![]() Archeological finds also suggest that it was important to ancient maritime peoples. The Greak Auk-which I’ve seen referred to as “the original penguin”-was scattered all over the northern Atlantic, and was exploited for its eggs, feathers, oil, and fat. There is a revival project going on in South Africa, which you can read more about here: What’s come to light is that they were not a separate species of zebra, but a subspecies of the zebra we all know and love. Like many other animals of the plains, they were ruthlessly hunted-they were regarded as competitors for the same food as sheep and goats. In another case of “we didn’t realize what we were doing,” the Quagga, which was indigenous to South Africa, died out in the late 1800s. For a long time it was thought that global warming killed these stunning animals, but now they think it might’ve been a fungus: This animal was unique in that males were a dazzling orange, but the females came in many different colors, among them yellow and green. The Golden Toad lived in Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest and was declared officially extinct in 2004. Another theory floating around out there attributes the final blow for this species to the stress on the sea otter population which caused a rise in sea urchins which caused a depletion of kelp-the Steller’s main foodstuff. Related to today’s manatees and dugongs, Steller’s Sea Cow, indigenous to the northern Pacific, were hunted to extinction in the 1700s by Russian and European fur traders. Although the last verified individual was seen in the early 1900s, there’s photographic, video and audio evidence to suggest the creature may still be alive and well…sounds a little far-fetched to me, but judge for yourself: The Pig-footed Bandicoot, an adorable little Australian marsupial, is believed to have not survived the introduction of European cattle, as that would’ve cause a major change to the environment and the availability of food. Read more in a Forbes Magazine Quora reprint, “What Happened to the Last Dodo Bird?” here. Although it’s widely held that sailors arriving on the island of Mauritius, near Madagascar, hunted them and ate their eggs, another theory suggests that it was the cats, rats, pigs and other animals the sailors brought with them went feral. Probably the poster child for extinction, the Dodo Bird has something in common with the Falkland Island Wolf-it had no fear of humans, because it had never had to fear anything before. Not very exciting, but there is one ornithologist who made it his mission to visit every single specimen (there are 55) left in existence, which he details in his book The Curse of the Labrador Duck. Apparently once prevalent on Long Island Sound, we do know, thanks to a journal called Arctic Zoology in 1785, that a specimen was sent from Connecticut to England (see where I got this from here: ). The story of the last authenticated Labrador Duck’s demise is rather sad, but literally, almost nothing is known about this bird-its breeding was done in such remote areas (it’s suspected way up in Greenland) that it died out almost before we noticed. Initially, scientists had proposed many theories for the creature’s extinction on Tasmania, although there is new evidence to suggest that it was a changing climate that was the culprit. Australians haven’t given up on the hope that this thylacine is still alive, however-to this day, reports of sightings are frequent, and even a recent episode of Expedition Unknown had Josh Gates out hunting for it. The Tasmanian Tiger was killed off on the Australian mainland by widespread hunting, but survived on Tasmania until the last one died in a zoo in the 1930s. For more information, check out Audubon’s “Why the Passenger Pigeon Went Extinct” here: The last known Passenger Pigeon’s name was the Cincinnati Zoo’s Martha, and she died in September of 1914. Once the railroads came into being, there was no stopping hunters and trappers from sporting these animals right out of existence. They were basically hunted out of extinction, both for their meat by starving frontiersman, and because they were a nuisance: they competed with farm animals for foodstuffs, among other things. ![]() Passenger Pigeons were abundant in the 19 th century, and tales of their titanic flocks-they took over entire forests, appeared thick as waterfalls, and left entire towns blanketed in feces-are just plain hard to believe. ![]() For a thorough history (that looks to be well-researched-loads of legitimate sources, here), visit The last one was killed in West Falkland in 1876. ![]() They were hunted for meat and fur, and were considered threatening to sheep. Officially discovered in the late 1600s, the Falkland Islands Wolf’s tame nature spelled its doom-it hadn’t learned to fear humans, so settlers could easily trick it into coming close enough to kill it.
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