• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Extinction Thread (Imminent / Declared Extinctions)

Cheetahs facing extinction amid dramatic decline in numbers
Telegraph Reporters
27 December 2016 • 7:54am

Urgent action is needed to stop the cheetah - the world's fastest land animal - sprinting to extinction, experts have warned.
Scientists estimate that just 7,100 of the fleet-footed cats remain in the wild, occupying just 9% of the territory they once lived in.

Asiatic populations have been hit the hardest with fewer than 50 individuals surviving in Iran, according to a new investigation led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
In Zimbabwe, cheetah numbers have plummeted by 85% in little more than a decade.

The cheetah's dramatic decline has now prompted calls for the animal's status to be upgraded from "vulnerable" to "endangered" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.

Dr Sarah Durant, from ZSL and WCS, project leader for the Rangewide Conservation Programme for Cheetah and African Wild Dog, said: "This study represents the most comprehensive analysis of cheetah status to date.
"Given the secretive nature of this elusive cat, it has been difficult to gather hard information on the species, leading to its plight being overlooked. Our findings show that the large space requirements for cheetah, coupled with the complex range of threats faced by the species in the wild, mean that it is likely to be much more vulnerable to extinction than was previously thought."

The cheetah is one of the world's most wide-ranging carnivores and needs a lot of space. Partly because of this, 77% of its remaining habitat falls outside protected areas, leaving the animal especially vulnerable to human impacts.
Even within well-managed parks and reserves the cats have suffered as a result of humans hunting their prey, habitat loss, illegal trafficking of cheetah parts, and the exotic pet trade, say the researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In Zimbabwe these pressures have seen the cheetah population plunge from 1,200 to a maximum of only 170 animals in 16 years, a decline of 85 per cent.

The experts want to see a completely new approach to cheetah conservation focusing on the landscape that transcends national borders and incorporates co-ordinated regional strategies.
It would involve motivating both governments and local communities to protect the cheetah and promoting the sustainable co-existence of humans and wildlife.

Dr Kim Young-Overton, from the wild cat conservation organisation Panthera, said: "We've just hit the reset button in our understanding of how close cheetahs are to extinction.

"The take-away from this pinnacle study is that securing protected areas alone is not enough. We must think bigger, conserving across the mosaic of protected and unprotected landscapes that these far-reaching cats inhabit, If we are to avert the otherwise certain loss of the cheetah forever."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/27/cheetahs-facing-extinction-amid-dramatic-decline-numbers/
 
They survived for millions of years, then we arrived and ate them!

Radiocarbon dating of a fossilized leg bone from a Jamaican monkey called Xenothrix mcgregori suggests it may be the one of the most recent primate species anywhere in the world to become extinct, and it may solve a long-standing mystery about the cause of its demise. The short answer: human settlement of its island home.

Though the team of specialists who conducted the study says its evidence is indirect, it is consistent with the idea that humans sped the species' extinction through some combination of predation, competition for resources, habitat destruction and introduction of invasive species.

"Understanding how this extinction happened and what role humans may have played could help us understand how extinctions are progressing today and what we can do to prevent them," says Siobhán Cooke, M.Phil., Ph.D., assistant professor of functional anatomy and evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the study, described online in the Journal of Mammalogy on August 1.

Cooke says the evidence supports the idea that the monkeys survived longer than monkey species on other Caribbean islands—long enough to have overlapped with the arrival of native people from South America, around 800 A.D.

According to fossil evidence, small primates—a group of mammals that includes humans and our closest monkey relatives—first arrived in Jamaica during the Miocene (23 million to 25 million years ago), probably on mats of vegetation that can form during major weather events, like hurricanes, that could have carried them from the American mainland. ...

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-fossil-evidence-humans-role-monkey.html#jCp
 
They survived for millions of years, then we arrived and ate them!

Radiocarbon dating of a fossilized leg bone from a Jamaican monkey called Xenothrix mcgregori suggests it may be the one of the most recent primate species anywhere in the world to become extinct, and it may solve a long-standing mystery about the cause of its demise. The short answer: human settlement of its island home.


I quite recently discovered a recipe for Jamaican curry powder, and duly put together some of same -- makes a delicious, and splendidly hot, curry with goat, and pork. Hmm -- wonder what it's like with monkey (j/k) ...
 
I quite recently discovered a recipe for Jamaican curry powder, and duly put together some of same -- makes a delicious, and splendidly hot, curry with goat, and pork. Hmm -- wonder what it's like with monkey

What ingredients/amounts are in your Jamaican curry powder? Just wondering how it differs from Indian.
 
What ingredients/amounts are in your Jamaican curry powder? Just wondering how it differs from Indian.


Chief distinguishing feature is that Jamaicans are, apparently, crazy about allspice.

One and a half tblsp allspice berries
3 tblsp coriander seeds
1 tblsp turmeric
1 tblsp fenugreek seeds
1 tblsp black pepper
1 tblsp ground ginger
1 cinnamon stick
1 tblsp red chilli powder

Gently toast all the above, then grind them into powder.
 
