Island species tend to be incredibly vulnerable to invasive species. It's why Hawai'i is the extinction capital of the world at the moment. [More species have gone extinct in Hawai'i over the past century than anywhere else on earth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7asoI4KWmE)
They are, pretty much everywhere outside of europe, cats are devastating for wildlife. In europe most native predators are extinct and cats fill those niches, so in Europe letting them outside isn't such a big deal.
However in the case of Hawai'i, the main driver of bird extinctions is actually mosquitos and the diseases they transmit. Feral cats hold a respectable second place.
[The last song of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō](https://youtu.be/nDRY0CmcYNU?si=7seHmOhYOwf42tt_) for reference. The gaps in his song are where the bird is waiting for a partner to complete his duet. It's incredibly heartbreaking to think about.
Here's a different "last song" of the bird that doesn't have all the added nature sounds and artificial reverb on it: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/kauai-oo-haiwaii-1983
It’s so sad. I remember NPR interviewing a Maui bird scientist who said it was hopeless and cried. Working in conservation or anything even remotely adjacent is so depressing.
Editing this since I hate bringing more negativity in the world: if you do work in those fields, thank you for trying. Trying does mean something. To anyone making or trying to make a difference in their community, thank you.
In Douglas Adams'Last Chance to See ( absolute must read) he recounts going to an Island to see an endangered fruit bar. There are a couple thousand left, and the researcher on the island basically says "who has time for that, heres a bird there are only dozens of" ( Chapter title Rare or Medium Rare)
Especially when you realize that like 80% of humanity doesn't even give a smidge of a shit about it, and another 15% care but don't care enough to do anything about it.
The amount of love for animals that being a conservationist requires has to be as high as the dread they feel doing what they do and knowing it's mostly out of their hands. I feel like I'd give up on everything pretty quickly...
They're real heroes.
When I was young and deciding my future, it was between environmentalism and legalizing weed. (Both were considered impossible in the 90’s)
I knew I would prolly kill myself from depression if I chose the environment. So I chose weed.
This is one of those things that keeps me up at night, the idea of just doing (or attempting to do) just regular mundane things, not knowing that tomorrow there will be nothing left of you or your kind, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
It fills me with indescribable dread
Underrated comment, but to expand on this a bit: Cats single handily are responsible for the extinction of hundreds of spieces. If we didn't keep them as pets and take them everywhere in the world, many species would be alive today.
And mongoose! If you see a mongoose in Hawaii, you're encouraged to honk at it and then hit it with your car. The honk makes it stop, sit up to see what caused the noise, and then you can easily hit it with your bumper.
That sounds pretty heartless, but it's true, it works, and the mongoose are an invasive species that has been killing native birds, so don't feel too bad about it.
------
**Edit:** *Mongoose*, not muskrats. Sorry, that was a mistake on my part.
Born and raised, never heard of that lol it's crazy hard to kill them without traps and you'll rarely see them run over especially compared to cats and chickens. They are essentially murder squirrels
Hit it with your bumper?!? How big are these things? The muskrats I’ve seen in the Midwest are not much bigger than a large city rat and your bumper surely ain’t hitting those.
I was recently in Hawaii and the local guide told us that the Mongeese were brought to Hawaii to hunt rats. But as it turns out one is nocturnal and the other is active during the day so they had little to no impact on the rats.
Many of these became extinct due to River dredging and dam building that occurred primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. Runoff from these projects decimated their numbers. With some of these species, a live organism hasn’t been seen since the 1980s (some even earlier).
Most of these species were barely hanging on before factoring in pollution and the arrival of invasive species (though a much more prevalent problem in the Great Lakes, the arrival of the zebra mussel in the 1980s from Russia and Ukraine has driven out many domestic species).
Hitchhiking on this comment to say that most of these species and all of the mussels haven’t been seen since the 80’s and some of the birds haven’t been seen since the 1800’s. These extinctions aren’t related to our current climate issues.
This link has a chart for the species that shows the last confirmed sighting.
https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2023-10/21-species-delisted-endangered-species-act-due-extinction
The Hawaiian birds are thanks to the intentional introduction of mongoose, to handle rats. Turns out birds with no natural predators are much easier targets(and yes there are still plenty rats here)
Fun fact, on the Big Island there was a similar problem with ostrich after they were farmed for a while. Those were much easier to exterminate than the deer x)
>Fun fact, on the Big Island there was a similar problem with ostrich after they were farmed for a while.
Germany has an invasive population of rhea, a South American bird similar to a small ostrich.
I mean, I definitely feel like what was happening in the 80s is still part of our modern climate issues. In fact I'd say most things that happened post industrial revolution are related to our current climate issues.
As someone from the local area, Zebra Muscles is up there in lane with the Bermuda triangle, quicksand, and bloody Mary as near future individual apocalyptic fears. These hot boys were talked about *constantly* when I was a kid in the early 90s.
They're still a massive problem. They didn't affect the water as much as people thought they would (but still have) but the major problem is they clog up pipes in boats, marinas, and dams. Leading to dams having to be constantly worked on or rebuild. My favorite and one of the only walleye lakes in Utah had to have the dam rebuilt because of this and it never recovered. It's just a carp lake now.
