The world’s animals need our help. They need someone to fight for them and save them from a changing planet. The earth is currently facing unprecedented challenges that are disproportionately affecting its wildlife. According to a recent study done by Yale University, humanity’s impact on nature is now comparable to the five previous catastrophic events over the past 600 million years, during which up to 95 percent of the plant’s species disappeared. As if that weren’t bad enough, our earth has lost 58 percent of its vertebrate animals since 1970, according to the UN. In 2014 the World Wildlife Fund stated, “For the first time since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, we face a global mass extinction of wildlife…we ignore the decline of other species at our peril – for they are the barometer that reveals our impact on the world that sustains us.” The same report cites an average decline of 2 percent of global wildlife population per year and that number only seems to be rising. This is what keeps us, at Donald Slavik Family Foundation, motivated. Together with our partners we are working to turn the tides through not only saving animals but increasing public awareness through education.