Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach, title from a Paula Abdul quote
The backstory for today’s adventure is that this is the first scientific question I seriously researched. It is also the reason I don’t trust the “experts” or the “consensus”. In 1988, E. O. Wilson, an ant expert with little knowledge of extinction, made a startling claim that extinction rates were through the roof. He claimed there was a “Sixth Wave” of extinctions going on, and that we were losing a huge amount, 2.7% of all the species per year. This claim quickly went viral and soon was believed by everyone. So back in 2003, a decade ago now, I researched the question, found that Wilson was wrong by orders of magnitude, wrote it up, sent it around to the journals to see if they would publish it, and … well, let me just say that I was not received kindly. I was a voice crying in the wilderness. They didn’t give me a look-in, I was challenging the consensus. As far as I know, I was the only one saying that Emperor Wilson had no clothes … and as a result, I was not encouraged to continue publicizing my views.
But the world goes on, and three years ago I simplified and streamlined my work and published it as a post on WUWT entitled “Where Are The Corpses“. In it, I argued that there was no “Sixth Wave” of extinctions, that Wilson’s numbers were wildly exaggerated, and that current extinction rates (except in isolated islands and Australia) are not unusual in any way. Dr. Craig Loehle rewrote and developed the ideas, and he got it peer-reviewed and published in Diversity and Distributions, available here. Craig wrote about it in a post entitled “New paper from Loehle & Eschenbach shows extinction data has been wrongly blamed on climate change due to island species sensitivity“. Title says it all …
Figure 1. Stacked graph of total historical bird and mammal extinctions by year. This charts of the spread of European species (foxes, cats, rabbits, dogs, humans, weeds, diseases, etc.) to Australia and the islands. The earliest extinctions are from the time Europeans arrived in the Caribbean. There is a second wave of exploration and settlement in the 1700s. Finally, the spread of empires in the 1800’s led to the peak rates around the turn of the last century. Since then, the rates have dropped.
Having written so early and so extensively to try to debunk the claims of massive extinction rates and the bogus “sixth wave of extinction” hyped by the alarmists, I was pleased to receive a note from Anthony pointing out the publication of a new study in Science magazine (paywalled, naturally) entitled Can We Name Earth’s Species Before They Go Extinct? It’s gotten lots of media attention, mostly due to the fact that in the Abstract, they say that estimates of extinction rates are way overblown. My emphasis:
Some people despair that most species will go extinct before they are discovered. However, such worries result from overestimates of how many species may exist, beliefs that the expertise to describe species is decreasing, and alarmist estimates of extinction rates.
I must say, seeing that phrase “alarmist estimates of extinction rates” in Science made me smile, it was a huge vindication. However, I fear that they still have not grasped the nettle. I say that because at the end of the paper they say:
Conclusion
The estimates of how many species are on Earth (5 ± 3 million) are now more accurate than the moderate predictions of extinction rates (0.01 to 1% per decade). The latter suggest 500 to 50,000 extinctions per decade if there are 5 million species on Earth.
Why do I think that their conclusion is so badly flawed?
Like many modern scientists, rather than trying to find the most probable, they simply assume the worst. So they give their calculations assuming a 1% decadal extinction rate. Here’s the problem. That’s no more believable than Wilson’s 2.7% per decade rate. There are about 3,300 mammal species living on the continents (excluding Australia). If we assume that one percent of them go extinct per decade, that would mean that we should be seeing about 33 continental mammal extinctions per decade. It’s worse for birds, a 1% extinction rate for birds would be about 80 continental birds per decade. We have seen absolutely nothing even vaguely resembling that. That’s only slightly below Wilson’s estimate of a 2.7% extinction rate, and is still ridiculously high.