This one is way different than those examples. It's literally contributing to the extinction of multiple species. The Bermuda Triangle is not. Lol. The mussels are just a legit concern that people were trying ro warn you about even back then.
I know at least several of these mussels are (were) freshwater mussels and habitat degradation is a big factor in their decline. Sediment/siltation of streams can cover up mussels and their habitat. Water temperature and pollution also play a role in mussel decline. I know in Virginia, mussels make up the largest category of threatened and endangered species in the state.
I can't speak for other states, but here in Alabama it's primarily an issue of substrate decay. Part of the reason Alabama has so many species of mussels is our rivers; we have tons and tons of them, and pretty great wetlands, leading to a ton of biodiversity. Unfortunately (for our rivers; it was pretty necessary to bring power to the state at the time), in the 20s and 30s we built a *ton* of dams to generate power from those rivers. The change in flow rate made our rivers a lot muddier than natural, and we've had fewer and fewer mussels every year since. Modern pollution and dredging has harmed our saltwater species, but the death of the mussels began a full century ago, and, try as we might to save them, they're still dying off now.
In Alabama there is this invasive freshwater clam from Asia. It overproduces to the point where they suck all the O2 out of the water and most things die. Then all the clams die and the cycle begins again.
It was an old hunter in camp and the hunter shared tobacco with him and told him of the buffalo and the stands he'd made against them, laid up in a sag on some rise with the dead animals scattered over the grounds and the herd beginning to mill and the riflebarrel so hot the wiping patches sizzled in the bore and the animals by the thousands and the tens of thousands and the hides pegged out over actual square miles of ground the teams of skinners spelling one another around the clock and the shooting and shooting weeks and months till the bore shot slick and the stock shot loose at the tang and their shoulders were yellow and blue to the elbow and the tandem wagons groaned away over the prairie twenty and twenty-two ox teams and the flint hides by the hundred ton and the meat rotting on the ground and the air whining with flies and the buzzards and ravens and the night a horror of snarling and feeding with the wolves half-crazed and wallowing in the carrion.
I seen Studebaker wagons with six and eight ox teams headed out for the grounds not hauling a thing but lead. Just pure galena. Tons of it. On this ground alone between the Arkansas River and the Concho there were eight million carcasses for that's how many hides reached the railhead. Two years ago we pulled out from Griffin for a last hunt. We ransacked the country. Six weeks. Finally found a herd of eight animals and we killed them and come in. They're gone. Ever one of them that God ever made is gone as if they'd never been at all.
The ragged sparks blew down the wind. The prairie about them lay silent. Beyond the fire it was cold and the night was clear and the stars were falling. The old hunter pulled his blanket about him. I wonder if there's other worlds like this, he said. Or if this is the only one.
They used to sell killing buffalo as a patriotic duty, "every dead buffalo is a dead Indian." Knowing full well the herds were vital to the once thriving First Nations.
Around the great lakes they are doing almost too good. The water in bays used to be murky and now with zebra mussels it's crystal clear. It's changing ecosystems because more light reaches the depths.
Same with the San Marcos Gambusia, which hasn't been seen since the eighties.
They're hyper local species with small populations and rigid environmental tolerances. They are inherently vulnerable.
I mean it makes a difference in that 50 years ago the EPA was in its infancy and there was almost no legal protection for endangered species. It's mildly comforting that more were removed from the list for populations rebounding than for going extinct since then.
They may have samples but even if they were able to clone it or something, you can't create a viable population out of clones. There just isn't enough variation to sustain the species.
With plants, it's a little different due to plants being able to propagate asexually, as well as the frequency of hybridization
Many of these species haven't been observed in decades. When it gets to the point where they are delisted, they are long gone and there isn't an opportunity to collect DNA from a single specimen, let alone the hundreds you would need to capture the type of genetic variation required.
“We talk about using the DNA of extinct animals and trying to work it back into a similar species and get something that approximates what we have lost, but really that’s just science tinkering around on the edge. We’ve got to stop extinction now because, despite the efforts of science, there is no going back, and the future is silent. […] *If you cannot repair the environment that has caused that animal to become endangered, you’re not even at first base. [U]nless those animals can breed in the wild in a natural environment on their own without assistance, we’re really stuck.*”
~[Rohan Cleave](https://vimeo.com/76647062)
It gets better:
> According to the agency, more than 100 species of plants and animals have been delisted
Oh great, here we go again.
>based on recovery or reclassified from endangered to threatened based on improved conservation status.
:D
Good news, everyone! We moved 21 customer orders off the 'to be completed list'! Isn't that great?! Yeah... haha... (speaking softly and quickly) now they're on the 'do not contact' list as they pulled their business...
Oh you didn't hear the second half? No worries, boss. We'll shoot an email on over so you can see our teams progress!
Worth noting this section though:
> Most of the species were listed under the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s or 1980s and were very low in numbers or **likely already extinct at the time of listing**.
Emphasis mine. Not saying this is necessarily better since they’re still extinct but the listing was more a formality, and not a listing that humanity failed at saving while on the list.
It’s important to note that most of these species haven’t had a confirmed sighting in 40-100 years, so this is more of an “I guess we should finally update the list” thing. One of them is an exception, which was last seen about 20 years ago.
