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US Officials Report More Than 20 Extinctions (nytimes.com) 86

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The ivory-billed woodpecker, which birders have been seeking in the bayous of Arkansas, is gone forever, according to federal officials. So is the Bachman's warbler, a yellow-breasted songbird that once migrated between the Southeastern United States and Cuba. The song of the Kauai O'o, a Hawaiian forest bird, exists only on recordings. And there is no longer any hope for several types of freshwater mussels that once filtered streams and rivers from Georgia to Illinois. In all, 22 animals and one plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list, federal wildlife officials announced on Wednesday.

"Each of these 23 species represents a permanent loss to our nation's natural heritage and to global biodiversity," said Bridget Fahey, who oversees species classification for the Fish and Wildlife Service. "And it's a sobering reminder that extinction is a consequence of human-caused environmental change." The extinctions include 11 birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant. Many of them were likely extinct, or almost so, by the time the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, officials and advocates said, so perhaps no amount of conservation would have been able to save them. "The Endangered Species Act wasn't passed in time to save most of these species," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit group. "It's a tragedy."
Since the passage of the Endangered Species Act, "54 species in the United States have been removed from the endangered list because their populations recovered, while another 48 have improved enough to move from endangered to threatened," adds the report. "So far, 11 listed species have been declared extinct."
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US Officials Report More Than 20 Extinctions

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  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @08:24AM (#61847551)

    that allows us to just not show paywall bullshit? I come here because it's a news aggregator not because I only want to read summaries.

    • May I suggest automatic replacement by a free link?
      If necessary, a mirrored copy on some less official server.

  • Does anyone know if there has been research into the relative rates of new species development compared to rates of extinction?
  • by cirby ( 2599 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @08:27AM (#61847561)

    They're declaring these plants and animals extinct now...

    But the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was last seen in 1944.

    The Kauai nukupuu (another bird) was last seen in _1899_.

    With only one exception, of the 23 bird, plant, and animal species they're talking about, none of them have been seen for over thirty years.

    Most of the eleven bird species were apparently killed off by mosquito-borne avian malaria in Hawaii.

    • by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @08:37AM (#61847575)

      Even the summary says many of them were likely extinct over 50 years ago

      "The extinctions include 11 birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant. Many of them were likely extinct, or almost so, by the time the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, officials and advocates said, so perhaps no amount of conservation would have been able to save them."

      • Even the summary says many of them were likely extinct over 50 years ago

        "The extinctions include 11 birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant. Many of them were likely extinct, or almost so, by the time the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, officials and advocates said, so perhaps no amount of conservation would have been able to save them."

        It is an official acknowledgement that those species are gone.

        Efforts had been made to find living members of the species in this list, without success. So an official confirmation is just that, we confirmed that decades of fruitless searches are an objective indication that the species are gone forever.

        Now, this doesn't preclude a miracle re-discovery in the future. For example, Species can go undetected for long enough to appear extinct just to be rediscovered.

        For example, the Lord Howe Island stick [wikipedia.org]

    • They're declaring these plants and animals extinct now...

      But the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was last seen in 1944.

      The Kauai nukupuu (another bird) was last seen in _1899_.

      With only one exception, of the 23 bird, plant, and animal species they're talking about, none of them have been seen for over thirty years.

      Most of the eleven bird species were apparently killed off by mosquito-borne avian malaria in Hawaii.

      George Carlin used to do a pretty good skit on people that want to save the planet [youtube.com]. One of the objects of his ire was the concern over extinctions, and how people make way too big a deal about them. And I always thought "The Earth + Plastic" would make a good bumper sticker for those that got the joke.

      • by luis_a_espinal ( 1810296 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @11:13AM (#61848063)

        They're declaring these plants and animals extinct now...

        But the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was last seen in 1944.

        The Kauai nukupuu (another bird) was last seen in _1899_.

        With only one exception, of the 23 bird, plant, and animal species they're talking about, none of them have been seen for over thirty years.

        Most of the eleven bird species were apparently killed off by mosquito-borne avian malaria in Hawaii.

        George Carlin used to do a pretty good skit on people that want to save the planet [youtube.com]. One of the objects of his ire was the concern over extinctions, and how people make way too big a deal about them. And I always thought "The Earth + Plastic" would make a good bumper sticker for those that got the joke.

        No, he didn't, and you citing him doesn't make it so. Carlin was a brilliant comedian who spoke hard truths, but also his gimmick was to repeat a punch line in such a way to appear as a common-sense truth, for laughs and effects.

        Yes, the species have been gone for a long time. But that doesn't mean people weren't looking for it, hoping for a miracle re-discovery (think Lord Howe Island stick insect, which was thought to be extinct for almost 90 years, till it was discovered it survived on a lone, rocky island.)