Instead of 33 mammals and 80 birds going extinct on the continents per decade, in the last 500 years on the great continental landmasses of the world, we’ve only seen three mammals and six birds go extinct. Only nine continental mammal and bird species are known to have gone extinct in 500 years. Three mammals and six birds in 500 years, that’s less than one continental mammal extinction per century, and these highly scientific folks are claiming that 30 mammals and 80 birds are going extinct per decade? … once again I’m forced to ask, where are the corpses?
This kind of world-blindness astounds me. I’ve heard of living in an ivory tower, but if you were making the claim that it’s raining, wouldn’t you at least look out the ivory windows to see if water were actually falling from the sky? How can you seriously claim that we’re losing dozens and dozens of species per year when there is absolutely no sign of that in the records?
Because the reality is that despite humans cutting down the forests of the world at a rate of knots for hundreds and hundreds of years, despite clearcutting for lumber, despite slash-and-burn, despite conversions to cropland, despite building hundreds of thousands of miles of roads and fences, despite everything … only nine continental mammal and bird species have gone extinct.
That gives us actual, not theoretical but actual, estimates of the historical extinction rates for continental birds and animals. For continental mammals that works out to 3 extinctions per 3,300 continental mammal species per 50 decades equals 0.002% per decade, somewhat below their low estimate of 0.01% per decade. For birds, it’s 6 extinctions per 8000 continental species per 50 decades, which is only slightly lower. If we assume that we’ve missed four out of five of the historical extinctions, very unlikely but I suppose possible, it still works out to only about 0.01%.
So their very lowest estimate, that of an extinction rate of 0.01% per decade, turns out to be a maximum estimate of what we’ve seen on the continents over the last five centuries.
Now, this does not include the islands and Australia. Rates there have historically been quite high. But the high historical rates there, as shown above in Figure 1, are the result of what might be called “First Contact”—the first introduction of numbers of European plants, animals, and diseases to previously isolated areas. But in 2013, there are few islands on the planet that haven’t seen First Contact. As a result, the extinction rates on the islands and in Australia, while still higher than on the continents, are extremely unlikely to have another peak such as they had at First Contact.
Finally, let me say that the low extinction rates should not be any cause for complacency. What my studies have shown is that the real threat to mammal and bird species is not habitat reduction, as incorrectly claimed for the last couple decades. The real extinction threat to birds and mammals is now and always has been predation, either by humans, or by imported “alien” species, particularly on islands. Hunting by humans threatens bonobo chimpanzees and other primates, as well as tigers, rhinoceros, and other mammal and bird species. Hunting is the extinction threat, not habitat destruction, and always has been, whether the hunters were animals or humans.
CODA
People are always giving me grief about how I’m not getting with the picture, I’m not following the herd, I’m not kowtowing to the consensus. I have no problem doing that, particularly given my experience regarding extinctions. For years I was the only person I knew of who was making the claim that E. O. Wilson should have stuck to his ants and left extinctions alone. Wherever I looked scientists disagreed with my findings. I didn’t have one person I knew, or one person I read, who thought I was right. Heck, even now, a decade later, the nettle still hasn’t been grasped, people are just beginning to realize that they were fools to blindly believe Wilson, and to try to manage a graceful climb down from the positions they took.
What I learned in that episode was that my bad number detector works quite well, that I should stick to my guns if I think I’m right, and that I should never, ever, ever place any faith in the opinions of the experts. They were all wrong, every single last swingin’ Richard of them, and I was right. Doesn’t mean I’ll be right next time, I’ve been wrong plenty both before and since … but it has given me the courage to hold on to some extremely minority positions.
It is my strong belief that I will also be vindicated in my claim that the earth’s temperature is regulated, not by CO2, but by a host of interlocking and mutually supportive homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the temperature within a fairly narrow range … time will tell. In my opinion, the experts in the climate field have shown that they don’t know a whole lot more about the real underpinnings of the climate than E. O. Wilson knew about extinctions … but that’s just me, and YMMV.
The very finest of a lovely day to you all,
w.
