73% Decline in Wildlife Populations Over Half a Century: A Worrying Figure That Is Still Incomplete

Experts say that the focus of counts on protected areas and the lack of historical data have made it difficult to accurately assess the extent of animal population declines. Safir Arjan

Experts say the focus of counts on protected areas and the lack of historical data have made it difficult to accurately assess the extent of animal decline.

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According to the 2026 Living Planet Index report, which is published every two years by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the world's wildlife population has decreased by an average of 73% since 1970. This index is considered one of the important international criteria for reviewing the United Nations biodiversity goals and shows the state of nature. Of course, this statistic does not mean that 73% of all animals in the world have disappeared, but it shows that the size of groups of animals that scientists have monitored has decreased by an average of 73%.

Investigating the condition of animals is much more difficult than issues such as climate change. Scientists have thousands of meteorological stations to check the weather and measure the amount of carbon dioxide gas in the air, but counting animals is a very expensive task, it usually cannot be done from space and with satellites, and regular monitoring of them is not widespread in the world. This means that there are many populations of animals living in the wild that no one has ever counted. On the other hand, scientists cannot travel back in time to see how many animals there were before; Therefore, they have to rely on information from university articles or hunting statistics.

A group of experts have seriously criticized the data of this new report. They say that if we look at raw, raw data, the number of groups of animals that have decreased in population is about the same as the number of groups that have increased in population. This situation is also seen in other large databases such as Arjan's Biosafir. So why does the report end up saying that populations have fallen sharply?

An important reason is that these samples do not represent the entire fauna of the Earth. Most of these counts were done in national parks and protected areas; That is, places where humans have not harmed them and the animal population has remained stable. If scientists do not compensate for this difference, the depth of the catastrophe of nature destruction may not be seen, especially in the parts where forests have been destroyed and turned into agricultural land or cities. Alternatively, statistics may be more focused on species that are endangered or hunted by humans (such as fish) and whose populations are declining faster.

To solve this problem, scientists have given more importance in their calculations to regions such as Africa and South America, which have very diverse animals but less monitoring has been done in them. They have also added the information collected in a very short time to the statistics so that the data is not lacking. Methods for correcting these errors are still in their infancy, and scientists are trying to develop better tools. It is very difficult to make a general and accurate report of all the changes in the working land, but the researchers are trying to make the picture of wildlife decline closer to reality.

My professional career in the world of technology goes back almost 10 years; The path that started with hardware, continued with software, and now continues as a technology reporter in Sefir Arjan. I am Javad and more than three decades have passed and in addition to the world of technology, I love movies and cinema, classic rock music and Real Madrid.