SO, READ IT AND COMPLETE THE QUESTIONS IN THE NOTEBOOK FOR NEXT TIME.
CALIFORNIA
GRIZZLY BEAR, 1924
The state symbol
of California, the California Grizzly Bear differentiated itself from other
grizzlies by size, reaching standing heights of eight feet and weights of up to
two thousand pounds. When European immigrants started settling in California,
it was believed that there were around 10,000 California Grizzly Bears in the
state. With the discovery of gold in California, and the ensuing population
boom, the Grizzly did not fare well- the late 1800s saw settlers shooting and
poisoning the bears to protect their livestock. The last confirmed California
Grizzly Bear was shot in August 1922. Two years later a grizzly bear believed
to be a California Grizzly was seen by several people in Sequoia National Park,
but was not seen since, leading to it being declared extinct.
NEWFOUNDLAND
WOLF, 1930
Wolves are
believed to have made it to Newfoundland during the last ice age, where they
traveled over the ice from Labrador, where they then settled in. The wolf
population caused a problem for the people moving to Newfoundland in the
eighteenth and nineteenth century, since wolves were seen as dangerous animals
that would kill settlers' livestock, and thus, their livelihood. A prevalent
theory is that the Newfoundland Wolf was hunted to extinction, since farmers
did kill wolves, and there was a bounty issued on wolves as late as 1916
(though the last time it had been paid was in 1896). However, new studies
suggest that the main factor in the Newfoundland Wolf's demise was the declining Newfoundland Caribou
population, and the wolves' main food source. This combination of stressors
would have made it difficult for the wolves to reproduce, and by the nineteen
twenties, it is believed that there were less than fifty Newfoundland Wolves in
the province and the species was declared extinct in 1930.
TASMANIAN
TIGER, 1936
The Tasmanian tiger had more in common
with the kangaroo than the tiger, but it also had stripes, so people went with
the visual cues when it came to naming it. The Tasmanian Tiger was a marsupial
animal that went extinct on mainland Australia over a thousand years ago, but
survived until more modern times on the island of Tasmania. It had a pouch to carry
its young, and was, according to accounts, a nocturnal hunter who fed mainly on
birds and small animals, like possums, though it started to eat sheep and
poultry after European colonization of Tasmania. On Australia, it's thought
that competition with the Dingo helped it along to extinction. In Tasmania, the
introduction of dogs is felt to have been a factor in their ultimate
extinction, though their persecution as nuisance animals by humans is felt to
have played a larger role. The last confirmed sighting of a Tasmanian Tiger was
in 1933, where it was captured and kept at Hobart Zoo until its death in 1936. There have been sightings since then,
but numerous organized searches have not provided any evidence to overturn the
'extinct' verdict.
GUAM
FLYING FOX, 1968
The Guam Flying Fox was a large bat with
a wingspan of about seventy centimeters. It was a vegetarian, eating the fruit,
flowers and foliage of the forests of northern Guam. Little is known about its
behavior or reproductive habits, since it died out before much study into it
could be down. The bat was used locally as a food source, and this, combined
with the introduction of the predatory brown tree snake to the environment is
believed to have contributed to its extinction. Only three specimen of this animal
were collected, with the last being shot by hunters in 1968. Despite
extensive studies into the fruit bats of Guam since the sixties, no other Guam
Flying Foxes were discovered, leading to it being declared extinct.
CUBAN IVORY-BILLED
WOODPECKER, 1990
The Cuban Ivory-Billed Woodpecker's
population was already in decline by the 1940s, when ornithologists began to
fear the animals were doomed to extinction. In the forties, the largest group
of the birds known of was a group of six, and it was thought that the growth of
the forestry industry had greatly reduced the species' numbers, driving the
survivors to more remote regions. In the fifties, there was an effort to get a
conservation plan underway, but political turmoil (namely, 1959's Cuban
Revolution) pushed such plans to the back burner. While there have been reports
of hearing bird calls as late as 1998 in the Sierra Maestra, the ensuing search
turned up neither proof of the bird's survival nor a potential habitat for
them. The last sighting of the Cuban Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was in 1987, and
it is assumed to have died out around 1990. The Cuban Ivory-Billed Woodpecker's
American cousin, the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is on the cusp of extinction as
well, since there are very few forests that match its habitat.