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Its also reasonably obvious that after first contact the next biggest cause of species extinction is habitat destruction, typically from conversion of forests to agriculture or logging or both.
Which is the OTHER reason to support anything that reduces the need to convert habitat in the first place and convert some existing lands back.
This mandates against growing stuff to burn it in a vain attempt to reduce CO2. Don’t complain about GMO’s (or anything) that reduces crop yields.
Going long on gas and nuclear not only benefits our society by lowering power costs. But it will also reduce the rate of species extinction even farther as we can protect habitat batter and in many cases increase it.
atheok says:
January 25, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Thanks, atheok. Most of your post was great, but I’d take slight exception to the following:
Actually, the majority of the extinctions that I have read about (and I’ve read a bunch) have been real. The dodo bird actually did exist, and actually did go extinct. And there was a wave of extinctions in the islands and Australia when European species were introduced.
The CREO, the Committee on Recently Extinct Organisms, does the best job in this regard. They have declared a number of mammals that the Red List said were extinct as still extant under another species name, or were never a separate species in the first place. Unfortunately, to date they don’t cover the birds, just the mammals. For the birds, the Red List does a good job but not a great job …
w.
I believe we continue to see new species discovered, so there is also open to examination the issue of “net extinctions.” Yes?
Gareth Phillips says:
January 25, 2013 at 10:53 am
“It’s reported today that for the first time on record, Mistle thrushes are completely absent from UK gardens. Their population along with sparrows and starlings has crashed…”
I know from personal observation that Sparrows and Starlings have not crashed, I live in an area of outstanding natural beauty in northern Ireland, which as you may know has a much milder climate than the mainland UK, my home and nearby buildings are regularly visited every year by scores of nesting pairs of Sparrows, in fact last year while doing some work in my attic I found a 3’X1′ nest, as it wasn’t causing any damage I decided not to destroy it and boxed it in and secured it from the rest of the attic after the birds left. When migration season comes around hundreds can be seen and they even fly in and around my kitchen when I leave the back door open.
It may be the case that birds have been migrating further west from the mainland UK due to the much colder winters lately. I’ve notice more than the usual amount of Robins, when I take my dog for a walk around the forest these Robins flock along the path and follow us until we leave.
We have had less hornets and wasp nests spotted over the past 3 summers as the colder seasons haven’t helped these nests develop fully, A neighbor of mine and his grandson accidentally stood on a wasp nest last summer and suffered only one sting to his leg, if the preceding winter and spring had been warmer it could have been fatal, but the nest they walked into had small underdeveloped wasps that covered the both of them but were unable to sting through their clothes which was lucky. If you read any so-called “expert reports” that bees and wasps are declining, It’s is due to colder seasons which the nests become less productive. The other phenomenon that happens in the countryside and forests during colder seasons is a rise of fungal related diseases, these diseases can effect Bees and wipe out many trees from an area if not brought under control, there are also types of mite and other parasites that thrive during colder and wetter conditions.
One other point, forests and certain species of insect need lots of sunlight and warmth to thrive in numbers, when the favorable conditions decline for the insects that certain species of migratory bird prefer as their source of food, become scarcer so the birds will simply follow their food, also as other insects thrive during colder conditions so to will the species of bird that prefers that insect as it’s source of food and so will change it migratory habits too.
@gareth Phillips: I am not sure about thrushes, but you don’t need to worry about starlings and sparrows. I guess you could say their populations at a certain location have crashed, but there is a more straightforward way of saying it: they have moved on. I see huge flocks of starlings where I live (Great Shelford). They come and go. I can’t recall seeing sparrows in England, but having spent the first half my life among them, I wouldn’t even expect to see one outside London these days, and even if they have left the island entirely, I wouldn’t be surprised either. I find it easier to imagine sparrows and starlings seeing the extinction of humans than the other way round. They can cohabit with humans or live independently pretty much anywhere. If they don’t like to be in your garden right now, it only means they like it more somewhere else. Sparrows can breed three times a year when the conditions are right; starlings are very competent breeders too. They are trapped and incinerated by the ton around O’Hare. That’s not what I would call a crash. There are places where they are regarded as pests.
