[HN Gopher] U.S. declares more than 20 species extinct after exh...
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U.S. declares more than 20 species extinct after exhaustive
searches
Author : gmays
Score : 269 points
Date : 2021-09-30 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Some comments mentions bringing back species. Well, how would you
| like to return to a home that is no longer hospitable?
|
| Just awful.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| How many more species would be classified as extinct if not for
| zoos?
| yissp wrote:
| Wow, quite a few, and this isn't even an exhaustive list
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct_in_the_wild
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I guarantee you that when the technology exists to bring back
| some of these species via cloning or genetic engineering, they
| will have some habitat restored once they are ready to re-
| introduce them. Otherwise it would be a complete waste of time
| and money.
| agilob wrote:
| I think the comment it more about what if we have technology
| but no space for resurrected species?
| jjk166 wrote:
| Then we wait until we have the space. There is no deadline
| to meet.
| agilob wrote:
| Pretty sure the deadline is our extinction, but after
| that, the animal kingdom can flourish again
| RobLach wrote:
| If you can't handle the heat get out of the Anthropocene.
| goldenkey wrote:
| "To evolve or not to evolve, that is the question" - William
| Darwin
| Bud wrote:
| Among the species who are now tragically extinct: Republicans who
| are not Nazis and who answer to reason.
| dang wrote:
| Come on, you know better than to vandalize HN like this. Please
| don't.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rwcarlsen wrote:
| Funny - I'm sure many people could argue the same about
| democrats - they're the ones firing people for not undergoing
| unnecessary medical procedures and coordinating with
| multinational companies on censorship guidance.
| OJFord wrote:
| 'Exhaustive'? They may have been exhaust _ing_ (!) but can you
| really ever search _exhaustively_ for a species?
| mumblemumble wrote:
| At the very very least, "exhaustive" and "exhausting" are
| potential synonyms.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exhaustive#Adjective
|
| I'd argue that definition 2 is also a decent fit, and
| definition 1 is acceptable if you permit mild hyperbole. (Which
| I'd advise doing, as mild hyperbole is more-or-less the default
| register of Standard American English.)
| OJFord wrote:
| > mild hyperbole is more-or-less the default register of
| Standard American English
|
| Well as a speaker of British English, I suppose that's where
| I fell down.
|
| They're very much not synonyms as far as I'm concerned, my
| 'exhausting' was a joke, being 'very tiring, causing
| exhaustion' vs. the 'every possible element, comprehensive'
| from your Wiktionary link for 'exhaustive'.
|
| You can't possibly check everywhere. I don't say that out of
| some sort of extinction denial! I assume there are standards
| in the field for time since sighting over certain number of
| known habitats or percentage coverage of land or whatever
| that indicates extinction.
|
| I just wouldn't call that 'after exhaustive search',
| personally. 'Extensive', sure. 'Sufficient to meet criteria
| for extinction' is what matters.
| murphyslab wrote:
| Tens of thousands of naturalists (e.g. birders) have been
| looking for evidence for decades. It's a pretty wide net,
| particularly with citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist
| and eBird.
|
| As for whether it's possible, I would say yes. Environmental
| DNA (eDNA) sampling can be used to see if a particular species
| is present even if you don't visually or audibly observe the
| species:
|
| > eDNA is increasingly being used for biosurveillance, species
| occupancy studies, and the detection of endangered and invasive
| species, particularly in aquatic ecosystems [0]
|
| There's a very recent paper that has demonstrated that animal
| DNA can be obtained from the air and used to identify animals
| present in a given space. [0]
|
| > Clare set up vacuum pumps with filters in 20 locations in
| Hamerton Zoo Park and let each run for 30 minutes. [...] The
| team identified 17 species kept at the zoo and others living
| near and around it, such as hedgehogs and deer. Some zoo animal
| DNA was found nearly 300 meters from the animals' enclosures.
| She also detected airborne DNA likely from the meat of chicken,
| pig, cow, and horse fed to captive predators indoors. [1]
|
| In the near future we'll probably see fairly widespread use of
| this kind of tech in the search for rare and evasive species.
|
| [0] : https://peerj.com/articles/11030/
|
| [1] : https://www.science.org/news/2021/07/dna-pulled-thin-air-
| ide...
| OJFord wrote:
| Undeniably _extensive_. I don 't deny it as sufficient
| evidence to claim extinction. I just don't think it can (or
| could ever) be called 'exhaustive'.
| ipsin wrote:
| Once a species is declared extinct, is it legal to hunt?
|
| I realize this may sound like a weird question, but I'm curious
| if there had ever been mistakes like this, with a lack of
| protection leading to actual accidental extinction.
| look_lookatme wrote:
| Hunting laws in general vary state by state but for the most
| part you can't just go out and kill any random thing flying
| around. There generally has to be some sort of formal
| designation that a species can be hunted. Otherwise don't kill
| it.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| What law on the books says that it is legal for me to kill a
| dragonfly?
| nixpulvis wrote:
| There's absolutely nothing stopping me from killing ants, or
| even stopping my cat from killing rats. Hunting is regulated,
| but it's not all species by default.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| If there's not already a case in the books, that simply goes to
| show that we have done a good job not mislabeling species as
| extinct. The Endangered Species Act surely still applies, if
| anything the punishment would be more severe.
|
| This question is absurd.
| mrfusion wrote:
| It would be cool to see a list of all the species that have
| recovered from near extinction in the last 50 years. (Just to
| balance out the doom)
|
| Off the top of my head: bald eagles, other birds of prey?,
| various whale species, what else?
| openasocket wrote:
| My favorite example would be Przewalski's horse, also known as
| the Mongolian wild horse. In the 1960s it was believe extinct
| in the wild, with a couple dozen in zoos. Zoos began a breeding
| program and eventually began reintroducing them to their
| previous habitats. Today there are something like 1,900
| Przewalski's horses, and over half of those are in the wild.
| It's really a testament to the good that zoos can do for
| conservation.
| underbluewaters wrote:
| In California, pelicans nearly were killed off by DDT but are
| quite common now. Santa Cruz Island foxes almost went extinct
| but are now very abundant. Bald Eagles are coming back to the
| Channel Islands as well.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| From the standpoint of understandig molecular biology and
| evolution, this is just basically burning the Library of
| Alexandria to keep yourself warm for a few days. This is unique
| information being lost forever.