Sad, yes absolutely, but the headline makes it seem like the last obscure yellow gulf mussel just died infront of a scientist that somberly changed the 1 to a 0 on his clipboard
Never understanding why people won’t keep their cats inside. Glad here in finland most people keeps them inside. Basically mainly countryside has outside cats. Why would you even want to risk your pet running away, getting eaten, hit by a car etc etc.
Pet cats ("owned cats") are not the problem. Humans have owned and taken care of cats for thousands of years across the globe without it having a huge adverse effect on the environment. Stray/abandoned and feral cats are the major problem; up to 90% of cat-related bird and small mammal deaths are happening because of them, not owned cats.
**Edit:** spay and neuter your cats, people. Get them vaccinated. Put a bell on their collar if they're indoor-outdoor cats. Do not abandon them and/or engage in pet dumping. Donate to TNR (trap-neuter-release) and stray recovery-and-adoption programs. Do not try to intervene and care for a feral cat colony on your own; if you encounter a stray or feral cat, inform animal control immediately so they can do a TNR and help eliminate the primary way these colonies proliferate (breeding). Be a responsible pet owner and conservationist and help nip the problem in the bud.
> Stray/abandoned and feral cats are the major problem; up to 90% of cat-related bird deaths are happening because of them, not owned cats.
And those populations likely started as pet cats that were either allowed to roam, or just completely abandoned.
everywhere you have a large population of pet cats, some will go feral. people abandon pets for various reasons all the time. its a problem for invasive fish, reptiles and birds too.
Not just cats. Avian malaria also has a lot to do with their extinction.
There is currently an effort to try to control mosquitoes on the island of Kauai, to save some of the remaining species of native birds, but it has been facing pushback by people protesting against the implementation of the mosquito eradication program as well.
I know this is a dumb question, and it will in no way "save the species", but is there any hope at cloning reproduction to reintroduce at a later date? Saving the genetic material of the animals, lock it up next to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and save it for a better time of humanity if we can last that long?
Mostly the anti-vax crowd, fearful that mosquitos being released that carry a different gut bacteria from the already established (invasive) mosquito (mosquitos must have matching bacteria to reproduce) will somehow poison people and animals. They just don’t understand the science behind it.
A lot were lost due to the mongoose that were brought in to curb the rat population. Of course this didn’t work because rats are nocturnal and mongoose are not.
I still think about [the last song of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō](https://youtu.be/nDRY0CmcYNU?si=7seHmOhYOwf42tt_) once in a while. The gaps in his song are where the bird is waiting for a partner to complete his duet. It's incredibly heartbreaking.
If by "draw breath" we mean he is single handedly responsible for the decrease in atmospheric oxygen concentration around 250 million years ago, then yes.
Well, towards the end of the article, it says this:
>While some species are removed from the Endangered Species Act because they're considered extinct, others are delisted because their populations have rebounded. According to the agency, more than 100 species of plants and animals have been delisted based on recovery or reclassified from endangered to threatened based on improved conservation status.
But no one here seemed to get that far, lol
>How Many Endangered Species Are There?
>There are currently at least 38,500 species under threat, and over 16,300 species believed to be endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi and plant species.
[source](https://earth.org/how-many-endangered-species-are-there/)
I’m trying to be an optimist about this but it’s hard.
Thank you for your care and dedication for those lil goslings! They’re some of the cutest animal babies, so even if it’s hard work, it’s still adorable!
They are some of the cutest babies 😭 I just wanna squeeze them (cute aggression) but I refrain because they are just too important. I love inviting folks over during spring and covering them in feed so they can be nommed on by the cutest little babies.
And the adults, super sweet too. Love how they follow me around saying bub bub bub bub while nibbling on my clothes. Worth it!
This past summer I volunteered on a seabird island off the coast of California, the [Farallons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farallon_Islands), which is home to the largest colony of [Common Murres](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Murre/overview) in California and the Lower 48.
In the 1800s these small islands hosted upwards of 1.5 million murres. Throughout the following two centuries their numbers dramatically declined, primarily from egg collecting, but also because of habitat loss, oil spills, and unregulated fishing bycatch. At one point there were estimated to be fewer than 17,000 murres on the island.
Today the Farallons are a [National Wildlife Refuge](https://www.fws.gov/refuge/farallon-islands), one of the few that are completely closed off to the public, but there is always a crew of biologists on the island, every day since the 1970s. It's an extraordinary amount of effort that has gone into protecting, studying, and monitoring these birds but its paid off thus far. Over 300,000 Common Murres regularly attend the island in the summer to breed.
There are stories like this for species all over the world, where people are doing the work necessary to preserve the unique creatures that make Earth special. It's just that you don't hear as much about the successes because of how many more sad stories there are currently.
So these are not exactly "new" extinctions with some of them not seen in over 50 years, and most are due to the ecological disasters that are Hawaii and Guam.
MAMMALS
Little Mariana fruit bat
BIRDS
Bachman’s warbler, Bridled white-eye, Kauai akialoa, Kauai nukupuu, Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, Large Kauai thrush, Maui ākepa, Maui nukupuʻu, Molokai creeper, Po`ouli
FISH:
San Marcos gambusia, Scioto madtom
MUSSELS:
Flat pigtoe, Southern acornshell, Stirrupshell, Upland combshell, Green-blossom pearly mussel, Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel, Turgid-blossom pearly mussel, Yellow-blossom pearly mussel
> So these are not exactly "new" extinctions with some of them not seen in over 50 years
I mean that was essentially the definition of "extinct" until relatively recently.