Willis writes “This kind of world-blindness astounds me. I’ve heard of living in an ivory tower, but if you were making the claim that it’s raining, wouldn’t you at least look out the ivory windows to see if water were actually falling from the sky?”
I couldn’t agree more, Willis. Nice, healthy level of scepticism there. Statistical analysis alone has only so much value. If you want to get to the *actual* truth you need to actually get off your ar$e and gather real data.
I wish people treated our temperature records in the same way by getting out there to weather stations, looking around and talking to the people who attended them over time to actually gather real meta-data instead of producing synthetic tests and manipulating the data in such a way as to be “probably better”. Especially weather stations where anomalous temperature jumps are detected.
Major Kudos to Anthony for doing more of this.
The distribution of extinctions in Figure 1 is interesting. The AGW dogmatists keep telling us that extinctions will increase as climate warms, yet the period of the largest number of extinctions occurred during the 1880 to 1915 cool period, then dropped sharply during the 1915-1945 warm period, and the second largest extinctions occurred during the 1945-1977 cool period.
Darwin cautioned that species were merely taxonomic crutches by which scientists tried to categorize the complexity of the natural world. Darwin correctly saw no rigid taxonomic lines between species- scientists could draw that line anywhere they wished-nature was not bound to follow. (In fact his theory of evolution was at its heart an attack on taxonomy.)
Species were once a tool to further understanding- they are now a weapon to advance public policy. Science and species have both suffered as a result.
“Expert” is a legal and media term. “Experts” are used in legal duels where the jury decides whose expertise is longest. Brought on as an “expert witness” the first thing you are told is to cool the qualifying observations that “weaken” your position. That is, an “expert” is forbidden to exercise scientific caution or scepticism in any statement made to the court.
When interacting with the media, an “expert” is generally selected by researcher’s on the basis of the inexpert assumptions regarding a topic that are the preferred view point of the reporter or publisher. Constraints are not so overt. The interviewer simply wants the expert to “keep it simple [for the audience].” The result is often that an hour’s interview is reduced to a five-minute sound bite where the reporter has edited your words until what ever your purported to have said is in agreement with the reporter’s expectations about the topic and – not infrequently – about the “expert.”
richard telford says:
January 25, 2013 at 12:54 pm
I note that you don’t supply a scrap of evidence for that claim, that habitat loss is a “major factor”. Not one corpse to back up your claims. On the continents we don’t have a record of one single species that was a forest obligate that has gone extinct, from habitat loss or any other reason. The reasonable conclusion is that it’s hard to drive animals extinct.
So what? Yes, it’s difficult, but the Red List and CREO both declare animals extinct without any problems.
Since we have been cutting down forests for hundreds of years, destroying forest habitat over huge acreages, and since Wilson made his prediction a quarter of a century ago, we have had more than enough time to demonstrate that your claim is doesn’t pencil out.
Here’s the problem, Richard. I went over the detailed numbers for this very idea in my post “Where Are The Corpses”, devoting about six paragraphs to showing why your claim falls over in the slightest breeze.
Now I know that “Post Normal Science” is all the rage, but even so, if you are going to discuss my work, don’t you think you should at least read it first?
Then, if you still believe you are right, you could quote what I said and show that it was wrong … old fashioned science, I know, but that’s all I care for.
Actually, for keeping down diet related illnesses, we use a closely related bodily measure, the “smell test” … and it is extremely successful in keeping down the number of diet related illnesses. And of course there is the famous “Mark I eyeball test”, which I discussed here. So yes, we all trust our bodies even for that, Richard … because just like my gut feelings, my “smell test” can generally be trusted if it detects something rotten.
