The researchers also broke the numbers down by biome. Freshwater species were the clear losers, seeing an overall decline of 85 percent—significantly more than terrestrial or marine species, though these vertebrates are also seeing major losses.
The report attributed the nosedive in freshwater species to a number of factors, including pollution, overharvesting, and habitat loss caused by infrastructure such as hydropower dams. Impacted species included in the report range from migratory fish such as Chinook salmon in the Western United States to the Amazon pink river dolphin in Brazil, which plummeted by 65 percent between 1994 and 2016 alone in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the state of Amazonas.
