With the sixth mass extinction under way, President-elect Biden is being urged to declare the loss of species a national emergency, one that should require the nation's response to slow the extinction.

The request, from more than 135 groups, asks the incoming president to sign an executive order declaring the emergency. The proposed executive order illustrates how Biden can take bold, aggressive actions without Congress in his first weeks in office.

According to the groups, Biden could position the United States as a leader in the fight to combat extinction, protect public lands and waters, curtail the international wildlife trade and restore abundant wildlife populations across the nation.

“The time for half measures has passed. President Biden must take bold, immediate action to end extinction because the survival of not just wildlife but humanity is now at stake,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

National parks can offer a safe harbor for many threatened and endangered species, but species can't survive on biological islands. Florida panthers rely on habitat in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park, wolverines need the higher elevations of Glacier National Park to remain cold and snowy, and the nēnē needs room at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Expanding their habitats would greatly improve their odds of surviving as species.

The latest assessment by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature found that 27 percent of evaluated species of plants and animals around the globe are threatened with extinction. Last year, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, known as IPBES, warned that 1 million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades.

And, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, trafficking and exploitation of wildlife could give rise to new and deadly zoonotic diseases if allowed to continue unchecked.

Along with calling on Biden to issue the order, the groups also believe he should create 175 new national monuments, wildlife refuges, and marine sanctuaries "so that 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters are conserved by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050."

In addition, they want the Biden administration to "aggressively recover imperiled species" by providing Endangered Species Act protections where merited. "Further, federal agencies would be directed to fully integrate climate change into the conservation and recovery of endangered species," they added.

“The trifecta of the extinction crisis, climate emergency, and pandemic illustrate that Biden has no choice but to safeguard the natural world as a matter of highest priority. The long-term well-being of our country depends on how intrepid Biden is willing to be in the next four years,” said Curry.

The executive order is part of a suite of proposals the Center and allies will submit to Biden and his transition team in coming weeks. These include actions to stop new fossil fuel leasing on public lands and waters and addressing the climate emergency.

Most of the actions being suggested were previously outlined in Saving Life on Earth, a groundbreaking plan to fight extinction released by the Center last January. Now a dedicated campaign within the Center, the Saving Life on Earth plan calls for $100 billion for species; for half the Earth to be protected for wildlife; and for dramatic cuts in pollution and plastics.

Groups that signed on to the request for an executive order declaring a national emergency range from the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Horse Protection Society and the Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance to Rocky Mountain Wild, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.