They’re gone

Bill McKibben writes:

A vast new study finds there are 70 percent fewer wild animals sharing the earth with us than there were in 1970.

Ouch.

I notice a lot of missing wild animals even here in big city Seattle. It used to be commonplace to see mergansers and coots and buffleheads on lakes and ponds here, lots of them, and now I walk along Lake Washington and see none at all. None at all. Sometimes I see one or two, but not often. And swallows. Swallows used to come back in the spring, and you’d see a lot of them. Now? Zip. None. Very occasionally one lone pair, but that’s all. They’re just gone.

Bufflehead duck - San Juan Island National Historical Park (U.S. National  Park Service)

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