My how big you are!
and yet your range contracts. Can
herbivores relax?
As the human population around the world expands, the impact we have on wildlife increases due in part to more land being used for habitation or agricultural purposes. Large carnivores are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic threats such as loss of prey base and human-wildlife conflict (often to do with livestock).
Wolf & Ripple (2017) created and analysed large carnivore range maps from present and historical (~AD1500) data. They found that large predators historically occupied 96% of the world’s land area whereas now they occupy 34%. A number of species have suffered an decline in range of over 90%, including the red wolf (99.7%), Ethiopian wolf (99.3%) and the tiger (95.3%). Overall the greatest range contractions occurred in South-eastern Asia and Africa.