Science Stats Life

1 million species are under threat. Here are 5 ways we speed up extinctions

A report that analyzed 15,000 studies conducted in the last 50 years presents a stark view

golden toad

GONE GOLD  The last recorded sighting of the golden toad Incilius periglenes, once abundant in the cloud forests of Central America, was on May 15, 1989.

Papa Lima Whiskey/Wikimedia Commons

By Carolyn Gramling

Stories about individual species on the brink of extinction may be all too familiar. But a new tally now reveals the breadth of the conservation crisis: One million of the world’s species are now poised to vanish, some as soon as within the next few decades.