Read the full story at Our World in Data.
By the first half of the 20th century, many of Europe’s mammals had been reduced to just a fraction of their historical levels. Millennia of hunting, exploitation, and habitat loss had forced them into decline. Many had been wiped out completely.
But most mammal populations have seen a dramatic increase over the last 50 years.
In 2013, a coalition of conservation organizations – including the Zoological Society of London; Birdlife International; and Rewilding Europe – published a report on how mammal populations across Europe had changed since 1960.3 They looked at the change in populations of 18 mammal species. The results are shown in the chart.