{"id":125168,"date":"2019-01-07T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=125168"},"modified":"2019-01-14T11:20:35","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T11:20:35","slug":"these-are-the-animals-that-went-extinct-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/01\/these-are-the-animals-that-went-extinct-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"These Are the Animals That Went Extinct in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spix’s macaws in captivity. They are extinct in the wild.
Image: Patrick Pleul\/picture alliance via Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

30 Dec 2018 – <\/em>With the end of 2018 comes the near-certain reality that some critters, after millions of years of existence on Earth, are gone for good.<\/p>\n

There’s little question that humanity’s continued exploitation<\/a> of wild animals and the depletion of their habitats<\/a> have left many species either clinging to existence, or at worst, extinct. Today’s extinctions are happening 100 to<\/a> 1000 times<\/a> faster than the expected, natural rate of die-offs. It’s grim.<\/p>\n

“The topic gets a hold of people in a way that few things do,” Sea McKeon, a biology professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and co-host of “The Naturalist Podcast,” said in an interview.<\/p>\n

2017 saw the extinctions of multiple lizard species and a bat<\/a>. This year, scientists brought news that three bird species that were thought potentially extinct, have gone completely extinct<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Using a novel analysis, biologists at the conservation group BirdLife International published research concluding that Hawaii’s insect-eating forest-bird, the po\u02bbouli, is now extinct, along with two Brazilian songbirds: the Cryptic Treehunter and the Alagoas Foliage-gleaner.<\/p>\n

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The Po\u02bbo-uli – Image: Paul E. Baker\/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service<\/p><\/div>\n

A charismatic blue parrot, however, was perhaps the year’s most publicized extinction. The Spix\u2019s Macaw \u2014 a notable character in Disney’s animated film Rio<\/em> \u2014 is now believed to be extinct in the wild<\/a>. Some 50 of the talkative birds, unable to persist in the wilderness, are kept alive in captivity.<\/p>\n

But it’s often the lesser known or rarely-heard-of species \u2014 like the Cryptic Treehunter \u2014 that bite the dust.<\/p>\n

“The reality of extinction is the disappearances that nobody notices,” said McKeon.<\/p>\n

Famous or not, declaring any species extinct or likely extinct is a difficult endeavor.<\/p>\n

“It is very challenging to know whether a species has truly gone extinct,” Trond Larsen, an ecologist at the environmental organization Conservation International<\/a>, said over email.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Judge halts grizzly hunting because Yellowstone bears need to find more diverse sex partners<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“For example, if we spend weeks or even months searching for individuals in the last known location of a species, what does it mean if we don\u2019t find any?” added Larsen, who spends considerable time assessing species in deep rainforest environments.<\/p>\n

So when an extinction is finally declared, it’s not something scientists \u2014 who are typically hesitant to make such indisputable claims \u2014 do lightly.<\/p>\n

“It butts against scientific conservatism,” said McKeon.<\/p>\n

The bad news beyond extinction<\/strong><\/p>\n

2018 also saw species that may go extinct at any moment.<\/p>\n

Of note is the vaquita, the dolphin-like porpoise that lives in the Sea of Cortez. The vaquita, only discovered in the late 1950s, is the smallest marine mammal on Earth.<\/p>\n

And there are less than 30<\/a> wild vaquita left.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re about to lose it,” said McKeon.<\/p>\n

At this point, he said, there’s not much conservationists can do, but watch.<\/p>\n

Catching such wild marine creatures and trying to keep them alive in a captive setting isn’t just hugely expensive, it might hasten the species’ demise.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re about to lose it” <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A total extinction \u2014 stoked by illegal fishing practices wherein the small vaquita are unintentionally caught in nets<\/a> \u2014 may soon be this endearing critter’s fate.<\/p>\n

“That could come next year [2019]. “It could be this year. At some point it becomes a dice roll,” said McKeon.<\/p>\n

On land, the northern white rhino \u2014 a subspecies of the white rhinos \u2014 are similarly imperiled. The last male died<\/a> at the heavily-guarded Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya this year. Now, just two females remain.<\/p>\n

Progressive embryonic scientists, however, are developing experimental, unprecedented means of saving the rhino subspecies.<\/p>\n

This year, scientists successfully made a rhino embryo<\/a> using the sperm from long-dead males. But achieving a live birth through a surrogate rhino mother is a whole other laudable, though ambitious, challenge. Resurrecting the northern white rhinos is an even greater leap.<\/p>\n

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A pair of vaquita spotted in 2008. Image: noaa<\/p><\/div>\n

Rhinos and other charismatic beasts, however significant, often overshadow today’s tiny, troubled critters, particularly those with exoskeletons.<\/p>\n

Insects populations, a foundation of the planet’s food chain, continue to plummet over vast swathes of the world’s forests.<\/p>\n

They have been notably impacted by climate change. And as temperatures are expected to continue rising<\/a>, they will become increasingly susceptible to widespread environmental change \u2014 changes too fast for species to naturally adapt to.<\/p>\n

“Over the past twenty years, I have observed rapid declines and local extinctions of insects in the Andes-Amazon region,” said Larson. “Many species are moving up mountains where temperatures are cooler, but eventually there is nowhere left for them to go.”<\/p>\n

The insects’ plight is compounded by the direct destruction of their homes.<\/p>\n

“I will confidently say that the destruction of high-quality tropical forest is hurting our tropical insect population more than we know,” Robin Verble, associate professor of biological sciences at Missouri University of Science and Technology, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

“We’re seeing up to 75 percent declines in some places,” added McKeon, noting that insect declines are happening beyond the tropics, in places like Europe.<\/p>\n

This makes spotting declining or nearly extinct species problematic because biologists aren’t nearly finished identifying the world’s critters.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re still actively cataloging and describing species,” said Verble.<\/p>\n

Amid the dark extinction news, though, there are encouraging developments.<\/p>\n

Larson cites the new 2 million acre swath of Amazon rainforest in Peru’s Yaguas National Park, a place “where the world\u2019s highest biodiversity is concentrated,” he said.<\/p>\n

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The Yaguas River flowing through Yaguas National Park. Image: nasa<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s in these vast, uninterrupted chunks of preserved land that many wild species can continue to thrive, largely free of human influence.<\/p>\n

“One 10 acre preserve is better than 10 one acre preserves,” noted Verble.<\/p>\n

Critically endangered species have also shown signs of rebounding.<\/p>\n

The great, black California condor \u2014 which was only saved by drastic conservation measures \u2014 showed gradual signs of resiliency in the wild this year. For the first time in decades, a wild-born condor left its nest and flew into the wide California sky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“That’s been a success story,” said McKeon.<\/p>\n

In the world of conservation, little victories can mean a lot. But beyond heroic efforts to stymie the end of some species lies major population losses \u2014 the precursors to extinction. And unfortunately, it’s now hitting the bottom of the food web.<\/p>\n

“Insects power the world in a real way \u2014 they make the world work,” said McKeon. “We’re dropping those numbers radically.”<\/p>\n

“That should scare people.”<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mashable.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 Dec 2018 – With the end of 2018 comes the reality that some critters, after millions of years of existence on Earth, are gone for good. 2017 saw the extinctions of multiple lizard species and a bat. This year, scientists brought news that three bird species have gone completely extinct. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":125169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-animal-rights-vegetarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}