| prescriptivist wrote:
| Many of these species were considered done for by the time they
| were listed. The tools we have to rehabilitate our ecology from
| the brink of near total destruction really only came online in
| the late 60s through the 70s and it's taken time for them to be
| effective, but they have been in a lot of ways, whether it is
| the ESA, CWA, NEPA, etc.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| s/super depressing/super distressing/g
|
| agree, signed Extinction Witness
| mhalle wrote:
| Well know species, such as the Monarch butterfly, are candidates
| for extinction, but don't make it to the list because other
| species are "higher priority":
|
| https://www.fws.gov/savethemonarch/ssa.html
| sethammons wrote:
| As a kid, I loved the monarch migration that came through our
| mountain community. Thousands and thousands of them. Then
| hundreds. Then dozens. Then lucky to see a single one.
| sethammons wrote:
| I see so many monarchs
|
| Then man fails his role
|
| No longer do I see them
| daveslash wrote:
| Does the list have a maximum quota? I would have thought that
| the list could grow to accommodate any species that meet
| certain criteria?
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| And we are still discovering new ones:
| https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/7-new-animals-...
| [deleted]
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I like to think that the Hawaiian practice of using native bird
| feathers for large and elaborate cloaks might let us pursue de-
| extinction through DNA extraction and cloning:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBAhu_%CA%BBula
|
| Just think about how many individual birds' feathers contributed
| towards making these. And we know plenty of the yellow feathers
| are from the Kaua`i `o`o bird which was declared extinct. The
| Kaua`i Akialoa was also declared extinct and they had yellow
| feathers too. There could even be feathers from species that went
| extinct before being cataloged by science. There is so much
| potential in this area, yet I don't know if there are any
| proposals to attempt DNA extraction or try to examine feathers
| and determine which species each came from.
|
| Edit: This is food for thought and I'm in no way advocating we do
| any less to prevent extinctions today. I just like having the
| hope that future generations might be able to bring a few species
| back.
| nly wrote:
| Do feathers even contain DNA? Aren't they just keratin? Hair
| sans follicle can't be used for DNA extraction for example
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The base of the feathers do, "Feathers are known to contain
| amplifiable DNA at their base (calamus) and have provided an
| important genetic source from museum specimens." https://roya
| lsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2009.075...
|
| There are also museum specimens, but as you can imagine,
| _way_ less diverse genetic material can be gathered from
| those collections.
| lawrencevillain wrote:
| I love that the answer is always more technology will save us.
| Whether it's carbon removal advances or cloning, we just look
| towards future advancements instead of cleaning up our act.
|
| I understand that expecting some sort of big shift in how we
| live is not feasible, it's just a shame.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Has worked so far though with all constraints (political,
| economic, and scientific).
| WalterBright wrote:
| > I love that the answer is always more technology will save
| us.
|
| The solution to extincting the whales for whale oil was
| petroleum. The solution to denuding the landscape of trees
| was coal. The solution to coal is natural gas, solar, nuclear
| power.
|
| The only alternative to technology is to shrink the human
| population by about 95%.
| titzer wrote:
| You do realize that the switch from whale oil to petroleum
| caused a massive, orders of magnitude increase in human
| footprint and ecological destruction? Had we not discovered
| petroleum, or had it not been there, human civilization
| would have plateaued or even declined, right after the
| extinction of these beautiful animals, because we would
| have absolutely hunted them to extinction unless they were
| protected. We would have been forced to live in balance
| with available resources.
|
| The arc of whales would have followed the arc of so many
| other natural "resources" that are produced or even consist
| of living beings. There are several native hardwoods that
| are either effectively extinct or impossible to obtain
| because they were mined out.
|
| No, we stumbled on a vast reservoir of energy buried under
| the ground and we've been draining that reservoir as fast
| as possible. We'll transition off petroleum about the time
| it becomes economically infeasible to extract and burn it,
| and not a second sooner.
|
| By all means, bring on solar, nuclear, wind, whatever. They
| are just more reservoirs to tap to run this machine. Just
| so we can dig up, slice up, chop up, burn down, and chew up
| another order of magnitude of the biosphere. Because money
| and grandkids and ice cream.
|
| We are too many and too greedy, and this planet has finite
| resources. "Technology". Always magical technology. Well
| until technology can grow a watermelon in a lightbulb, we
| are gonna keep munching away at this planet until the
| biosphere collapses around our ears.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The extinction of animals caused by humans has been
| ongoing and increasing since the stone age. There's no
| way that not having petroleum would have stopped it.
|
| > this planet has finite resources
|
| No matter is being destroyed or is escaping the planet,
| aside from a solar system probe now and then. Energy can
| repurpose and reconfigure existing resources.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Helium is a counterexample to that notion even if it is
| vaguely true for most other things.
| voldacar wrote:
| Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this planet
| has finite entropy
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Tech is what humans do. What humans are _bad_ at is
| artificial limits on growth.
|
| Between the two, I very much expect one to save us before the
| other, if either can save us at all.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I wasn't trying to imply we can just "let it be" because we
| can undo it later. I actually follow Hawaiian Ecosystem
| conservation and I do what little I can to help. But I
| understand where you are coming from. Simply consider my
| original post hopium.
| lawrencevillain wrote:
| Sorry I wasn't trying to downplay your response, I agree it
| is the only hope we can actually have these days.
|
| It's awesome that you are giving back though, Hawaii has
| got to be a really fascinating and challenging case study
| for conservation vs. consumerism.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"Hawaii has got to be a really fascinating and
| challenging case study for conservation vs. consumerism."
|
| Indeed, and it is actually something I personally
| struggle with. The situation is actually much more dire
| than people realize. I myself am actually part Native
| Hawaiian and it is so disheartening to see fellow locals
| actively protest conservation measures. I do what I can
| to testify in public meetings but local pushback on
| things like ungulate eradication or land use laws are
| intense.
|
| I don't want to dismiss them entirely because the
| concerns come from a real place, but those reasons are
| all economic in nature. And, you end up in the unenviable
| position of being a relatively privileged person telling
| a disadvantaged community they can't have the economic
| advancement they want. It is genuinely difficult.
