stories to

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00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:15.960
tell about buried treasure, unsolved mysteries
of the past, and historical incidences that

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00:34:16.119 --> 00:34:22.880
don't have any firm conclusions. Our
first episode is going to be on Thomas

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00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:29.320
Beale's Buried Treasure and the ciphers he
wrote that keep it hidden. Be watching

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00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:37.840
for digging into unsolved history. It'll
debut in October. Season six. Who's

326
00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:40.559
Who Outside of the Zoo has come
to an end, but I'll be gearing

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00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:46.800
up for season seven over the break. That season is called Countdown. I

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00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:52.199
have five or six one hundred seconds
to Midnight episodes that I'll be looking into.

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00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:58.280
If you're a Patreon or Apple subscriber, be looking for more bonus content

330
00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:01.199
to be released over the break as
well. If you're not, what are

331
00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:06.880
you waiting for? I've got some
interesting things coming up on the subscription feed

332
00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:12.519
that won't be available on the normal
feed. Thank you again for listening to

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00:35:12.559 --> 00:35:16.480
Cause of Death one hundred seconds to
Midnight Until next time. Do your part

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00:35:16.519 --> 00:35:22.480
to keep our ecosystems healthy. We
depend on wildlife. If the creatures go

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00:35:22.599 --> 00:35:27.840
down, we go down with them. M