So sad. The article seems to have changed from when I saw it but there were several very charming photos of his keepers stroking this huge and scary looking animal.

I noticed this thread started with the Yangtze River Dolphin. For some reason I feel its loss particularly keenly. There were thousands when I was born and now there are none. Horrible.
 
So sad. The article seems to have changed from when I saw it but there were several very charming photos of his keepers stroking this huge and scary looking animal.

I noticed this thread started with the Yangtze River Dolphin. For some reason I feel its loss particularly keenly. There were thousands when I was born and now there are none. Horrible.

It was just on the BBC News channel, it may be possible to create more Northern White Rhinos using eggs from the two remaining female Northern White Rhinos and sperm from male Southern White Rhinos.

Some really nice film of the keepers petting the rhino.
 
It was just on the BBC News channel, it may be possible to create more Northern White Rhinos using eggs from the two remaining female Northern White Rhinos and sperm from male Southern White Rhinos.

They have also preserved sperm and genetic material from Sudan (the last male), so there is the very slim chance the species could be saved - though it's such a genetic bottleneck, it's very unlikely. Rather than coming up with grandiose claims of bringing back woolly mammoths, the people putting their weight behind "deextinction" methods should be considering the prospect of artificially boosting the biodiversity of functionally extinct species like this.
 
The Vernepator Cur, or turnspit dog. Bonus information: it's believed the closest living relative to the breed is the Corgi.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"They were referred to as the kitchen dog, the cooking dog or the vernepator cur," says Caira Farrell, library and collections manager at the Kennel Club in London. "The very first mention of them is in 1576 in the first book on dogs ever written."

The turnspit was bred especially to run on a wheel that turned meat so it would cook evenly.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...-dogs-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-vernepator-cur

TurnspitDog.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Really appalling discovery in Puerto Rico

Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished

"We knew that something was amiss in the first couple days,” said Brad Lister. “We were driving into the forest and at the same time both Andres and I said: ‘Where are all the birds?’ There was nothing.”His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming.

“It was just astonishing,” Lister said. “Before, both the sticky ground plates and canopy plates would be covered with insects. You’d be there for hours picking them off the plates at night. But now the plates would come down after 12 hours in the tropical forest with a couple of lonely insects trapped or none at all. It was a true collapse of the insect populations in that rainforest,” he said. “We began to realise this is terrible – a very, very disturbing result.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...cid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011619
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...wsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011619#img-2
 
The turnspit was bred especially to run on a wheel that turned meat so it would cook evenly.

I'm wondering if these unfortunate doggies got comfort-breaks? :thought:

There were vacancies in France for useful curs in the later Nineteenth Century!

This top-driven wheel was a real device but I have also seen a Victorian cartoon of terrier circling a vertical axle to drive a sewing-machine. It seemed less motivational. Perhaps a cat could have been harnessed on the opposite side . . . they would need careful matching. :evil:
 
Really appalling discovery in Puerto Rico

Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished

"We knew that something was amiss in the first couple days,” said Brad Lister. “We were driving into the forest and at the same time both Andres and I said: ‘Where are all the birds?’ There was nothing.”His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming.

“It was just astonishing,” Lister said. “Before, both the sticky ground plates and canopy plates would be covered with insects. You’d be there for hours picking them off the plates at night. But now the plates would come down after 12 hours in the tropical forest with a couple of lonely insects trapped or none at all. It was a true collapse of the insect populations in that rainforest,” he said. “We began to realise this is terrible – a very, very disturbing result.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...cid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011619
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...wsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011619#img-2
Frightening in the extreme.
 
Really appalling discovery in Puerto Rico

Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished

"We knew that something was amiss in the first couple days,” said Brad Lister. “We were driving into the forest and at the same time both Andres and I said: ‘Where are all the birds?’ There was nothing.”His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming.

“It was just astonishing,” Lister said. “Before, both the sticky ground plates and canopy plates would be covered with insects. You’d be there for hours picking them off the plates at night. But now the plates would come down after 12 hours in the tropical forest with a couple of lonely insects trapped or none at all. It was a true collapse of the insect populations in that rainforest,” he said. “We began to realise this is terrible – a very, very disturbing result.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...cid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011619
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...wsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011619#img-2
When one thinks how critical insects are to the entire land based food chain this is very concerning. Wouldn't mind seeing mosquitoes, stink bugs, black flies and horse flies disappear but even here it could upset the food chain.
 
Really appalling discovery in Puerto Rico. It was a true collapse of the insect populations in that rainforest,” he said. “We began to realise this is terrible – a very, very disturbing result.”

That's completely horrific. That's a whole ecosystem on the brink of annihilation, and Puerto Rico is so unique. I'll bet it is due to indiscriminate use of pesticides. I wonder if the insect populations can recover? I wonder if they can do it in time to stop the other species from starving? It is so depressing to hear news like this, but thank you rammonmercado, I intend to research the matter a little more deeply and send some letters. I find actual paper and stamps seems to carry more weight than e-mails.
 