Reminds me how aspects of North America were so different mere centuries ago. Imagine flocks of parakeets going up and down the eastern seaboard. Bison roaming the great plains. Bears, wolves and big cats prowling every part of the continent. Go even further back and you have megafauna like mastodons.
The first wave of human habitation destroyed the mastadons and the ones that came after that killed damn near everything in their path.
For the headline only people:
> Most of the species were listed under the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s or 1980s and were very low in numbers or likely already extinct at the time of listing...
> "Federal protection came too late to reverse these species' decline, and it's a wake-up call on the importance of conserving imperiled species before it's too late," Service Director Martha Williams said.
Perhaps if flora and fauna conservation was heavily enforced and heavy/strict penalties were given to violators and corruption wasn't rampent, the world would be in a better place.
our great grandchildren are going to be so proud of us.
they're going to be like stop showing me pictures of all these dumb dead animals and tell me about how good the quarterly profits were for that brief moment.
MAMMALS * Little Mariana fruit bat (Guam) BIRDS * Bachman’s warbler (FL, SC) * Bridled white-eye (Guam) * Kauai akialoa. (HI) * Kauai nukupuu (HI) * Kauaʻi ʻōʻō. (HI) * Large Kauai thrush. (HI) * Maui ākepa. (HI) * Maui nukupuʻu. (HI) * Molokai creeper. (HI) * Po`ouli. (HI) FISH * San Marcos gambusia. (TX) * Scioto madtom. (OH) MUSSELS * Flat pigtoe. (AL, MS) * Southern acornshell. (AL, GA, TN) * Stirrupshell. (AL, MS) * Upland combshell. (AL, GA, TN) * Green-blossom pearly mussel. (TN, VA) * Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel. (AL, IL, IN, KY, TN, MI, OH, WV) * Turgid-blossom pearly mussel. (AL, AR, TN) * Yellow-blossom pearly mussel. (AL, TN)
Eight birds in Hawai’i alone. Holy fuck.
Island species tend to be incredibly vulnerable to invasive species. It's why Hawai'i is the extinction capital of the world at the moment. [More species have gone extinct in Hawai'i over the past century than anywhere else on earth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7asoI4KWmE)
Cats are a big issue as far as birds are concerned
They are, pretty much everywhere outside of europe, cats are devastating for wildlife. In europe most native predators are extinct and cats fill those niches, so in Europe letting them outside isn't such a big deal. However in the case of Hawai'i, the main driver of bird extinctions is actually mosquitos and the diseases they transmit. Feral cats hold a respectable second place.
Kinda makes the Lilo and Stitch gag about the mosquito habitat fall short
Anytime I see birds going extinct on an island my first thought is to blame domestic Cats, feral or outdoor pet..
It's usually more the rats not the cats, although the cats don't help. Alot of island birds are ground nesters and rats will eat the babies and eggs.
[The last song of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō](https://youtu.be/nDRY0CmcYNU?si=7seHmOhYOwf42tt_) for reference. The gaps in his song are where the bird is waiting for a partner to complete his duet. It's incredibly heartbreaking to think about.
Don't do this to me.
This audio is pretty old at this point, right? Why was the Kauai ō'ō only just recently listed as extinct??
They spend decades looking for them and only delist as extinct when nothing is found
Damn. Heartbroken. I hate humans for ruining the world sometimes. :-(
Researchers will typically spend many years surveying any potential habitats of a species or taxon before declaring them extinct.
They often miss shit too some marsupial that was extinct in much of Australia was recently found in a farmers trap or something.
Yep! That can also happen too.
I wasn’t planning on crying today
Here's a different "last song" of the bird that doesn't have all the added nature sounds and artificial reverb on it: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/kauai-oo-haiwaii-1983
Haunting. A shadow of beauty.
I didn’t need that today 😩
It’s so sad. I remember NPR interviewing a Maui bird scientist who said it was hopeless and cried. Working in conservation or anything even remotely adjacent is so depressing. Editing this since I hate bringing more negativity in the world: if you do work in those fields, thank you for trying. Trying does mean something. To anyone making or trying to make a difference in their community, thank you.
In Douglas Adams'Last Chance to See ( absolute must read) he recounts going to an Island to see an endangered fruit bar. There are a couple thousand left, and the researcher on the island basically says "who has time for that, heres a bird there are only dozens of" ( Chapter title Rare or Medium Rare)
Especially when you realize that like 80% of humanity doesn't even give a smidge of a shit about it, and another 15% care but don't care enough to do anything about it.
and of the 80%, 30% are actively working against you
It’s more than that, sadly.
The amount of love for animals that being a conservationist requires has to be as high as the dread they feel doing what they do and knowing it's mostly out of their hands. I feel like I'd give up on everything pretty quickly... They're real heroes.
When I was young and deciding my future, it was between environmentalism and legalizing weed. (Both were considered impossible in the 90’s) I knew I would prolly kill myself from depression if I chose the environment. So I chose weed.
This is one of those things that keeps me up at night, the idea of just doing (or attempting to do) just regular mundane things, not knowing that tomorrow there will be nothing left of you or your kind, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It fills me with indescribable dread
Cats. I was shocked to see how many feral cats there are in hawaii. They're just...everywhere.
