Humans Move 40 Times More Than All Wild Animals Combined: Study Reveals Pressure on Nature

A recent international study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that humans move approximately 40 times more than all terrestrial mammals, birds, and insects combined. Conducted by the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), the study shows that human mobility has increased by 4,000% compared to the Industrial Revolution, roughly 170 years ago.

During the same period, movement of marine animals decreased by nearly 60%, and the combined mass of wild terrestrial and marine mammals fell by about 70%, from 200 million tonnes in 1850 to just 60 million tonnes today. In contrast, human mass has grown by 700%, and farmed animals by 400%, totaling approximately 1.1 billion tonnes together with humans, highlighting humanity’s overwhelming dominance over nature.

To compare human and animal movement, researchers developed a novel metric combining a species’ total mass with the distance traveled annually. The results were striking: human walking alone exceeds the movement of all wild mammals, birds, and arthropods by six times.

Human mobility relies primarily on motorized vehicles, followed by air travel, walking, and cycling, with the average person traveling 30 kilometers per day. Researchers note that the energy consumed by a single airline over a year equals the total energy used by all wild birds in flight worldwide.

The study emphasizes the enormous impact of human activity on ecosystems and the challenges of mitigating damage. Changes in wild animal biomass clearly reflect the global pressure from the growth of humans and domestic animals on Earth’s ecosystems.