Extinct or exterminated? – How humans make the difference

I don’t know whether it was because I got two books for Christmas about animal species wiped out in modern times, but someone in my family felt called upon to inform me that extinction is a perfectly normal process. “Animals have always gone extinct; that’s completely normal.” Of course that’s true: animal and plant species went extinct before humans existed. In fact, around 99% of the four billion species that have existed over the past 450 million years have disappeared again. But that’s only part of the truth.

Extinction as a natural process

Throughout Earth’s history, species have always gone extinct. This is a natural part of evolution, often triggered by events such as major climate changes, volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts. While some species vanished, new ones repeatedly emerged. It is a cycle that has shaped life on Earth for billions of years. But with the spread of humans, a new chapter began.

Humans and the extermination of species

Although extinction is a natural process, something crucial has changed: today’s mass extinction is no longer only the result of natural events. It is human-made. Species don’t simply go extinct—they are exterminated.

Extermination is a comparatively new phenomenon, inseparably linked to the existence of humans. Through excessive hunting, deforestation and the destruction of natural habitat, pollution and the introduction of invasive species, humans have actively wiped out countless animal and plant species.

Between “extinct” and “exterminated” there is not only a semantic difference, but also a clear linguistic one. “Exterminated” implies active intervention and human influence—humans take on the role of the cause. “Extinct”, on the other hand, describes a natural process without direct human impact.

The sixth mass extinction

I once read that around 150 animal and plant species disappear irreversibly every day. This is a sign that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, but this sixth mass extinction differs fundamentally from the five previous ones: while past events such as the extinction of the dinosaurs around 65 million years ago were caused by natural disasters, the driving force behind today’s extinction crisis is clearly humans. Through climate change, habitat destruction, poaching, environmental toxins and invasive species, entire ecosystems have been destroyed, and only some species achieved survival through adaptation.

The difference lies not only in the cause of species disappearing, but also in the speed: previous mass extinctions unfolded over millions of years, whereas today’s loss of biodiversity is, in geological terms, happening in the blink of an eye. Especially since the beginning of the modern era, numerous animal and plant species have disappeared forever, including the dodo, the thylacine and the golden toad. Scientists estimate that since 1500 alone, up to 13% of all known species may have gone extinct. Other scientific studies show that today’s extinction rate is 100 to 1,000 times higher than the natural average.

Early exterminations: human-caused extinction

Human-driven destruction of species began long before the Industrial Revolution. Thousands of years ago, humans were already able to wipe out entire species—either through direct hunting or indirectly through habitat destruction and the intentional or unintentional introduction of alien species into new ecosystems.

Many scientists suspect that the sixth mass extinction began with the global spread of humans around 10,000 years ago. Back then, systematic hunting of megafauna began—large mammals such as mammoths, giant sloths or saber-toothed cats. The so-called overkill hypothesis suggests that early hunters hunted deliberately and effectively and thus exterminated entire species. The crucial difference to today: in the past, there was no awareness of the long-term consequences of human actions. Today we know exactly what devastating effects our interventions in ecosystems can have—and yet we often do not act accordingly.

Numerous examples from prehistoric times show that humans already had a significant impact on biodiversity back then. On Cyprus, around 14,000 years ago, dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants were hunted to extinction. A recently published study also suggests that the disappearance of most kangaroo species in Australia around 40,000 years ago was more likely due to human activities than to climatic changes. Fossil evidence shows that the animals were well adapted to climatic changes—but not to humans.

Is historical extinction always extermination?

In most cases, yes. There are hardly any documented examples of species going extinct without any human influence at all. A rare example of seemingly natural extinction is the Taiwanese swallowtail butterfly subspecies (Papilio machaon sylvinam), whose habitat was destroyed by an earthquake.

But even here the question arises: could the earthquake have been indirectly favoured by climate change and thus ultimately by human influence? While a direct connection is difficult to prove, climate change influences geological processes such as pressure changes in the Earth’s crust through glacier melt or sea-level rise. This illustrates how profound human influence on nature can be—even in events that at first glance appear natural.

Climate change as an amplifier of extinction

Human-made climate change plays a central role as a driver of today’s extinction crisis. Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and extreme weather events put ecosystems under pressure worldwide and exacerbate existing problems such as habitat loss and pollution.

In a recent study, the researcher Mark C. Urban showed that already around 1.6% of all known species—around 160,000—are threatened by climate change. This is particularly visible in coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef, which has been severely damaged by coral bleaching. In the Arctic, the melting of sea ice is creating existential problems for species such as the polar bear, which depends on the ice as the basis for hunting and survival.

Any further warming increases the risk. In a worst-case scenario of 5.4 degrees Celsius, almost 30% of all species could go extinct. Regions with high biodiversity, such as Australia, New Zealand and South America, are particularly affected. Many species there are geographically restricted or dependent on specialised habitats that are being destroyed by climate change. Even with seemingly small warming, massive losses are possible. Every additional temperature increase raises the risk of extinction exponentially.

Extinction versus extermination: why the distinction matters

The difference between “going extinct” and “exterminating” is far more than a linguistic subtlety. The two terms stand for two fundamentally different processes—one natural and one human-made. “Extinction” describes the natural change in biodiversity that has been part of evolution over millions of years: species emerge, adapt and disappear again. Extinction is part of nature’s life cycle, without any active agent involved.

“Extermination”, by contrast, is human-made. It refers to the deliberate or negligent wiping out of species through hunting, habitat destruction, pollution or invasive species. This active intervention makes humans the cause and responsible for many losses of biodiversity.

The distinction matters because it clarifies responsibility. While natural extinction is inevitable, extermination can be prevented. The sixth mass extinction we are currently experiencing differs from earlier ones because it is clearly human-made—in both cause and speed.

While earlier mass extinctions were not within our control, we can influence the sixth mass extinction. It is up to us to make a difference between the terms “going extinct” and “exterminating”—not only linguistically, but in practice as well. We must decide whether we want to be passive witnesses to destruction—or active shapers of a better future.

Conservation successes: hope for threatened species

Humans are the cause of biodiversity loss, but they can also be part of the solution. Numerous conservation projects have shown that species loss can be stopped or even reversed. One example is the return of the wolf to many parts of Europe, including Germany and France. Through stricter legal protection and the acceptance of wolf territories, the species was able to build up stable populations again after centuries of persecution.

Przewalski’s horses, which had already gone extinct in the wild, are also living again in their original homeland in Mongolia thanks to intensive captive-breeding and reintroduction programmes. Similarly impressive is the recovery of the Iberian lynx, once considered the world’s most endangered cat species. Through habitat protection, targeted breeding programmes and reintroduction in Spain and Portugal, the population has increased from under 100 animals to over 2,000.

Alongside these traditional conservation measures, new technologies and scientific advances open up additional possibilities in the fight against biodiversity loss. With DNA banking genetic material from threatened species is frozen in order to preserve it for future research or breeding programmes. With such genetic resources, populations can be strengthened or even restored. Preserving biodiversity is therefore not an impossible task.