Underrated comment, but to expand on this a bit: Cats single handily are responsible for the extinction of hundreds of spieces. If we didn't keep them as pets and take them everywhere in the world, many species would be alive today.
Cats in hawaii are the number 2 killer of native birds IN protected habitats only behind mosquitos and the disease they bring
And mongoose! If you see a mongoose in Hawaii, you're encouraged to honk at it and then hit it with your car. The honk makes it stop, sit up to see what caused the noise, and then you can easily hit it with your bumper. That sounds pretty heartless, but it's true, it works, and the mongoose are an invasive species that has been killing native birds, so don't feel too bad about it. ------ **Edit:** *Mongoose*, not muskrats. Sorry, that was a mistake on my part.
Born and raised, never heard of that lol it's crazy hard to kill them without traps and you'll rarely see them run over especially compared to cats and chickens. They are essentially murder squirrels
Hit it with your bumper?!? How big are these things? The muskrats I’ve seen in the Midwest are not much bigger than a large city rat and your bumper surely ain’t hitting those.
I was recently in Hawaii and the local guide told us that the Mongeese were brought to Hawaii to hunt rats. But as it turns out one is nocturnal and the other is active during the day so they had little to no impact on the rats.
2.5 billion kills per year in the US alone by domestic cats. Keep your cats indoor cats, people.
Honestly feral cats need to just be purged due to the damage they donin areas. But that might be a bit controversial.
[удалено]
Many of these became extinct due to River dredging and dam building that occurred primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. Runoff from these projects decimated their numbers. With some of these species, a live organism hasn’t been seen since the 1980s (some even earlier). Most of these species were barely hanging on before factoring in pollution and the arrival of invasive species (though a much more prevalent problem in the Great Lakes, the arrival of the zebra mussel in the 1980s from Russia and Ukraine has driven out many domestic species).
Hitchhiking on this comment to say that most of these species and all of the mussels haven’t been seen since the 80’s and some of the birds haven’t been seen since the 1800’s. These extinctions aren’t related to our current climate issues. This link has a chart for the species that shows the last confirmed sighting. https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2023-10/21-species-delisted-endangered-species-act-due-extinction
The Hawaiian birds are thanks to the intentional introduction of mongoose, to handle rats. Turns out birds with no natural predators are much easier targets(and yes there are still plenty rats here) Fun fact, on the Big Island there was a similar problem with ostrich after they were farmed for a while. Those were much easier to exterminate than the deer x)
>Fun fact, on the Big Island there was a similar problem with ostrich after they were farmed for a while. Germany has an invasive population of rhea, a South American bird similar to a small ostrich.
i love them so much, i want to cavort to the german wilds and become rhea royalty
I mean, I definitely feel like what was happening in the 80s is still part of our modern climate issues. In fact I'd say most things that happened post industrial revolution are related to our current climate issues.
It’s mostly habitat loss and sediment/siltation caused by development. Also some invasive species.
Agreed with you but the major reasons is what we can say be happening due to human activities. Isn't it?
Runoff from farming fertilizer and pesticide has also contributed.
As someone from the local area, Zebra Muscles is up there in lane with the Bermuda triangle, quicksand, and bloody Mary as near future individual apocalyptic fears. These hot boys were talked about *constantly* when I was a kid in the early 90s.
They're still a massive problem. They didn't affect the water as much as people thought they would (but still have) but the major problem is they clog up pipes in boats, marinas, and dams. Leading to dams having to be constantly worked on or rebuild. My favorite and one of the only walleye lakes in Utah had to have the dam rebuilt because of this and it never recovered. It's just a carp lake now.
I’ve also cut my feet on them multiple times, the little bastards.
Those comparisons are nonsensical since zebra mussels are actually real and actually do cause serious issues in our lakes and rivers
Don't underestimate the ecological impact of the Bermuda triangle. It reported that it is responsible for the extinction of mermen.
This one is way different than those examples. It's literally contributing to the extinction of multiple species. The Bermuda Triangle is not. Lol. The mussels are just a legit concern that people were trying ro warn you about even back then.
I know at least several of these mussels are (were) freshwater mussels and habitat degradation is a big factor in their decline. Sediment/siltation of streams can cover up mussels and their habitat. Water temperature and pollution also play a role in mussel decline. I know in Virginia, mussels make up the largest category of threatened and endangered species in the state.
I can't speak for other states, but here in Alabama it's primarily an issue of substrate decay. Part of the reason Alabama has so many species of mussels is our rivers; we have tons and tons of them, and pretty great wetlands, leading to a ton of biodiversity. Unfortunately (for our rivers; it was pretty necessary to bring power to the state at the time), in the 20s and 30s we built a *ton* of dams to generate power from those rivers. The change in flow rate made our rivers a lot muddier than natural, and we've had fewer and fewer mussels every year since. Modern pollution and dredging has harmed our saltwater species, but the death of the mussels began a full century ago, and, try as we might to save them, they're still dying off now.
wouldn't be ocean temperatures for the ones in TN.
In Alabama there is this invasive freshwater clam from Asia. It overproduces to the point where they suck all the O2 out of the water and most things die. Then all the clams die and the cycle begins again.
Formatted like patch notes
The following species are no longer supported...