Regarding your claim that trusting your gut is a bad idea, you may be right, Richard, I don’t know. Perhaps trusting your gut is in fact a bad idea, I wouldn’t have a clue, it could be 100% a bad idea for you … but I certainly trust my nose and my eyes and my gut, I plan to continue doing so, and this post is one of many reasons why.
w.
One comment on the Australian references:
Lot of species here have strange life-cycles, especially up here in the “dry” tropics. Creatures that seem to have disappeared, then reappear after decades. Or aren’t supposed to be here, but get blown out of the tree canopy when a cyclone passes over. Natural environment ranging from huge tracts to small enclaves that are unexplored by taxonomists. New stuff is popping up all the time …
Steve P says:
January 25, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Thanks, Steve. You may include poisoning birds as “habitat destruction”. Nobody else does, so I’d give that particular claim up and consider actual destruction of the habitat. It is this actual destruction, particularly the clear-cutting of tropical forests, that Wilson used in his claimed “species-area” mathematical relationship to develop his estimate of extinction. It is this destruction, not poisoning, that is claimed to be the cause of the apocryphal “Sixth Wave of Extinctions”.
Unfortunately, the “species-area” relationship doesn’t work for predicting extinctions.
w.
SteveP: There is considerable controversy over the actual effect of DDT on eagle populations. I was wondering if there ever was a true controlled lab study concerning the effects. Also, ranchers shot eagles routinely for snagging livestock. I do know that eagles are still threatened by people using lead shot on rabbits and leaving them lay, though it really seems to be a pretty small number that are affected. Also, rural subdivisions out West take out huge areas of open space, as do the eagle-chopping turbines (which are okay to kill eagles with, just not DDT).
Pat: Thank you for the information.
In Israel, at least 2 species believed extinct were found in the last couple of years.
Besides, I think the best way to show this is another case of “bad science” is to ask the writers to name 10 mammal species and 10 birds that have gone extinct in the last decade.
You know what? 5 each will do…
Would that CO2 get rid of all the chiggers here in West Texas grass in the spring time.
Head Line News: “Chiggers gone extinct”
It seems E.O. Wilson used Drake’s Equation to come up with his prediction for species extinction.
Wilson mentioned (all) species, Willis looked at birds and mammals. Readers should notice how many times this frame deceptively shifts back and forth in the article above.
“Having written so early and so extensively to try to debunk the claims of massive extinction rates…”
Your paper was half a page of arithmetic based upon a couple tables you found on the internet, plus two pages of dubious “interpretation.” What else you got?
And there are a couple of reasons that you find no support for your “predation causes extinction” claim. One, you have no evidence to support that for the millions of extinctions that have occurred thoughtout history, and two, some folks who really did put lots of time into extinction theory proved that it could not be true. Now if you want to say that recent first contact extinctions were largely caused by overpredation of defenseless species, that much more narrow claim would be quite right and you would find little disagreement. But that still does not make habitat loss less right. The fact is that habitat loss is somewhat tautological with respect to introduced predators in the sense that introducing the brown tree snake to Guam obliterated the snake-free habitat for the species that had no defense against tree snake predation. It is hard to be so right when you have to make a tautology wrong!
sl149q says:
January 25, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Thank, sl149q. No, it’s not “reasonably obvious”. It is widely believed, based on the reasonable “species-area” relationship, and because it seems, well, reasonable. The problem is, it doesn’t work. Life is incredibly tenacious. Reducing habitat squeezes species up, but it doesn’t seem to drive them extinct.
For example, we’ve been cutting down forests on the continents of the planet for hundreds and hundreds of years. I have not found a single record of any continental forest bird or mammal going extinct from any cause. If you know of one, bring it up … but that won’t help, because according to you it is the second “biggest cause of extinction” … what extinction? Where are the corpses?
