"disastrous situation"...73% of wildlife disappeared in 50 years.

[Anchor]
A shocking report has revealed that 73% of the wildlife living on Earth has disappeared in the past 50 years.

The biggest problem is the disappearance of animal habitats as the entire planet is densely filled with human activity.

I'm reporter Jang A-young.

[Reporter]
The lives of two elephants hit by an oil transport train are slowly being extinguished.

In the region alone, 31 elephants have died while crossing railways in two years, and more than 200 elephants have died in railway accidents in India in the past decade.

WWF, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73% over the past 50 years since 1970.

Animals living in rivers and rivers were the hardest hit with 85%, followed by land animals with 69% and marine animals with 56%.

[Robin Freeman/Dr. London Zoological Society] Using data from 35,000 populations of 5,400 species, we estimated that the population had decreased by an average of 73%. Since 1970, it is remarkable that the number of wildlife we rely on has been reduced by such a large margin. It's a catastrophic situation.]

The biggest reason non-human animals are in a catastrophic situation is that they have lost space to live.

Latin America and the Caribbean, where the Amazon is located, saw a whopping 95% decline in wildlife, nearly half of which were habitat problems.

The round-eared elephant, which lives mainly in Gabon, Africa, and spreads the seeds of large trees, disappears (80%) as its forest turns into a ranch or farm,
The chin strap penguin in the Antarctic
is (61%) because the ice melts due to global warming and a large amount of krill is captured,
The Chinook salmon of the western United States are endangered because their spawning habitat is dammed (88%) in the United States.

[Linda Kruger / Director of Biodiversity, International Conservation Society: Habitat loss, increased human activity, pollution, climate change. We know what is driving the decline of many species. So if you can stop these activities, you can turn things around.]

The U.N. Environment Program currently identifies about a million endangered plant and animal species.

After the most recent mass extinction in the history of the Earth, the fast-paced extinction of life, humans are the cause.

I'm YTN's Jang Ayoung.