Firearms contribute to wildlife loss
Another cause of wildlife loss
Re “New study links industrialization with accelerating wildlife losses” (Insight, Nov. 23): It is baffling to me how the scientists who compiled all the data linking the beginning of wildlife loss to 123 years ago could have missed one obvious cause. The availability and lethality of firearms that the average person could obtain and use for sport hunting and poaching for profit began about that very same time.
We know that the American passenger pigeon was wiped out by firearms, that the American bison, which used to number in the millions, was reduced to 400, and that the Bengal tiger is on the verge of extinction, as are mountain gorillas, and that elephants and rhinos are being slaughtered wholesale for their ivory and horns.
Humans have drastically affected the survivability of various species, but the cause is not just industrialization and climate change.
Gene Cirillo, Gold River
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This story was originally published November 24, 2016 at 4:43 AM with the headline "Firearms contribute to wildlife loss."