The issue focused on "do we need to kill off many species of plants and animals that are currently living in some form in the wild?" (All others not mentioned are either listed as being listed as threatened or endangered in the National Marine Fisheries Service's status report on plants and animals in the United States). The article points out that all life on Earth is associated with about three billion species of plants and animals. This means that about 20,000 species of plants and animals are currently living in some form in the wild