| jjk166 wrote:
| No amount of "cleaning up our act" will undo damage already
| done. The solution is always technology because that's what
| technology is - solutions to problems. Changing behavior can
| allow you to avoid a problem, but only technology will fix a
| problem you've failed to avoid.
| asdff wrote:
| I think what OP was implying is that the solution is always
| posited as in some future technology just on the horizon.
| We will save the day in the final act of the trilogy, this
| is just the empire strikes back, right?
|
| Except that's not where our solution to this problem lies.
| We have all the technology we need to be carbon neutral
| today, namely in the form of nuclear power. In fact, Nixon
| planned on 1000 nuclear power plants operating in the U.S.
| by the year 2000. The reason why we don't have that reality
| today has nothing to do with technology, and everything to
| do with behavior and choices we've made. We chose to
| protest nuclear power, we chose to close down power plants
| that were generating electricity carbon free, we chose to
| do this because we decided that it was nuclear power that
| was the enemy of ecology, in the face of this misinformed
| public politicians found it easier to keep their jobs by
| walking back plans for nuclear power than to educate the
| populace.
|
| Decades later today, we find ourselves forced to sleep in
| this bed of coal and natural gas, but we ignore that this
| is a bed that we ourselves willingly made by choice, and
| continue to maintain by choice using bullshit excuses such
| as cost or time or profitability to bury any practical
| alternative (in a society where for the first time since
| the invention of currency, government mints can generate
| money out of plain air no less).
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Vertical farming is one solution, albeit expensive.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Since we are still discovering some species, there is a good
| chance that these are not totally extinct.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| This is just the beginning I believe.
|
| 20 years ago we were 6bn humans, today we are very close to 8bn
| and in a little more than 20 years ahead we are 10bn.
|
| It's an alarming growth rate, and considering how much each
| person use resources and produce waste during their lifetime, I'd
| say we are looking at quite a bit more extinct species in the
| future.
| gbear605 wrote:
| The human population is expected to flatten out at around 10-11
| billion in 2050 or so, and then decrease. Bringing people out
| of poverty decreases the amount of children they tend to have
| without having to go to any extreme measures.
| azifali wrote:
| :-(
| BelenusMordred wrote:
| For anyone out there I highly recommend reading The Sixth
| Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
|
| It's a plain, almost coldhearted look at what we are doing to the
| planet and where this path leads. Something needs to change
| urgently.
| shakezula wrote:
| Someday we're going to hit the cascade point, where we've
| simultaneously and severely damaged or disrupted so many
| ecosystems that they won't be able to recover and it all just
| collapses.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| Great thing is, we probably won't know what that point is until
| we've past it.
| shakezula wrote:
| It will hit us like a brick wall when we start experiencing
| actual environmental ramifications for this, too.
|
| Ocean acidification, the methane clathrate gun, some of the
| most serious climate issues that we've identified aren't even
| within the window of public discussion. The Green New Deal
| isn't even close to being passed.
|
| I can't even imagine America pulling together to pass a
| boring infrastructure bill right now. I honestly can't fathom
| how previous presidents got anything done at all, let alone
| the massive public works projects that shaped America in the
| middle of the 20th century.
| fleddr wrote:
| It's even worse. Fighting climate change, which seemingly
| already is controversial, is purely about human self
| preservation. It doesn't address biodiversity, pollution,
| habitat destruction, the oceans being empty, none of it.
| titzer wrote:
| The future is here already, it's just not evenly distributed.
| There are countless examples of local ecosystems that have been
| entirely decimated as a direct result of human activity. It's
| been going on for millenia. The Tigris/Euphrates river region
| used be a lush, fertile paradise. Thousands of years of human
| agriculture has turned it into what it is today.
|
| Clear-cutting of forests throughout North America, Britain, New
| Zealand are other examples. Recent collapses of kelp forests
| off the coast of California. Not to mention coral reefs dying
| and the great desertification of western China.
|
| It's happening all over. It's here now.
| veb wrote:
| I'm in NZ, and we have very large (I'd wager true wilderness)
| forests with native trees and fauna. Even cutting native
| trees on your property can be pretty bad (people get
| convicted for this). Unless say, the tree is about to fall on
| your house. We have a lot of national parks, I just would
| like us to get some more national marine reserves considering
| we have a pretty large EEZ zone around the country:
| https://teara.govt.nz/en/map/33830/exclusive-economic-zones
| (which is the forth largest in the world).
|
| There's so much we can do better, and we are trying. Pine,
| etc we don't care about cutting down. Ngai Tahu a South
| Island Maori tribe actually own a lot of these forests and
| the idea is that when they're felled for timber, natives are
| grown in place. I hope they keep that up, and to be fair,
| they're not really in need of much more money considering
| they are the richest tribe in NZ as they've re-invested
| everything they got after the Treaty of Waitangi.
|
| We should do more though, always.
|
| If you ever visit, there's places in Stewart Island for
| example that have been completely made rodent free - and
| things are blooming there. On a school camp (we stayed on a
| yacht for a week), we got to experience a magical full moon-
| lit beach and got to witness all the wee kiwis come out and
| play. It was the most magical sight I've ever seen.
| whymauri wrote:
| I can't recommend david attenborough's "a life on our planet"
| enough to gain some perspective on this. You're completely
| right: it's already happening.
| shakezula wrote:
| I understand what's happening all over, but those are the
| small collapses I'm saying will eventually all string
| together and start to cause wider collapse that we won't be
| able to stop. Right now, we can still rewild an ecosystem
| fairly easily, but that won't be feasible when multiple
| ecosystems are collapsing all around us.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I think we should be in panic mode and
| start a full redirection of public funds towards serious
| preservation of natural species and habitats, with carbon
| sequestration implementations, both short and long term
| solutions, and a serious jobs program to implement all of the
| above.
|
| But it won't happen because the public is too removed from
| the problem. Most people haven't felt any real impact, and we
| probably won't be able to get massive legislation passed
| until that point, and I fear it will be too late once they
| do.
| fleddr wrote:
| Wait until urban people find out what role insects play in food
| production. Insects in turn relying on healthy habitats.
|
| They'll find out when shelves are empty or prices go x 10.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Scientists have a recording of the mating call of the last known
| Kaua`i `o`o that could never be answered.
