Half of the animal wildlife on the planet has been killed in the last 40 years, but shoot a gorilla

Humanity has killed roughly half of the world's non-human vertebrate animal population since 1970. The "Living Planet Index" report from the World Wildlife Fund has found that the number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years. Creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats. The situation is worst in low-income countries, where wildlife populations have declined by 58 per cent on average between 1970 and 2010. Latin American has the biggest declines, with 83 per cent of animals lost in 40 years. And for freshwater creatures the situation is even bleaker, with population collapse of more than three quarters over the same period. Almost the entire decline is down to human activity, through habitat loss, deforestation, climate change, over-fishing and hunting. But are people upset, or even aware about this mass extinction and ecocide that has been going on in the last four decades? Of course not. But when some dentist shoots a lion in Africa, or another idiot shoots a gorilla in a US zoo everyone start foaming at the mouth with indignation. Source: http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/living_planet_index2/