…
OK, color me wrong. Since I first did this story, according to the Red List, the red-bellied mouse opossum from Argentina, scientific name Cryptonanus ignitus, was declared extinct in 2008. (In passing let me say that if scientists were to declare that my species was named Krypton-anus ignite us, I’d consider checking out too … but I digress.)
The opossum’s habitat was not reduced, it was totally destroyed and plowed under. Here’s the strange part. It wasn’t even declared to be a separate species until 2002 …
Of the other three species show by the Red List, the aurochs is the same species as the modern cow, CREO says “Currently extant under valid species name”. The other two are island species.
So despite centuries of forest habitat reduction, the Red List says we (finally) have one single solitary example, one lone extinction of a continental forest mammal species from any cause.
Given the enormous destruction of the global forests starting in the 1700s and before, increasing through the 1800s and the 1900s, to today where it is estimated that less than half of the original forests remain, I would say it is “reasonably obvious” that habitat reduction is very, very rarely a cause of species extinction. If it were a big cause as you claim, we’d have seen lots and lots of extinctions of forest mammals. We haven’t seen that at all. That’s what I call reasonably obvious … ymmv.
w.
Willis Eschenbach, is a rational voice in the wilderness. They never ‘look out of the window’ as this could be counterproductive to their ‘Cause’. It is the same with their CAGW, Sea Level Rise and Ice Melting/Glacier retreats. A few simple checks could quiet their minds but this is the last thing that they want.
Matt Skaggs says:
January 25, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Let me quote from my earlier post, which you might consider reading before venturing foolish comments:
Contrary to your claim, Wilson said that birds and mammals should have shown MORE extinctions than other groups.
Readers should note that Matt is not interested in the science, just desperate to prove me wrong. I have made it clear many many times that I am talking about the birds and mammals on the continents. I have made it clear why. Rather than doing his homework, Matt is accusing me of being “deceptive”, a polite way of calling me a liar.
Matt, I won’t have any truck with a man who calls me a liar. You can either retract it and admit you didn’t do your homework, or you and I are done discussing anything ever. I won’t hold for it.
w.
Man is the only species that gives a rip about the extinction of other species. Every other species seeks to maximise its success in whatever ecological niche it is in.
Does man’s insistence on the survival of other species, that Mother Gaia would let make a graceful exit, drive the entire system in the direction of non-survival ?
Reality check says:
January 25, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Yes, some think that leaded gas was the real culprit in eggshell thinning.
Good point about ranchers and others shooting eagles. That misguided and despicable practice indeed may have played a role in the reduction of eagle populations, but these I think would be mostly Golden, rather than Bald Eagles, which are seldom found in dry country. Beyond that, I doubt hunting or shooting would have played any significant role in the decline of the Peregrine Falcon.
Once upon a time, before there were golf courses, and bean fields, subdivisions, freeways, and shopping malls, all of that land was home to many native flora and fauna. Perhaps such development has not resulted in complete extinction of these species, but certainly populations of native flora and fauna must have been drastically reduced where such development has occurred.
Would reduction in population numbers be a possible precursor to extinction?
The Native American bison or buffalo, is a good example of a creature that was almost extirpated by methodical slaughter, but which lumbers on today in greatly reduced numbers. If the same number of buffalo existed now, as before the attempt to gun them all down, where would they live today?
Without extinction there would be no room for evolution.
January 25, 2013 at 2:05 pm | Eyal Porat says:
I recently did just that at a seminar where a local ‘conservationist’ was invited to share an opinion on the ravages of property development and rabitted on about extinctions spiralling out of control here in Australia … she stumbled about and could not name one but was full of excuses … pwned !
Willis,
Informative, as usual. You may want to consider the fact that the eventual writers of articles and their editors, maybe especially in “science” magazines, are mostly mathematically illiterate. A zero here or there is not going to make too much of a difference to the copy editor. Usually, since I am somewhat challenged, reading any type of article like that would see me with a mental as well as a real calculator. Just for fun.