|
| https://youtu.be/5THqAY3u5oY?t=44
|
| "That's the last male of a species... singing for a female, who
| will never come.... he is totally alone.... and now his voice is
| gone."
|
| I find that to be very sad
| Diederich wrote:
| That tore me up.
| efitz wrote:
| I am probably just a horrible person, but I just don't care about
| the extinction of such specific species. Often a member of one
| species is practically impossible to tell from a member of a
| different species save for where the individual was found. I care
| a lot more if "crows" are endangered than if "efitz' southeastern
| marble crested crow" is endangered. [ed: spelling]
|
| Also, I suspect that such narrowly defined species go extinct
| rather frequently; it's sad that human destruction of habitats
| contributed but as a species we Homo sapiens outcompeted them and
| made the world better (in someone's point of view) for Homo
| sapiens, or we wouldn't have been developing the land in the
| first place.
|
| In policy setting I would strongly prefer that we look at things
| less granularity than the species, at least for small animals.
| ogaitnas wrote:
| This is the type of proud indifference that is going to lead us
| down the path of no return in no time.
|
| The world is not made better by shrinking biodiversity
| especially in the long term. But screw posterity right?
|
| I hope you don't have kids.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Personal attacks do not belong on hacker news.
| ogaitnas wrote:
| How is what I said a personal attack? I sincerely hope that
| someone with such little regard for the environment and
| therefore the future of this planet isn't someone who is
| willingly bringing more humans to it. That isn't a personal
| attack but rather my personal belief on the matter.
| exporectomy wrote:
| That's called bigotry. And yes, it was a personal attack.
| fleddr wrote:
| How absolutely pathetic is it that the above 3 comments,
| all showing care and empathy for non-human life, are
| massively downvoted? The state of this community.
| exporectomy wrote:
| Conservation absolutely is nothing to do with care and
| empathy for non-human life. The proof is that one of the
| main tools of conservationists is mechanical and chemical
| killing machines to help them kill and even exterminate
| all the non-human life that they deem unworthy. Please
| don't confuse caring about life with caring about the
| environment. The two feelings are in direct conflict.
| brundolf wrote:
| What's important is biodiversity. Diverse biological life is
| more resilient, and it takes a really long time in human years
| for that diversity to come about in the first place. So if
| we're destroying it faster than it develops naturally,
| ecosystem health as a whole declines.
|
| I think that's a valid point though about "how often does this
| naturally happen?" Surely a certain amount of extinction is
| natural, and we have little frame of reference for what the
| magnitude of that is (at least we as laypeople; maybe even
| scientists, I don't know)
| cmpb wrote:
| >we Homo sapiens outcompeted them and made the world better (in
| someone's point of view) for Homo sapiens
|
| I think what's coming into focus for a lot of people nowadays
| (i.e. the last 50ish years w.r.t eco conservation) is the idea
| that we are actually making the world worse (for humans) - that
| actually making the world better for ourselves necessarily
| includes limiting or reversing our out-competition of other
| life. While it may not be noticeable to humans that a single
| species has been driven out (even just out of a region and not
| necessarily to full extinction) over the course of 10 or 50 or
| 500 years due to human activity, that does still represent a
| change to the established biodiversity, which (many people
| believe) is likely to be net-negative for humans.
|
| Reasons for these beliefs likely vary according to people's
| experience and interaction with the physical world. Personally,
| I find great joy experiencing wildness and nature, and I worry
| that my daughter will not have that. Others might be concerned
| that the loss of species incurs the loss of some aspects of
| nature from which we might be able to learn - that there was an
| opportunity to better ourselves that is now gone forever.
| asdff wrote:
| In this case its a good proxy for understanding what's going on
| with ecosystems in response to change. Caring about crows as a
| whole will probably mask the point. You might see that this
| year there are 1% less crows in an area and think all is well,
| maybe that's within your measurement error. If you noticed
| however that all crows are doing fine, but efitz' southeastern
| marble crested crow numbers have declined significantly, then
| you have some evidence here. Maybe you look at the particular
| ecological niches that efitz' southeastern marble crested crow
| occupies, whatever they might be, and see that there is
| something bad affecting that particular niche that you would
| have not had enough statistical power to see if you considered
| all the crows in one big bag.
| burnished wrote:
| These living creatures can't be brought back. Do you have the
| wisdom to tell which creatures are pillars of their biome?
| Further, do you alarm when the match is lit and the flame is
| spreading or do you wait until your home is already aflame?
|
| I don't think you are a bad person. I suspect you and I grew up
| in a time where species dieing out is the norm as opposed to
| the exception, so it simply doesn't stick out for you. Its just
| how the world works to you. But it is recent, and I'd argue
| we're making a poor trade as a species, trading bio-diversity
| for.. frequently, strip malls or strip mining.
| exporectomy wrote:
| They're mostly on islands so it's very unlikely they matter
| at all outside of their island. If Hawaii had never been
| discovered, we wouldn't have to worry about losing them.
|
| I live in a country filled with endangered "native" species
| but after I grew up, I learned that many of them are
| basically the same as common species in nearby countries, so
| similar that even the experts keep disagreeing on whether
| they're the same species or not.
|
| If their numbers are already extremely low for a long time
| and everything else is doing fine, it's unlikely they're
| "pillars of their biome".
| wittycardio wrote:
| Yup you said it best, you are indeed horrible
| exporectomy wrote:
| No. You've been indoctrinated to believe that
| environmentalism is like a religion so that you're a bad
| person for being an infidel and must not question the flimsy
| claims that the authorities make.
| ogaitnas wrote:
| So much bigotry and ad hominem in this comment yet you have
| the gall to accuse me of the same. Environmentalism is
| nothing like religion - it's science based on empirical
| evidence and not on blind faith. I struggle to see what is
| so flimsy about the findings of this article.
| kevmo wrote:
| It is true that some sub-species are always going extinct.
|
| That said, we're in the middle of a man-made mass extinction
| event.
|
| Scientists and systems thinkers have been warning about
| ecological collapse, particularly in the oceans.
|
| I recommend you start caring.
| gotostatement wrote:
| > made the world better (in someone's point of view) for Homo
| sapiens
|
| The capitalist ideological trick is: "are you happy houses were
| built? Do you enjoy the convenience of modern living? Then
| don't get mad at us for the tradeoff."