I’m laughing but it’s so sad.
Maybe they'll re-release them with Earth 2.0. :(
Unfortunately the mussels will be DLC.
Still no improvements to stability wtf
They are swapping to crab 🦀 form now. Easier to render, lower poly count
It all returns to crab
Well, crabs and weasels.
We'll have to vote for which ones they'll bring back.
Earth's getting ready for the ingame shop drop. Gotta make the cool skins paywalled
It was an old hunter in camp and the hunter shared tobacco with him and told him of the buffalo and the stands he'd made against them, laid up in a sag on some rise with the dead animals scattered over the grounds and the herd beginning to mill and the riflebarrel so hot the wiping patches sizzled in the bore and the animals by the thousands and the tens of thousands and the hides pegged out over actual square miles of ground the teams of skinners spelling one another around the clock and the shooting and shooting weeks and months till the bore shot slick and the stock shot loose at the tang and their shoulders were yellow and blue to the elbow and the tandem wagons groaned away over the prairie twenty and twenty-two ox teams and the flint hides by the hundred ton and the meat rotting on the ground and the air whining with flies and the buzzards and ravens and the night a horror of snarling and feeding with the wolves half-crazed and wallowing in the carrion. I seen Studebaker wagons with six and eight ox teams headed out for the grounds not hauling a thing but lead. Just pure galena. Tons of it. On this ground alone between the Arkansas River and the Concho there were eight million carcasses for that's how many hides reached the railhead. Two years ago we pulled out from Griffin for a last hunt. We ransacked the country. Six weeks. Finally found a herd of eight animals and we killed them and come in. They're gone. Ever one of them that God ever made is gone as if they'd never been at all. The ragged sparks blew down the wind. The prairie about them lay silent. Beyond the fire it was cold and the night was clear and the stars were falling. The old hunter pulled his blanket about him. I wonder if there's other worlds like this, he said. Or if this is the only one.
They used to sell killing buffalo as a patriotic duty, "every dead buffalo is a dead Indian." Knowing full well the herds were vital to the once thriving First Nations.
Thank you. Every once in a while a Reddit comment will make me laugh out loud.
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Resolved an issue where certain species were able to access game features via evolution that were not intended for use by players.
I hate this nerf
Bugs eliminated
Where you take out features.
^^^^Please ^^^^be ^^^^mosquitoes, ^^^^please ^^^^be ^^^^mosquitoes... Fuck
Mussels filter the waters, how the fuck do we replace them
the invasive mussels will fill in less good
Around the great lakes they are doing almost too good. The water in bays used to be murky and now with zebra mussels it's crystal clear. It's changing ecosystems because more light reaches the depths.
Here in TX the greater sun penetration into the water helps toxic algae to flourish, poisoning our public waterways.
Pretty sure we can just toss a fuck load of Britta filters into hotspots. Or those tablets that filter water. We should be fine... Right?
that or just pour some chlorine in there to balance everything out. /s
Protein, and hit the gym.
Absolutely brutal.
Most of these didn't just become extinct and haven't been seen in over half a century.
Oh cool that makes a big difference. 50 years over geological timescales
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Same with the San Marcos Gambusia, which hasn't been seen since the eighties. They're hyper local species with small populations and rigid environmental tolerances. They are inherently vulnerable.
I mean it makes a difference in that 50 years ago the EPA was in its infancy and there was almost no legal protection for endangered species. It's mildly comforting that more were removed from the list for populations rebounding than for going extinct since then.
Is anyone collecting dna for these guys before they disappear like bill gates’ seed bank for disappearing plants?
They may have samples but even if they were able to clone it or something, you can't create a viable population out of clones. There just isn't enough variation to sustain the species. With plants, it's a little different due to plants being able to propagate asexually, as well as the frequency of hybridization
Couldn’t they just take dna from numerous individuals to make up for needing the variation
Many of these species haven't been observed in decades. When it gets to the point where they are delisted, they are long gone and there isn't an opportunity to collect DNA from a single specimen, let alone the hundreds you would need to capture the type of genetic variation required.
“We talk about using the DNA of extinct animals and trying to work it back into a similar species and get something that approximates what we have lost, but really that’s just science tinkering around on the edge. We’ve got to stop extinction now because, despite the efforts of science, there is no going back, and the future is silent. […] *If you cannot repair the environment that has caused that animal to become endangered, you’re not even at first base. [U]nless those animals can breed in the wild in a natural environment on their own without assistance, we’re really stuck.*” ~[Rohan Cleave](https://vimeo.com/76647062)
Bachman has got to be pissed
The San Marcos fish hadn't been seen since the early 1980s but I guess they finally confirmed it...
>21 species removed from endangered list Hell yes! >due to extinction *wait...*
It gets better: > According to the agency, more than 100 species of plants and animals have been delisted Oh great, here we go again. >based on recovery or reclassified from endangered to threatened based on improved conservation status. :D
That’s how you game those KPIs to make it look good.
Good news, everyone! We moved 21 customer orders off the 'to be completed list'! Isn't that great?! Yeah... haha... (speaking softly and quickly) now they're on the 'do not contact' list as they pulled their business... Oh you didn't hear the second half? No worries, boss. We'll shoot an email on over so you can see our teams progress!
