It is a very sad thing to see, but much non human life on this planet is becoming extinct. Much of this life may have other life dependant on it, including our own. The problem is that no one really understands what connection one type of life may have with another type of life. Even life on the microscopic level can affect larger life. Lets take a simplistic view of a life form that is very tiny but numbers in the billions, Plankton. Plankton are composed of plants, animal or bacteria. They are not always microscopic for sometimes they are very small animals. Usually they are not able to swim but sail on the tides and currents in the water. Taking a closer look we see that there are three types of Plankton:

1. phytoplankton - This group is composed of microscopic plants and bacteria
2. zooplankton - In this group we find microscopic animals
3. macrozooplankton - This group contains the larger animals like larvae, pelagic invertebrates and larger fish eggs

This Plankton serve as food for larger animals, even the mighty whale. If they were to die out, the animals that feed upon them would die of hunger. As I said, this is a simple illustration, but it is really much more complicated. I don't want anyone to think that humans cause all animal extinctions because this just isn't true. Through out history there have been extinctions of animals due to evaluation and sometimes there have even been mass extinctions as happened 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs died along with many other types of animals. But things are definitely different today. Humans are expanding in areas all over the globe that were once the domain of animals, leaving these creatures with no where to go. Look at the mighty Asian Elephant. The poor beast not only is being pushed out of its habitat but its parts are sought for exotic medicines and the same problems exist for other large animals in the area. Conservation programs to save this Elephant are estimated to cost more that $100 million dollars, this in an area that may be one of the poorest in the world.

In North America there have been many recent animal extensions as with the rest of the world, here are a few of them:

This is just a sampler but from looking at the listings I would have to say that the wolves really got the business. I know many ranchers and farmers complained that the wolves kill their animals and wanted all the wolves removed from areas near their property. When wolves were being reintroduced into some of the federal parkland, there was an outcry from the ranchers and farmers.

Wolf

The loss of the rain forests is also responsible for the loss of animal life The rain forests are in Brazil, Venezuela, the Amazon Basin, Zaire, Indonesia, Brazil, India, Colombia, French Guinea, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Southeast Asia, Suriname, Cameroon, Costa Rica, New Guinea, the Philippines, Kenya, Borneo, Madagascar, Trinidad, Thailand, Australia, and Belize. In Brazil alone it is estimated that over 25,500 square kilometers of rainforest disappeared in one year.

Fox

Will some archeologist in the future call this a period of mass animal extension? Worse yet, will we find out that some how we needed certain animals for our own survival? You never know. Look what happened to the American Indian. The Buffalo were all over the plains, it was really the Bison since Buffalo are only in Africa and Asia, there were millions of them. Then the white man came along and in a few short years shot them almost to extinction, causing the indians not only to starve, but lose the material used for blankets and clothes, the hide of the Bison. This planet of ours consists of a system of checks and balances. One organism may eat another organism,which if its numbers got too highl would destroy all of a certain crop The relationships between animals and between humans should be investigated before we randomly allow a species of anything to be extinct. I am not only talking about animals but about plants, insects, bacteria and germs.

Bison