|
| Don't forget that there have always been better ways to
| accomplish these goals - more equitable, safer for the
| environment - but they were not done because they did not
| achieve maximum profit for the individual who, through various
| historical factors not related to their merit or wisdom, could
| control the capital necessary for the project.
| fleddr wrote:
| You're indeed a horrible person, but at least an honest one.
| Seeing planetary scale habitat destruction and the wiping out
| of the complex web of life that took hundreds of millions of
| years to evolve, all in a single century, really is quite a win
| indeed.
|
| Besides individual extinctions, most of the 2 millions or so
| other species are in deep decline. The IUCN's most positive
| status for a species is "least concern", really quite telling.
|
| You'd have somewhat of point if a reasonable quality of life
| would only be possible at the direct expense of other species
| and habitats, which is not the case.
|
| We sacrifice the world's jungles and its massively complex and
| old wildlife systems for palm oil. Which is absolutely not an
| essential requirement for human life at all.
|
| Most other forests are sacrificed to plant crops. Not for us,
| to feed cattle. So that we can eat beef, the least efficient
| food. There are alternative meats, less eating of meat, or none
| at all.
|
| We scrape the ocean floors, use electricity or even dynamite to
| fish in such a way that collateral damage is off the charts.
|
| We spread our filth (plastics) across the world, it's now found
| at the poles and even at the bottom of the deepest oceans.
|
| We do trophy hunting on already rare animals for superstition
| or a quick profit.
|
| None of the above things are required for us to have a
| reasonable or good quality of life. They are short-sighted,
| careless and aggressive profit optimizations with disastrous
| and irreversible consequences. And even if you still don't
| care, those profits won't end up in the workers pocket or in
| yours.
|
| No, wildlife habitats do not have to be stripped bare or
| otherwise we'd go hungry. It's bullshit.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Yes, I agree. Counting species is a terrible metric. We
| discover something like 15,000 new species every year. We
| really have no idea how many species are vanishing each year,
| because we're only examining a tiny percentage.
|
| Another way to frame this is to ask: How many _new_ species are
| created each year? Well, we don 't really know-- but we do know
| that a new species can form in just two generations [1]. There
| may be thousands of species being created and destroyed every
| year for all we know. Not a useful metric.
|
| A more useful metric is how common a species was before
| extinction. Using an example from the article, the Ivory-Billed
| Woodpecker was very common before its extinction. Native
| Americans used its skulls as decoration and currency. Its
| eradication is a pretty big deal - BUT - I see some other HN
| comments lamenting how much things have changed "in my
| lifetime" and I think people may be unaware that these
| extinctions basically occurred approximately 200 years ago.
| There have not been sizable populations of this species for a
| very long time [2].
|
| Again, the presentation of data and metrics appears to be
| painting a misleading picture.
|
| [1] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/27/study-darwins-
| finc...
|
| [2] https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ivory-
| billed_Woodpecker/...
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Those narrowly defined species might be the only thing keeping
| other species alive either directly (eg, pollinators) or
| indirectly (eg, biome creators). When individual species
| disappear, we often lose much more as collateral damage.
| exporectomy wrote:
| This seems to the basic understanding most people have. At
| school, they teach you about food webs and how breaking one
| link can ruin everything. That's an enticing idea but is it
| really true? I'm sure there have been some known cases or it
| wouldn't be in the text books, but is it common enough to get
| worried about every obscure species?
| ogaitnas wrote:
| Planting seeds of doubt about established science are we? I
| thought HN was pro-science and environment??
| anonAndOn wrote:
| How about vanilla going extinct in the wild? Any real
| vanilla you have ever had was likely hand pollinated (and
| probably not from Mexico) because the bee that pollinates
| the vanilla orchid is thought to be extinct and the orchid
| that depended on it is now on its way out.[0]
|
| [0]https://phys.org/news/2013-12-professor-vanilla.html
| lawrencevillain wrote:
| This is super depressing, it's crazy to see how much the
| flora/fauna have changed locally in my lifetime.
|
| It makes me wonder how much worse it actually is. Is looks like
| most of these were initially listed in the 80s, not too long
| after Endangered Species Act passed.
|
| Is there some sort of time limit before they officially declare
| something extinct?
| prescriptivist wrote:
| Sounds like the limit is discretionary. From the NYT:
|
| "Scientists do not declare extinctions lightly. It often takes
| decades of fruitless searching. About half of the species in
| this group were already considered extinct by the International
| Union for Conservation of Nature, the global authority on the
| status of animals and plants. The Fish and Wildlife Service
| moved slower in part because it is working through a backlog,
| officials said, and tends to prioritize providing protection
| for species that need it over removing protection for those
| that don't."
| alistairSH wrote:
| From the article: _Many of the species were likely extremely
| endangered or extinct before the Endangered Species Act was
| passed in 1973, meaning that possibly no amount of conservation
| would have been able to save them_
|
| Most of these wouldn't have been around in any sustainable
| number well before most of us were born. The real question is
| whether or not conservation efforts are working on species IDed
| in the 48 years since. I suspect not, given climate change is
| bigger than any single species.
| beerandt wrote:
| The Ivory Billed Woodpecker hasn't had a confirmed sighting
| since 1944.
|
| Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of
| that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his
| property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least
| until now.
|
| ETA: If I'm remembering the stories right, either the last or
| one of the very last IBW sightings was doubted by officials,
| because the guy was a farmer or something and "not a scientist
| or expert".
|
| Not getting them to pay him any attention, he went home, shot
| the breeding pair, and returned to the officials office with
| proof.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| Not the same species at all, but you just reminded me of the
| family of three Pileated Woodpeckers that I saw with my
| parents this summer in rural NY. They are really amazing
| looking (and bigger than I thought) birds. Hopefully more
| people will recognize the importance of saving our natural
| habitats and preserving species like these:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_woodpecker
|
| btw, I'm not saying this particular bread is at risk, it is
| not, but for how long before they are in a similar situation?
| beerandt wrote:
| It's funny, because the number of people who regularly
| claim to have seen an IBW is really high. And 9 out of 10
| times you can show them a picture of a pileated, and they
| instantly realize their mistake.