        This is an official acknowledgement that says, "based on strong empirical evidence, we conclude these species are truly extinct and not just undetected."

        I really don't see what's wrong with drawing a conclusion based on strong empirical evidence and putting it in writing for environmental policy purposes.

        Reducing this to a punch line is just for-shit-and-giggles nihilism pretending to be no-nonsense realism.

        • Carlin has a good point. The vast majority of species that ever existed are extinct and the planet has gone through several cataclysmic events in the past that have resulted in mass extinctions. Even if humanity fucked up the planet in ways far worse than even the gravest predictions have suggested possible, life would continue on. It's incredibly resilient. You could almost say it's in its DNA.
          • Carlin has a good point. The vast majority of species that ever existed are extinct and the planet has gone through several cataclysmic events in the past that have resulted in mass extinctions. Even if humanity fucked up the planet in ways far worse than even the gravest predictions have suggested possible, life would continue on. It's incredibly resilient. You could almost say it's in its DNA.

            Yeah, that's a good point... with respect to what? It's not even on point to the topic at hand, which is the preservation of species contemporary to us that are at risk from loss of habitat, pollution, etc.

            Something that is true can be what I call a TBU (true-but-useless.)

            It's like, ok, a comedian says that 60% of all marine genera went extinct during the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Sure, it is true, but are we going to use it as a punch-line against efforts to preserve currently existing riverin

    • But the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was last seen in 1944.

      There is the possibility that species are just very rare and not quite extinct. This possibility still exists today as there have been numerous possible sightings since 1944. After 70 years of no official sightings despite better recording equipment like cameras on smartphones, it is simply more likely that they are really extinct. Of course, there could be one woodpecker out there protesting "I'm not dead . . . I'm getting better . . . I feel HAPPPY!"

  • by kackle ( 910159 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @08:31AM (#61847567)
    But hey, 'Over-population will self-correct.'

    And everyone's gotta have two computer monitors (with mostly unused space).
    • Let's hope in the case of the "homo sapiens" pathogen, it does too.

      We *do* have hydrogen nukes and gene drives, after all. ;)

  • I'm having trouble being concerned about this. It seems more often that there are reports of new species being discovered than that are going extinct.

    These dozens of species came from somewhere. Who can say that they aren't being replaced at least as quickly as they are being lost? Sure, this area of that loses biodiversity close to heavily-populated areas. Well, duh. I'm more surprised with the number of creatures that choose to stick around some of these crap heaps we call cities... But the portion of the

    • I can say.

      I literally see it.

      The place where I volunteer is turning into a dry steppe in the next 20 years.

      Nothing here can handle that dryness.

      The life from further down south can. And our species could live more up north. But from a certain point on in the south, it's just gonna be desert. (Hint: Most of America will become like your southern states or Mexico.)
      And at a certain point, there just isn't any more north to go to. E.g. polar bears *need* ice shelves. Can't go anywhere if they go away.
      Sure, brow

  • Else, nobody gives a fuck.

  • And only the beginning.

    Since the 80s, already 70% of all butterfly species are extinct.

    It will be the biggest extinction event in the planet's history.
    And we will be *lucky* if we ourselves will go extinct early! Because then at least the other species may have a chance.

    Anyone who denies the mass-extinctions and keeps on going like before, is like a concentration camp oven operator raised to the power of itself. Not just extincting whole peoples, but entire *species*!
    And I will treat them accordingly. Like

    • We need one-child policies and a policy of managed population decline until the point that we can live in harmony with Earth. That point will probably be 200 years from now as a population of under a billion or maybe even under 500 million. Take the Georgia Guidestones as gospel.
    • A nonexistent iceberg, in this case.

      No, "70% of all butterfly species" have NOT gone extinct.

      Very few butterfly species have gone extinct in recorded history.

      The biggest problem that causes extinctions is from competing "alien" populations trying to fill the same niche, or diseases passed on from migration (yes, some of that migration is human-caused).

  • I'm sorry for all these losses, but for me nothing compares to the memory of the sweet song of the red breasted tit booby. May it rest in peace.

  • Spraying roundup that decimates non crop plants the species depend on for food and smart growth policies that replace habitat land with concrete, strip malls, and apartment/condo complexes.

  • Welcome to the anthropocene. We need one-child policies worldwide to reduce human impact on Gaia.
  • The honest man
    Will still survive annihilation
    Forming a world, a state of integrity
    Sensitive, open, and strong

  • Some of these species haven't been seen since the 1940s but you can pretty much guarantee that the environmentalist media will spout off about this and how spending every penny of first-world GDP on climate change is the only way to fix it or we're all doomed in the next five years.

  • God made man his steward of the earth so it's obviously his will or we are bad stewards.

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