A murmuration of starlings above the the small village of Rigg, near Gretna, in the Scottish Borders, on November 25, 2013. The weight of the resting birds on power lines caused some power localised power outages in the village. Still one of the commonest of garden birds, its decline elsewhere puts it on the Red List of endangered species. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

Flamingos preparing to take flight are reflected on Lake Tuz, which hosts thousands of flamingos every year, in Ankara, Turkiye, on June 24, 2025. This year, the lake has seen a decline in flamingo numbers due to drought, prompting the birds to shift their migration route to other wetlands across Turkiye. (Photo by Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)

One-day-old baby giraffe calf Gus looks at the camera at Noah's Ark farm on May 12, 2017 in Bristol, England. The baby giraffe was born yesterday at the zoo farm in North Somerset. In the wild, populations of giraffes are suffering from a continuing decline, with 97,500 estimated in Africa in 2015. Since 1985 the total giraffe population has fallen by 35%. New arrival Gus joins brothers George, 4 and Geoffrey, 2. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A monarch butterfly rests on a visitor's hand at the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, California December 30, 2014. Monarch butterflies may warrant U.S. Endangered Species Act protection because of farm-related habitat loss blamed for sharp declines in cross-country migrations of the orange-and-black insects, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. (Photo by Michael Fiala/Reuters)

In this September 27, 2017 file photo, girls walk past a wall riddled with bullet holes from shootings between rival drug traffickers, at the Rocinha slum, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Violence is on the rise in Rio's slums after several years of decline, and the killings of kids have shocked even residents long inured to deaths from gangs and police. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

Kieron Connolly’s new book of photographs of more than 100 once-busy and often elegant buildings gives an idea of how the world might look if humankind disappeared. Here: Bodie, Mono County, California. Gold was discovered at Bodie in 1859 (just after the initial California gold rush) and it went from mining camp to boomtown. Its decline began in 1880, when word spread of new boomtowns elsewhere. The Standard Consolidated Mine closed in 1913, and four years later the Bodie Railway was abandoned. By 1940 the population was down to 40. Today, Bodie is maintained in a state of arrested decay as a visitor attraction. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

A model who poses for tips wearing body paint and underwear poses for a portrait in Times Square in New York, August 19, 2015. She declined to give her name. New York officials including Governor Andrew Cuomo are considering measures to curtail the activity, according to local media. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Children wearing cardboard lion dance masks walk along a street in Beijing on January 13, 2023. China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years amid an aging society and plunging birthrate. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)