|
| Idk why people who can't ID fairly common birds get so
| certain in thinking they've ID'd a really really uncommon
| one, but they do.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner
| of that 1944 sighting probably couldn 't turn over a rock on
| his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at
| least until now._
|
| The endangered species act wasn't enacted until 1973, so I
| think that landowner had plenty of opportunity to do what he
| wanted with his property.
| beerandt wrote:
| That's not really a fair comparison/ justification.
|
| I don't know how much "warning" was given for the
| endangered species act, or if that even matters, since land
| that's about to be worthless is already worthless.
|
| Also, I have no idea what actually happened in this case.
| But to speculate/generalize:
|
| IBW were already (obviously) extremely rare in 1944, so
| there would have been an intense amount of pressure
| preventing him from "doing" anything with the land, and in
| a rural, wooded area, there probably weren't many options
| at the time besides farming it, anyway.
|
| If the guy would have known in 1944 that the endangered
| species act would be passed in 1973, you'd maybe have a
| point. But he wouldn't have known.
|
| If the government suddenly told you tomorrow you couldn't
| sell your house, then claiming it's fair because you could
| have sold it all the way up to yesterday doesn't do you any
| good if you had no advanced knowledge of it. And if it were
| public knowledge, who would want to buy it anyway?
| beerandt wrote:
| There's also the perverse incentives of developers and
| farmers not wanting endangered species to be "discovered" on
| their property because of the restrictions that will incur.
|
| But what gets _really_ interesting is re-introduction of
| endangered species, like with sandhill cranes being re-
| introduced to Louisiana (transplants from other surviving
| populations).
|
| Is government introduction of an endangered species on/near
| private land, in a way that will certainly incur restrictions
| on that land (to protect said species), considered a "taking"
| under the constitution, or should it be?
|
| More practically, as was the case with the sandhill crane,
| the government had to make concessions to land owners to get
| them on board and make the project politically viable.
|
| Now they're protected, but it's a "special/experimental
| program" where farmers and other land owners aren't
| restricted in the ways they would be if they were still
| naturally occurring in that location.
|
| (Of course it's still illegal to shoot them, but every few
| years someone manages to misidentify a 6 foot tall bird as a
| goose or something else legal to hunt.)
| inter_netuser wrote:
| How come they don't investigate WHAT is actually causing this
| exactly?
|
| Yes climate is changing but did it change that much since 80s?
|
| What if it's some pesticide? or some food packaging or
| something
| pvaldes wrote:
| How many times have you heard the past government talking
| about the problem with Californian porpoise?
| openasocket wrote:
| In the case of the ivory-billed woodpecker it was probably
| extinct in the 80s too. There hasn't been a universally
| accepted sighting of one since 1944, the few sightings made
| since then aren't really conclusive.
|
| For most of these creatures they only existed in one
| particularly small region or area. The San Marcos gambusia,
| for instance, historically only lived in a single 1km stretch
| of the San Marcos River. Species with that tiny of an area
| can be driven extinct by a single bad weather event or
| epidemic. Or because some real estate developer decides they
| want to build a couple apartments. It doesn't even
| necessarily have to be something big. It's unfortunate, but
| sadly something like the San Marcos gambusia would probably
| have gone extinct within a few centuries, human activity or
| not, unless it was able to adapt to expand its range.
|
| While climate change is definitely something to be concerned
| about, it is not, currently, the main driver of extinction
| events like this. The far bigger cause is more direct human
| activity, like poaching and land development.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This fish lives in a single rock hole in Nevada. Fewer than
| 200 individuals alive.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Hole_pupfish
| beerandt wrote:
| Hawaii had iirc 14 species of birds on the list that were
| all native to either one island or a portion of one, with
| some preferring certain altitudes or only living on certain
| plateaus, etc.
|
| The funny thing about Hawaii though, is that there are only
| two or three (extremely isolated) places that remain with
| any true Hawaiian plant habitat, because Polynesians
| brought their own plants with them that almost universally
| outcompeted the native plants.
|
| Birds on islands are some of the quickest animals to
| specialize and differentiate into new species.
|
| Which makes Hawaii incredibly interesting, from an island
| biogeography perspective.
|
| Something as simple as the fact that no mosquitos made it
| to Hawaii until Captain Cook accidently introduced them,
| means no native fish, frogs, birds, lizards, or anything
| that specialized in eating them.
|
| Now extrapolate that to wiping out all the native flora and
| replacing it.
|
| That so much biodiversity remains in Hawaii today ought to
| actually give us some comfort in nature's ability to
| quickly adapt to significant change.
| bpicolo wrote:
| The introduction of the mongoose to hawaii was a big
| problem for bird biodiversity
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Over 20 species, so causes are as varied as the species.
|
| In several cases, it was a combination of human activity and
| (relatively) fragile initial population conditions. 11 of the
| species are native to Hawaii and Guam, and when human
| expansion puts pressure on your ecosystem, there's nowhere to
| move to. One of the fish species lived in one particularly
| slow-flowing section of one river.
|
| When your whole universe is one island, there's a lot of
| things humans can do that would render 100% of your habitat
| unusable.
| daveslash wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. To add onto your sentiment that it was a
| combination [of things]... I'd like to add that it's a bit
| reductionist for people to suggest an extinction is one
| thing (e.g. it was pesticides, it was climate change,
| etc...). Sure, sometimes it might be ONE thing, but I would
| guess that in most cases it's a combination of stresses
| coming together.
| justin66 wrote:
| > How come they don't investigate WHAT is actually causing
| this exactly?
|
| Who exactly do you believe should be studying causes of
| species extinction but is not doing it?
| 09bjb wrote:
| Us!
| lawrencevillain wrote:
| From the article it sounds like invasive species, plus the
| fact that we have royally screwed up the local ecosystem.
|
| For instance -- white-tailed deer are growing exponentially,
| eating all the underbrush and outcompeting other animals, and
| they have no/few natural predators left.
|
| I agree that not much has changed since the 80s, I think it's
| just catching up to us now.
| techrat wrote:
| Ripple effects.
|
| Humans have ruined a lot of ecosystems that had a natural
| balance. Wolf culling being one of the most obvious
| examples of our cause and effect.
|
| https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-
| do/wildlife/wolf-r...
| jakemauer wrote:
| White-tailed deer have only recently recovered from over-
| hunting and returned to their pre-colonization population
| levels.[1] Do you have a source that frames their growth as
| exponential?
