Mammals That Have Lost the Most Habitat

Large mammals have disappeared from millions of square miles in North America, Africa, Europe and Asia.

In the last 500 years, caribou, elephants, grizzly bears and cheetahs, among other animals, have experienced massive reductions in the extent of their natural range.

Elk (also known as red deer) have endured the largest range contraction of all, totalling 3.7 million square kilometres (1.43 million square miles) since the year 1500 AD. Another ten large mammals have also lost over one million square kilometres each.

The area occupied by wildlife in 1500 AD was investigated by scientists who pulled together information from hundreds of sources, including historical accounts. They then matched the historical data with current range maps to calculate the area that each species has lost in the last five hundred years.

The table below summarizes the scientific findings, measured in square miles. It's followed with another table containing more detailed information in square kilometres. Both these tables are for the twelve large mammals that have vacated the most land area in the last 500 years.

These are not the only vast disappearances of large mammals from the landscape. Others that used to be widespread include bison, cougars and black bears in North America, and jaguars in South America. Asia has had massive losses in the area occupied elephants and tigers. Also gone from large regions of northern Africa are scimitar-horned oryx, barbary sheep and addax. Each of these animals has vanished from more than 500,000 square kilometres of range since 1500 AD.