GR: Our grandchildren will probably see the last of the wild apes, elephants, giraffes, lions, and tigers. We humans are eliminating Earth’s wild animals. Though some of us might feel remorse, most of us are more concerned with our daily routine: struggling to acquire wealth, satisfying desires, interacting with family and friends, and shopping at Amazon and Walmart (our leaders are like the rest of us except they wouldn’t be caught dead in Walmart). Last week there was a teacup storm over the raw truth of climate change. The true disaster is the careless and relentless destruction of nature in which human-caused climate change joins farming, fishing, hunting, dumping, and urbanization as an instrument of nature’s destruction. Can anything stop the human juggernaut’s inexorable destruction of nature? It appears that, like an avalanche, it will continue until all human potential is gone. Sad.

“The world’s last remaining tigers are living under severe threat of extinction, having lost 93 percent of their historical range and suffered a population crash of 95 percent during the past century.

“The major threat to their continued existence on Earth is poaching to meet the high demand in Asia for their parts and derivatives.

“This demand is exacerbated by the legal trade in lion bone, so it was with dismay that the Environmental Investigation Agency witnessed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) 17th Conference of the Parties last year decide to allow South Africa to export up to 800 lion skeletons a year—as long as the lions were sourced from captive breeding facilities in South Africa.

“Ahead of next week’s 29th meeting of the CITES Animals Committee, in Geneva, Switzerland, the Environmental Investigation Agency has produced the detailed briefing The Lion’s Share: South Africa’s trade exacerbates demand for tiger parts and derivatives outlining the threat.” –Environmental Investigation Agency (Continue: World’s Last Remaining Tigers Live Under Severe Threat of Extinction.)