I'll bet it is due to indiscriminate use of pesticides.
In Jeremy Wade's current program "Mighty Rivers" he spends one program looking into a decline in apex predators in the Amazon due to oil spillages/leaks and their affect on fish life, although such spills bugger up everything.

The previous one on the Danube was quite eye opening as well. There are many odd ways to stuff up an ecosystem.
 
Agreed Coal. Here's another way that happened recently in Australia:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...darling-river-to-impact-other-states/10715640

There is a good chance that the algal bloom that stripped the oxygen from the water is a result of sudden temperature changes, but the blue-green algae are unlikely to have even been there if it wasn't for the fertilizer run-off from local cotton plantations that have also been illegally been stealing water from the river system.
 
Last edited:
Agreed Coal. Here's another way that happened recently in Australia:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...darling-river-to-impact-other-states/10715640

There is a good chance that the algal bloom that stripped the oxygen from the water is a result of sudden temperature changes, but the blue-green algae are unlikely to have even been there if it wasn't for the fertilizer run-off from local cotton plantations that have also been illegally been stealing water from the river system.
Not bad sized either, damn wouldn't have minded having those on the hook. We even get this algae bloom in hot summers as of late. No swimming. Luckily the lakes are big and deep so I the fish can hightail if needed.
 
Another one bites the dust.

The Australian government has confirmed the extinction of a small rodent native to a tiny spit of sand in the northernmost part of the Great Barrier Reef ― the first known mammal lost to human-caused climate change.

Bramble Cay melomys lived on the coral island of Bramble Cay, located in the Torres Strait between Queensland state and Papua New Guinea. The Government of Queensland initially declared the species extinct in a 2016 report, and Australian Environment Minister Melissa Price confirmed the die-off in a press release this week. The whiskered rat has been officially reclassified from “endangered” to “extinct.”

Geoff Richardson, an official with Australia’s Department of the Environment and Energy, told lawmakers on Monday that the declaration “was not a decision to take lightly,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald. “There’s always a delay while the evidence is gathered to be absolutely certain,” he said.

5c6dd5672600004602fddc32.png


It is estimated that several hundred Melomys rubicola roamed the island in the late 1970s, according to the 2016 report co-authored by researchers at the University of Queensland. By the late 1990s, the population had fallen to below 100 individuals. The last reported sighting was by a fisherman in 2009.

The 2016 report concluded that the “key factor responsible for the extirpation of this population was almost certainly ocean inundation,” which resulted in “dramatic habitat loss and perhaps also direct mortality of individuals.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/australia-rat-extinction-climate-change_n_5c6dca24e4b0e37a1ed47b1c
 
Triffids and other motile plants have been hunted to extinction by the likes of Max.

When scientists talk about recent extinctions, birds and mammals get most of the attention. But the first global analysis of its kind finds that twice as many plants have disappeared than birds, mammals, and amphibians combined.

Researchers reviewed published research, international databases, and museum specimens such as grasses from Madagascar (pictured), tallying up 571 plants species that have gone extinct in the past 250 years. One reason the total exceeds that of well-studied animals is that there are simply more kinds of plants. Looking at percentages, the situation is worse for mammals and birds; an estimated 5% of those species have gone extinct, compared with 0.2% of plants.

The losses include the Chile sandalwood tree in the South Pacific, exploited for its fragrant timber. It was last seen on Robinson Crusoe Island in 1908. (The extinction rates among plants have been highest for trees and shrubs on islands—which often have species that occur nowhere else—and in regions with rich diversity, especially the tropics and in Mediterranean climates.)

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-06-10&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2854688
 
Horse chestnut trees (among others) are heading for extinction:
News story

Which means no more conkers soon, thanks to climate change. But it also means the urban myth that conkers have been banned in schools unless the children wear goggles and protection will die out to, so every cloud...
 
Horse chestnut trees (among others) are heading for extinction:
News story

Which means no more conkers soon, thanks to climate change. But it also means the urban myth that conkers have been banned in schools unless the children wear goggles and protection will die out to, so every cloud...

...or the UL will evolve into "Kids were blinding themselves in banned conker fights so outraged parents made the council cut down all the trees".
 
...or the UL will evolve into "Kids were blinding themselves in banned conker fights so outraged parents made the council cut down all the trees".

Don't give them ideas!
 
Actually, now I think of it... maybe certain spiders should be questioned about the threat to horse chestnut trees. We could call this "The Conker Conspiracy".
 
I'm pretty sure that story was debunked years ago. Ironically, it was seeded by a staged photograph taken by a school headmaster using it to illustrate ridiculous health and safety regs - and it was making a point about the way he thougt things were going, rather than where they were at. It then became 'real' through repetition.

I'll have to see if I can dig out some sources.
 
Back
Top