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-
| tailed_deer#Population_a...
| rubylark wrote:
| Deer population growth during that recovery period (of
| white tail deer at least) seems pretty exponential. [1]
| However in the absence of natural predators it seems that
| disease and human culling have pretty effectively kept
| their population to stay at about pre-colonial levels
| rather than continuing upward to the point of over
| population.
|
| [1] http://www.deerfriendly.com/decline-of-deer-
| populations
| lawrencevillain wrote:
| Apologies, I'm based in Pennsylvania and it's definitely
| more noticeable here. I expect it will become more
| apparent elsewhere too.
|
| We're at 3x the total population that existed when
| europeans started settling here, and without an
| appropriate way to cull the herd I don't see that
| changing. We have milder winters (so no starvation), less
| interest in hunting, and again a lack of natural
| predators.
|
| https://extension.psu.edu/white-tailed-deer
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| plus the parasites that they spread are decimating moose
| populations yearly
| titzer wrote:
| > white-tailed deer are growing exponentially
|
| Yes, and worse, some (uninformed people) see the growth of
| _any_ species as a positive sign that nature is bouncing
| back, or whatever. When in reality, ecosystems are hugely
| out of balance and the vast growth of one species is just a
| spasm as the system shakes itself apart. The knock-on
| effect of one species 's sudden growth spurt may take
| decades to play out in the shadows, but it is almost
| assuredly _not_ a good thing.
| hanniabu wrote:
| > What if it's some pesticide? or some food packaging or
| something
|
| What if it was? I don't expect things to change much with
| corporate's death grip on the government.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > I don't expect things to change much with corporate's
| death grip on the government.
|
| Statements like this always imply that if the government
| ran the businesses (socialism) things like this wouldn't
| happen. But the evidence is it is _worse_. The USSR had
| major problems with their heavily polluting industries,
| which persist today.
| dmkolobov wrote:
| Comments like that suggest no such thing.
|
| There is plenty of middle ground, including restrictions
| on corporate election donations, and generally limiting
| corporate lobbyists access to our legislators.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Again, you're saying government control won't have these
| problems.
|
| Socialist governments produced tremendous environmental
| problems because even though the government consisted
| solely of altruistic, self-sacrificing, dedicated,
| incorruptible administrators, the people still needed
| food, clothing, and washing machines. And the government
| would try to provide them, rather than face mass
| starvation.
| dmkolobov wrote:
| And speaking from a Russian perspective, your assertion
| that anyone in the USSR viewed their officials as self-
| sacrificing and altruistic is quite frankly hilarious.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I have friends who grew up in the Soviet bloc. I once
| witnessed a hilarious conversation between one of them
| and another friend who was a committed socialist (I don't
| de-friend people because of their politics). My socialist
| friend would say "X under socialism would be better". The
| other would say "I lived under socialism, and here's how
| and why X was worse." Socialist would say "but that won't
| happen under socialism". The other would say "you have
| zero experience with this, I lived under it. You have no
| idea what you are talking about."
|
| The back and forth like this would go on for a while.
| mcguire wrote:
| Clearly, there's nothing to be done.
|
| Thoughts and prayers, ivory-billed woodpecker, thoughts
| and prayers.
| bumby wrote:
| I don't understand why this is portrayed as some sort of
| false dichotomy.
|
| There can be government regulation without reverting to
| socialism. There can also be systems of checks and
| balances to both the ills of unfettered free-market
| economics and government power structures.
| dmkolobov wrote:
| No, I am not.
|
| I am saying corporate interests are not aligned with
| those of the people at large, they are aligned
| exclusively with those of their shareholders. I do not
| want my country's laws to reflect a small group's desires
| to make money.
| WalterBright wrote:
| This completely overlooks the desires of the people that
| want the products the company provides at a reasonable
| price. This is not going away, regardless of how you
| structure things. People like to eat food and use washing
| machines.
|
| The notion that profit is the root of the problem is
| implying that removing the profit will resolve it.
| History shows that this never works.
|
| Socialism produces more environmental degradation,
| because it cannot produce things as efficiently as free
| market businesses can. So, to make up the gap, they pay
| little attention to the environment.
| dmkolobov wrote:
| I don't know why you keep bringing up socialism. My point
| is that corporate lobbying and donations should be
| restricted, not that free market businesses shouldn't
| exist.
|
| There is a broad, non-linear spectrum between socialism
| and unrestricted corporate influence on government.
| mcguire wrote:
| Because Walter doesn't see any difference between
| Stalin's Soviet Union and election regulations.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You're never going to get money out of politics. Even in
| the Soviet Union. Do you really think the Soviet Union
| did not have endemic corruption in government?
|
| Here in Seattle, the Council created "democracy vouchers"
| paid by the taxpayer to give to the candidate of their
| choice. What it really is is the incumbents using
| taxpayer money to fund their campaigns. If you're not an
| incumbent, good luck getting any of those vouchers.
| dTal wrote:
| >Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have
| endemic corruption in government?
|
| Literally no one thinks that or implied it in this
| conversation. What a non sequitur. I don't think you're
| even properly reading the comments you reply to.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > unrestricted corporate influence on government
|
| Your notion that absent corporate lobbying, government
| control would work out in the best interests of everybody
| is utterly without foundation.
|
| Your complaint about the profit motive being the root of
| evil also implies that without profit, things would be
| better. Without profit has been repeatedly tried. It
| _never_ produces better results.
|
| My father grew up a socialist. Then he joined the
| military, and spent years living on military bases. There
| is zero profit motive on a military base. But there was
| no end of ridiculous problems, enormous waste, glacial
| bureaucracy, etc. This thoroughly disabused him of his
| socialist notions.
|
| For one small example, on a new base, furniture for the
| base housing had to be supplied. The base commander
| delegated the selection of furniture to his wife (men
| rarely care about these things). She picked all the
| furniture, confident in how great her taste was and what
| a big favor she was doing to the ignorant masses on base.
|
| The servicemens' wives all hated that furniture. My dad
| would always have a huge laugh at how much they loathed
| it.
|
| P.S. When my parents got married, my mom hated all of his
| furniture. He had to buy all new stuff to her
| specifications.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Please try responding to what people are actually saying
| rather than inventing endless strawman arguments.
