US says ivory-billed woodpecker, 22 other species extinct

[Nevilledog]

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The Associated Press
@AP
After years of fruitless searches, U.S. wildlife officials say the celebrated ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 other species have gone extinct.

US says ivory-billed woodpecker, 22 other species extinct
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Death’s come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species: The U.S. government is declaring them extinct. It’s a rare...
apnews.com
9:15 PM · Sep 28, 2021

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-science-animals-wildlife-fish-b6e61676548a1d7b2f81a6512cbed7a7

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Death’s come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species: The U.S. government is declaring them extinct.

It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they’ve exhausted efforts to find these 23. And they warn climate change, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common as a warming planet adds to the dangers facing imperiled plants and wildlife.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was perhaps the best known species the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday will announce is extinct. It went out stubbornly and with fanfare, making unconfirmed appearances in recent decades that ignited a frenzy of ultimately fruitless searches in the swamps of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

Others such as the flat pigtoe, a freshwater mussel in the southeastern U.S., were identified in the wild only a few times and never seen again, meaning by the time they got a name they were fading from existence.

*snip*


😢

[StarryNite]

1. :(

[North Shore Chicago]

2. So horrible!

So many of our animal friends suffering the consequences of human avarice and apathy.


Waiting for the species (sub-human) Smelly-soul sucker to vanish.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Our pileated woodpeckers look like that.

The pileated woodpeckers are all over the place around here. They come by once a week to feast on the trees along the back border of the property where the old, large trees grow.

[GoCubsGo]

4. Well, we've kind of known that for decades.

At least as far as the ivory-billed woodpecker goes. I don't know about the others, other than the flat pigtoe mussel. There are a bunch of freshwater mussels that have been in trouble for a long time. Their problems started over a century ago, when people decided that their shells make good buttons. Pollution and damming of their rivers and creeks hasn't helped, either.

[Raine]

5. This is very sad 😔 nt

[Delphinus]

6. A majority of humans will

not start to care about any species going extinct until it hits them personally.

If I recall correctly, Jared Diamond's book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, talked about one civilization that used its last tree, knowing what that meant. We are a failed species.