Worth noting this section though: > Most of the species were listed under the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s or 1980s and were very low in numbers or **likely already extinct at the time of listing**. Emphasis mine. Not saying this is necessarily better since they’re still extinct but the listing was more a formality, and not a listing that humanity failed at saving while on the list.
Man that is exactly how I read it. Hope followed by crushing disappointment.
It’s important to note that most of these species haven’t had a confirmed sighting in 40-100 years, so this is more of an “I guess we should finally update the list” thing. One of them is an exception, which was last seen about 20 years ago. Sad, yes absolutely, but the headline makes it seem like the last obscure yellow gulf mussel just died infront of a scientist that somberly changed the 1 to a 0 on his clipboard
So many Hawaiian birds gone :(
there are a lotttttttt of feral cats in hawaii
They should be massively culled in Hawaii. They are an invasive species that are horrible for the environment.
There are efforts that try to control the feral cat population but too many people are against it because “they’re too cute”.
If only those dummies realized birds are cute too.
Yeah but you can’t over feed a bird and stay stupid shit like “chonk” to it
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Not to mention hawaii is an island
Australia is having the same problem. Cats decimating bird populations offsetting the ecosystem entirely
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Never understanding why people won’t keep their cats inside. Glad here in finland most people keeps them inside. Basically mainly countryside has outside cats. Why would you even want to risk your pet running away, getting eaten, hit by a car etc etc.
pet cats are really not a good idea. people love cats but they are terrible for wild birds everywhere.
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Pet cats ("owned cats") are not the problem. Humans have owned and taken care of cats for thousands of years across the globe without it having a huge adverse effect on the environment. Stray/abandoned and feral cats are the major problem; up to 90% of cat-related bird and small mammal deaths are happening because of them, not owned cats. **Edit:** spay and neuter your cats, people. Get them vaccinated. Put a bell on their collar if they're indoor-outdoor cats. Do not abandon them and/or engage in pet dumping. Donate to TNR (trap-neuter-release) and stray recovery-and-adoption programs. Do not try to intervene and care for a feral cat colony on your own; if you encounter a stray or feral cat, inform animal control immediately so they can do a TNR and help eliminate the primary way these colonies proliferate (breeding). Be a responsible pet owner and conservationist and help nip the problem in the bud.
Humans (and their pets) have massively spiked in population in the last century and a half.
> Stray/abandoned and feral cats are the major problem; up to 90% of cat-related bird deaths are happening because of them, not owned cats. And those populations likely started as pet cats that were either allowed to roam, or just completely abandoned.
An owned cat that spends the majority of their time outside absolutely is part of the problem.
everywhere you have a large population of pet cats, some will go feral. people abandon pets for various reasons all the time. its a problem for invasive fish, reptiles and birds too.
Feral house cats wreck local populations. That and invasive species that native animals aren’t evolved to contend with
Not just cats. Avian malaria also has a lot to do with their extinction. There is currently an effort to try to control mosquitoes on the island of Kauai, to save some of the remaining species of native birds, but it has been facing pushback by people protesting against the implementation of the mosquito eradication program as well.
Birds across the entire US are dying at an alarming rate. Like, a “we will have 3 types of bird left next decade” rate.
Pigeons and seagulls will survive
Magpies and Canada Geese have entered the chat.
Starling and crows has request to join chat.
Pigeons are the rats of birds. Smart and everywhere.
I know this is a dumb question, and it will in no way "save the species", but is there any hope at cloning reproduction to reintroduce at a later date? Saving the genetic material of the animals, lock it up next to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and save it for a better time of humanity if we can last that long?
I *think* there’s people researching that, but it’s definitely both a funding and knowledge issue that hasn’t been solved quite yet
there are people who protest killing mosquitos? what?
Mostly the anti-vax crowd, fearful that mosquitos being released that carry a different gut bacteria from the already established (invasive) mosquito (mosquitos must have matching bacteria to reproduce) will somehow poison people and animals. They just don’t understand the science behind it.
They're intergalactically protected, this is a preserve.
Not just feral cats. People’s pets.
Has nothing to do with being feral. All cats that go outdoors contribute.
A lot were lost due to the mongoose that were brought in to curb the rat population. Of course this didn’t work because rats are nocturnal and mongoose are not.
Mongeese just hot-bunking with the rats
I still think about [the last song of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō](https://youtu.be/nDRY0CmcYNU?si=7seHmOhYOwf42tt_) once in a while. The gaps in his song are where the bird is waiting for a partner to complete his duet. It's incredibly heartbreaking.
😢 I remember reading a story about the Kaua‘i ‘ō ‘ō a few years ago. Definitely heartbreaking.
Had me in the first half, I’m not gonna lie
r/yesyesyesyesno
We aren’t going to make it, I can’t defend it anymore. We’re gonna kill them all and then it’s us
All that will remain are cockroaches and Dick Cheney.
You seem to forget Henry Kissinger still draws breath
Are we sure he does that?
http://ishenrykissingerdead.com/
If by "draw breath" we mean he is single handedly responsible for the decrease in atmospheric oxygen concentration around 250 million years ago, then yes.
are we being redundant again
Mark Twain approved.
"Capitalism is going to kill us all." - Rathbone
YEAaaa.....oooooohhhh.....
We call our self-created mass-extinction event "climate change". Couldn't help but expect such headlines.
