Human-driven climate change causes first ever extinction of mammal

The fear of human-driven climate change leading to extinction of various creatures has become a reality now as for the first time ever a mammal has gone extinct due to the same reason.

For the first time, human-caused climate change has caused a mammal to go extinct, as declared by the Australian government. The animal, a small rodent called the Bramble Cay mosaic-tailed rat, went extinct due to rising sea level coupled with worsening storms that wiped out almost all of its food supply on a small island that it lived on, as per Scientific American.

The Bramble Cay rat, which was last spotted in 2009, was also put from being endangered to officially extinct. The primary cause of the mammal’s extinction was listed to be human-induced climate change.

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The rats, as per National Geographic, were first spotted back in 1845 and there were several hundred there till 1978. However, since 1998, the part of the island that sits above high tide has shrunk from 9.8 acres to 6.2 acres, leading to shrinking in the island’s vegetation. Hence, the rodents lost their food and about 97% of their habitat.

The Australia’s Department of the Environment and Energy recently described a call to increase its efforts to protect the country’s endangered and threatened inhabitants. The news calls for high time to consider hazardous, irreversible impacts caused by humans on this planet, since Bramble Cay is only the first of many species on the verge of going extinct, reported Futurism.

“We knew something had to be first, but this is still stunning news,” said Lee Hannah, a senior scientist for climate change biology with Conservation International. “This species could have been saved.”