This photo taken on Feb. 18, 2023 shows cows on a rotary milking machine at a dairy farm in Wuwei, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Xinhua/Fan Peishen)
JERUSALEM, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The researchers found the total weight of livestock and other domesticated mammals is more than ten times heavier than that of all wild mammals in the world, according to a new Israeli study published on Monday.
In the study, published in the journal PNAS, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in central Israel found that the biomass of domesticated mammals, including cattle, sheep and pigs, has reached about 630 million tons, over 30 times the weight of all wild terrestrial mammals, about 20 million tons, and over 15 times that of wild marine mammals, which totals 40 million tons.
They also found that the total weight of wild mammals is less than 6 percent of the weight of all mammals, including the total human weight of 390 million tons.
This finding reveals the extent to which the natural world, along with its most iconic mammals, is vanishing under the impact of human activity, the WIS said.
The study proves the urgency of nature conservation efforts, and can also assist in evaluating the risk posed by diseases that spread from other mammals to humans, according to the researchers.
Two African elephant calves play at the Chimelong National Ex-situ Conservation Base of World Endangered Wild Plants and Animals in Qingyuan, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 3, 2022. (Xinhua/Huang Guobao)■