The greatest show on Earth—the world’s populations of mammals, fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles—is disappearing like melting snow. In the short space of 42 years, between 1970 and 2012, over half their number has disappeared. Clearly, the show will soon grind to a halt, because the artists will no longer be there to keep it running. A few specimens will remain in zoos. But that’s not Nature. We present-day spectators of wild life in natural surroundings will be thought of, by sad descendants of our children’s children, as the last lucky members of a disappearing world: a planet that is about to lose most of its spectacular inhabitants.