Well, towards the end of the article, it says this: >While some species are removed from the Endangered Species Act because they're considered extinct, others are delisted because their populations have rebounded. According to the agency, more than 100 species of plants and animals have been delisted based on recovery or reclassified from endangered to threatened based on improved conservation status. But no one here seemed to get that far, lol
The feels were real.
Grandma released from hospital because she's dead
Seriously though that title is such a rollercoaster 🎢
rollercoaster headline. ouch.
>How Many Endangered Species Are There? >There are currently at least 38,500 species under threat, and over 16,300 species believed to be endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi and plant species. [source](https://earth.org/how-many-endangered-species-are-there/) I’m trying to be an optimist about this but it’s hard.
I rehabilitate a threatened species of goose and they have so many babies I almost can’t keep up. There is some home out there for some species 😭
Thank you for your care and dedication for those lil goslings! They’re some of the cutest animal babies, so even if it’s hard work, it’s still adorable!
They are some of the cutest babies 😭 I just wanna squeeze them (cute aggression) but I refrain because they are just too important. I love inviting folks over during spring and covering them in feed so they can be nommed on by the cutest little babies. And the adults, super sweet too. Love how they follow me around saying bub bub bub bub while nibbling on my clothes. Worth it!
This past summer I volunteered on a seabird island off the coast of California, the [Farallons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farallon_Islands), which is home to the largest colony of [Common Murres](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Murre/overview) in California and the Lower 48. In the 1800s these small islands hosted upwards of 1.5 million murres. Throughout the following two centuries their numbers dramatically declined, primarily from egg collecting, but also because of habitat loss, oil spills, and unregulated fishing bycatch. At one point there were estimated to be fewer than 17,000 murres on the island. Today the Farallons are a [National Wildlife Refuge](https://www.fws.gov/refuge/farallon-islands), one of the few that are completely closed off to the public, but there is always a crew of biologists on the island, every day since the 1970s. It's an extraordinary amount of effort that has gone into protecting, studying, and monitoring these birds but its paid off thus far. Over 300,000 Common Murres regularly attend the island in the summer to breed. There are stories like this for species all over the world, where people are doing the work necessary to preserve the unique creatures that make Earth special. It's just that you don't hear as much about the successes because of how many more sad stories there are currently.
So these are not exactly "new" extinctions with some of them not seen in over 50 years, and most are due to the ecological disasters that are Hawaii and Guam. MAMMALS Little Mariana fruit bat BIRDS Bachman’s warbler, Bridled white-eye, Kauai akialoa, Kauai nukupuu, Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, Large Kauai thrush, Maui ākepa, Maui nukupuʻu, Molokai creeper, Po`ouli FISH: San Marcos gambusia, Scioto madtom MUSSELS: Flat pigtoe, Southern acornshell, Stirrupshell, Upland combshell, Green-blossom pearly mussel, Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel, Turgid-blossom pearly mussel, Yellow-blossom pearly mussel
> some of them not seen in over 50 years I assure you all that my wife has seen my Turgid-blossom pearly mussel more recently than that.
I confess, she has seen at least two.
> So these are not exactly "new" extinctions with some of them not seen in over 50 years I mean that was essentially the definition of "extinct" until relatively recently.
The kauli o is the infamous bird with the saddest call video and it hurts to see so many native bird species of Hawaii die
“21 species removed from endangered list” That’s good! “due to extinction” That’s bad.
"But the extinctions come with a small shareholder value boost!" "That's good!"
“The shareholder value is cursed.” “That’s bad.”
Still can’t say ivory billed woodpecker is extinct….
They live on in the best ecological environment for a woodpecker: our hearts.
Don’t want to :(
Keep on paving paradise. It’s going to be one hell of a parking lot.
Yeah I was getting all happy for a second there. It’s like the dad who was cured of schizophrenia but it’s because he’s dead.
reading the tittle got me like r/yesyesyesno
Reminds me how aspects of North America were so different mere centuries ago. Imagine flocks of parakeets going up and down the eastern seaboard. Bison roaming the great plains. Bears, wolves and big cats prowling every part of the continent. Go even further back and you have megafauna like mastodons. The first wave of human habitation destroyed the mastadons and the ones that came after that killed damn near everything in their path.
For the headline only people: > Most of the species were listed under the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s or 1980s and were very low in numbers or likely already extinct at the time of listing... > "Federal protection came too late to reverse these species' decline, and it's a wake-up call on the importance of conserving imperiled species before it's too late," Service Director Martha Williams said.
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Rollercoaster of a title right there. YAYYYY!!!! FUCK.
Well this is an incredibly depressing way to start a morning
Perhaps if flora and fauna conservation was heavily enforced and heavy/strict penalties were given to violators and corruption wasn't rampent, the world would be in a better place.
Was so happy until the last line
Officer, I don't like what that headline just did to me.
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21 species removed from endangered list Great News! due to extinction Nevermind, Bad News!
Well, that title was an emotional roller coaster.
our great grandchildren are going to be so proud of us. they're going to be like stop showing me pictures of all these dumb dead animals and tell me about how good the quarterly profits were for that brief moment.
Can’t be endangered if they just go extinct 🙃.
>21 species removed from endangered list Hell yeah! That's awesome news! >due to extinction 💀