Letters to the Editor: ‘Each species is a thread that holds the world together, and we are ripping the fabric apart’

To the editor: Every species alive today is the result of a 4.5-billion-year journey. Of all the billions of species to ever exist on Earth, we are the only one that could ever understand the profound significance of this miracle. Yet it is estimated by at least one study that humans have annihilated 83% of mammals in our time. Over the span of 50 years, we wiped out an estimated 3 billion to 5 billion passenger pigeons with our indifferent greed. Each species is a thread that holds the world together, and we are ripping the fabric apart.

The 1972 bipartisan Endangered Species Act merely gives our fellow species a fighting chance for survival (“The Endangered Species Act faces its own existential threat,” May 14). Protecting crucial habitats provides essential environments for food, shelter and breeding. It maintains the balance needed for all of life on Earth, including ours.

Patty Donnelly, Chino Hills