|
| There are important functional distinctions between a
| government run enterprise, a government regulated
| enterprise and a completely unregulated enterprise.
|
| There are different types of inefficiencies in
| heirarchical systems and market systems. Markets tend to
| duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games.
| Heirarchical systems have trouble routing around
| incompetence and corruption.
|
| If you pay attention you'll notice that the systems that
| work best are hybrids that layer market and heirarchical
| systems.
|
| While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system,
| it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily
| with the market systems which we call the military-
| industrial complex.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system,
| it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily
| with the market systems which we call the military-
| industrial complex.
|
| That has nothing to do with how things are run on a
| military base.
|
| Besides, if you've got any evidence that the military
| worked better in a non-market system, like the USSR,
| please present.
|
| > Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary
| zero-sum games.
|
| Another word for that is "competition". Competition makes
| them efficient. Eliminating competition leads to gross
| inefficiency and incompetence, making things far worse
| than the duplication ever did.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Eliminating competition leads to gross inefficiency and
| incompetence.
|
| It can, especially if poorly managed. However, there is a
| reason why most companies are heirarchical systems.
|
| If markets were truely the "one true way to do things"
| you would see markets all the way down. That simply is
| not the case. In fact, instead we see that "vertical
| integration" can be extremely successful and can multiple
| companies linked purely by markets.
|
| Similarly, you don't see very many successful truely free
| markets. It turns out that you need the rule of law and a
| regulating authority to minimize unproductive competition
| that would otherwise swamp the benefits of the productive
| competitive.
|
| We don't want companies competing for sales by blowing up
| each other's stores. We want companies to compete for
| sales by making better products.
|
| Deciding when and how to mix markets with heirarchical
| and other systems is extremely complicated and hard. But
| it is simple minded to pretend that pure markets are
| always the best solution when reality so clearly shows
| the benefits of hybrid systems.
| wittycardio wrote:
| I love reading the ramblings of the developmentally
| challenged at the end of a workday
| bumby wrote:
| > _There is zero profit motive on a military base._
|
| And yet, the military is one of last institutions that
| the American public still has faith in. It's almost as if
| people realize there can be many motives, beyond profit,
| that drive people to act in a certain way.
|
| I'm fairly blown away on a regular basis by how otherwise
| smart people revert to utterly simplistic models of the
| world.
| _jal wrote:
| The "Ranting about Socialism" session is down the hall.
| This one is about extinction.
| dTal wrote:
| Bro, the government forbidding companies from using a
| certain pesticide because it's driving the ivory-billed
| woodpecker extinct isn't "socialism", man. Or if it is,
| then the very premise of governance is socialist. You're
| so desperate to attack your personal bugbear that you're
| thrusting it into a totally unrelated conversation by
| quite extravagantly strawmanning someone.
| bparsons wrote:
| It is usually just plain old development destroying their
| habitats. Suburbs, highways, logging etc. destroy their home
| and the species dies out.
| SamBam wrote:
| Far more extinction is caused (so far) by land development,
| logging, and things like that.
|
| Though probably in the next couple of decades we'll be seeing
| waves of extinctions caused by global warming.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| It's absolutely changed that much in since the 80s. For
| humans? Not that much. For tiny animals and bugs? Small
| change is massive change.
| laurent92 wrote:
| I'm appalled by the housing codes (PLU in French). They do
| require to estimate and compensate the fauna and flora, by
| providing other shelters in another forrest for example, or
| manually moving individuals (butterflies, birds).
|
| But it will never be the same! Maybe that land was in the
| middle of a communication axis, maybe it had the right fungus.
| If you move all the species around, it's like when you move all
| the humans around: They become unrooted, and, ultimately,
| stress on their lives shows up as obesity or as socially
| disordered!
|
| We need to stop colonizing more land. We need to limit
| population in a country.
| Retric wrote:
| It's less about structures than it is other modifications to
| natural habitats like pollution, cutting forests, draining
| swamps, introducing invasive species, and growing crops.
| 5faulker wrote:
| With the current development in climate change and resource
| exploitation, one can expect this to be the tip of the iceberg.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| There are far less bugs than there were 50+ years ago. Without
| bugs birds and other small animals have to struggle more to eat.
| Work that all the way up the food chain. Its very sad and it will
| only get worse.
| mdni007 wrote:
| I have a flat pigtoe in my aquarium. What should I do?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Do you genuinely have one?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| How did you acquire it? Have you had it for a long time and are
| you certain it is really a flat pigtoe? Don't let any doubt
| stop you from reaching out, though. It would be a shame
| otherwise.
| fogihujy wrote:
| Call the authorities
| arcticfox wrote:
| Is that a theoretical question or a real one? Because if it's a
| real question, that would be really spectacular
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Here's the contact page, select your state and call your local
| office: https://www.fws.gov/offices/
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| In theory, species should be going extinct all the time as the
| climate changes, from ecological changes, invasive species, new
| species forming, etc. The real question, is the rate of species
| going extinct increasing? (I believe the answer to that is yes).
| But the mere headline "species goes extinct" should make us react
| "yeah, that's how evolution works".
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| We are currently experiencing sixth Mass Extinction event. It
| started at least 20k years ago, and is generally linked to the
| end of glaciacion of the northern hemisphere and human
| activity.
|
| It is not exactly known if this rate is fast or slow, because
| from our perspective we can't really estimate the length of
| previous mass extinction events. After all, the closest one was
| 66M years ago, and with fossil evidence gradual decrease of
| biodiversity over the course of 1M years wouldn't look much
| different if said decrease would take just 1 year.
| zacharycohn wrote:
| If you ever want to bawl your eyes out, listen to the second half
| of Episode 20 of the podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed: "QWERTY
| Keyboard and the Kaua`i `o`o Bird."
|
| Absolutely destroyed me, and I tear up everytime I just _think_
| about this episode.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| It's interesting something so similar looking to the Pileated
| Woodpecker went extinct so easily.
|
| Annihilated by preference
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Also of note, we're still discovering MANY new species:
| https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/22202733/2020-new-spe...
|
| I'm not in any way saying that we should not be concerned about
| species going extinct. I remember Dr. Malcolm's line about
| extinction from Jurassic Park.
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