In April 1981, a group of four people camped for two days and nights on the forested slopes of Mount Everman, the central peak of Socorro, a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean about 400 kilometers southwest of Baja California, Mexico. was. Their fruitless search confirmed their suspicions. Socorro pigeons, the endemic and domesticated birds of the island, have disappeared, eaten by Spanish settler cats and pushed out by grazing sheep. and shot from the air by hunters.
But the seeds weren’t gone. In his 1925, 56 years before this search, 17 Socorro pigeons had been collected from the island and taken to a bird keeper in California, USA. Nearly 100 years later, the descendants of these birds (the last Socorro pigeons on earth) are still with us, dispersed among captive facilities in Europe and North America.
Although it has disappeared from the wild, it is not completely extinct. And it’s not unique to the Socorro pigeon. In our survey, at least 33 animals and 39 plants had no wild populations and were free of human care in places such as zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens and seed banks. Confirmed to have survived below.
These species are classified as ‘extinct in the wild’ under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. A diverse set that includes the manicillo, a relative of the peanut found only in Bolivia. First identified from a single specimen on the campus of the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Many snails from the remote Society Islands in the Pacific.
In some ways this is something worth celebrating. It’s the group that failed to go extinct. But what does the future look like for these species? Human care will not preserve them indefinitely. On the contrary, the more time they spend in captivity, the greater the risk of becoming inbred or losing the genetic diversity that helps them resist disease and other threats. If numbers are low, complete extinction is imminent.
life in captivity
A feature of the Red List is the systematic counting and monitoring of changes in the status of seeds, plants, or animals in captivity in the same way conservationists do for endangered species in the wild. Thousands of extinct species in the wild are indistinguishable from those represented by a handful of individuals. We have somehow managed to ignore the extinction risk of the group of species for which we are most responsible.
A review of this group revealed reason for concern. For the most part, these populations appear to have been founded by a few individuals, and ideally large populations of several thousand would be needed for the best guarantees against future genetic degradation and extinction. Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, most species are held in small numbers (hundreds or fewer) and in a small number of institutions (less than eight in most cases).
There also tends to be a lack of coordinated planning across institutions and regions where the same species are held. This is especially true for plants where it is not always known how many collections exist and where they are located. Fortunately, the botanic gardens have recently made efforts to share data and collaborate more closely. Seed banks are also important facilities where endangered plants can be stored as seeds for decades or even hundreds of years. However, most plant species that have become extinct in the wild cannot be easily found in online databases that allow conservationists in different regions to work collaboratively on recovery programs.
Conservationists, and society at large, must do better. We know complete extinction is a real threat. Of the 95 species that have become extinct in the wild or have had limited human care since 1950, 11 are lost forever. For example, Christmas Island’s Whiptail Skink and St. Helena’s Olive, a tree endemic to the island of the same name. in the South Atlantic.
back to the wild
Do you have any hope? It may surprise you, yes. The 11 flips we lost are the 12 that have been released back into the wild. The European bison disappeared from the wild in 1927, but thanks to reintroduction efforts using European zoo animals that began in the 1950s, it now thrives in its native range in Eastern Europe and Russia. increase.
Encouragingly, more should follow. Two-thirds of animals extinct in the wild and just under a quarter of plants extinct in the wild have already been returned to their natural habitats. These nascent populations may not have reached true ‘wild’ status yet, e.g. producing viable young, but this is a promising start. indicates that it does not have to be a dead end. It can be a platform for long-term recovery.
But if this is the goal of all wild-extinct and other endangered species, changes are needed in the way they are recognized and resourced. We need to continue to protect and care for these species in captivity. But overall, we must also commit to putting more individuals in more facilities to revitalize the vulnerable populations under our control.
If reintroduction to the wild is a challenge, efforts to find and mitigate threats in their native habitat should be redoubled, or the feasibility of establishing populations in new areas should be explored. Continued care for these wild populations will be required.
Extinction is imminent, but recovery is achievable. Conservation biologists have the tools to succeed, but to do so requires the support and attention of decision makers, funders and the wider public.
Donal Smith is a Conservation Researcher at the Zoological Society of London and Sarah Elizabeth Dalrymple is Senior Lecturer in Conservation Ecology at Liverpool John Moores University.
This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Please read the original article.