JAMAICAN GIANT GALLIWASP ,1996
They can't all be cute. The Jamaican Giant Galliwasp's genus, the celestus lizards, are common to
the Caribbean, with cousins and second cousins being found throughout the area.
But the Jamaican Giant Galliwasp, or Sinking Galliwasp is no longer among them.
Native only to the island of Jamaica, it was first entered into the scientific
family in the early 1800s. The last record of their population was in 1840, the
World Conservation Monitoring Center classified them as extinct in 1996, after
a search in 1994 found nothing. Little is known about the animals, so it's
difficult to say what exactly caused their extinction, but a prevalent belief
is that the introduction of a predatory species- the mongoose- to Jamaica
played a major factor in their extinction.
ZANZIBAR LEOPARD, 1996
The exact state of the Zanzibar Leopard is
unknown. There hasn't been a live one seen since 1996, and environmentalists
feel that if it does still survive, it's in a similar state to the Baiji
Dolphin: doomed to extinction. The leopard was native to Unguja Island,
and is believed to have evolved in isolation from its mainland
counterparts. The Zanzibar leopard was seen as a predator dangerous to
livestock, as well as being linked in superstition to witches and witchcraft,
which lead to it being hunted down, with kills being reported yearly on the
National Hunters' records from 1985 to 1995. The nineties saw an interest
in conservation for the population, and a program was developed by the
Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, but it was abandoned in 1997 when
researches were unable to find any evidence of surviving Zanzibar Leopards. The
leopard is possibly extinct, if not is titled 'Critically Endangered'
BAIJI, 2006
The Baiji is a river dolphin found in
China's river systems, mainly that of the Yangtze River. It grew up to eight
feet in length, and could weigh up to 510 pounds. It had better eyesight than
many other species of freshwater dolphins. They tended to live in small groups
that occasionally came together to make larger groups of up to sixteen
dolphins. The Baiji's population was decimated by a number of things,
including: overfishing of the Baiji's traditional food sources, interaction
with the fishing industry (from becoming tangled in equipment to colliding with
fishing boats), and the destruction of their natural habitat, as tributaries
were dammed, and others drained for land reclamation, leaving less room for the
Baiji. The Baiji's considered 'functionally extinct'
by the Baiji Foundation in December 2006, after an expedition attempting to
find any turned up with nothing. Functionally extinct means that, while there
may still be a handful of surviving Baiji dolphins, there is no chance for
their re-population.
PYRENEAN IBEX, 2000 &
2009
Most species don't get the chance to go
extinct twice. The Pyrenean Ibex's extinction is something of a mystery, with
possible causes ranging from an inability to compete with other species for
food to climactic conditions. Whatever the cause, the extinction of the ibex caused great ire amongst Spanish
conservationists, who felt that the government had not acted fast enough to
save it, citing that a conservation plan was not put into place until
1993, when there were only an estimated ten surviving Pyrenean Ibexes. It
was declared extinct in 2000, but scientists had harvested samples from Celia, the
last Pyrenean Ibex, shortly before her death, which were frozen in liquid
nitrogen. Using DNA from these samples, scientists were able to clone a female
Pyrenean Ibex in 2009. However, the freshly cloned ibex died shortly after
birth, due to lung defects. But scientists remain hopeful that as our knowledge
and technology advances, so too will our ability to restore extinct and
endangered animal populations.
SPIX'S MACAW, 2000
Although around 50 Spix's macaws exist in captivity (like the ones seen here),
the last known bird in the wild disappeared in 2000 and no others are known to
remain. The species is currently listed as "critically endangered"
instead of "extinct in the wild" because not all areas of potential
habitat have been thoroughly surveyed. The bird is native to northern Brazil
and in 1987 the three known remaining birds were captured for trade. However, a
single male bird was discovered in 1990 and paired with a female bird in
captivity, but seven weeks after the female's release, she collided with a
power line and died.
The
decline of the Spix's macaw is attributed to hunting and trapping, habitat
destruction and the introduction of Africanized bees, or "killer
bees," which compete for nesting sites.
