World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/caribbean-monk-seal): Caribbean monk seal — extinct animal profile.

## The two monk seals left
The Hawaiian monk seal and the Mediterranean monk seal are the Caribbean species' closest relatives, and their trajectories show what determines the outcome. The Hawaiian monk seal numbers around 1,600 and is listed as Endangered, facing entanglement in marine debris, food limitation for juveniles in the northwestern islands, and shark predation on pups. Intensive intervention — pup relocation, disentanglement, vaccination against morbillivirus, and a dedicated NOAA recovery programme — has stabilised and slightly increased the population. The Mediterranean monk seal is the clearer success: reduced to a few hundred animals and long considered among the most endangered mammals on Earth, it has recovered to roughly 700 through cave-site protection, fishing restrictions and coordinated work across Greece, Turkey and Madeira, and was downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2015. Neither is safe. Both are alive because someone funded a programme.

## What this extinction teaches
Animals that gather predictably in one place — haul-out beaches, breeding colonies, spawning aggregations — are the easiest to eliminate and the easiest to protect. The same trait cuts both ways, which is why protecting a small number of specific sites is often the highest-return intervention available.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Grey seal (Least Concern — but locally vulnerable at pupping sites) faces the pressure that ended the caribbean monk seal. The same vulnerability, on beaches people can walk onto. Grey seals haul out and pup at a small number of predictable sites, and disturbance there separates pups from mothers and causes abandonment. Protecting a handful of specific locations is what stands between a recovered population and a declining one — exactly the intervention the Caribbean monk seal never received.

## Did you know
Columbus's crew called them "sea wolves" and recorded killing eight for meat in 1494 — the first documented European killing of a New World mammal, and the opening entry in a four-century record that ends in extinction.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/caribbean-monk-seal): Caribbean monk seal — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Caribbean monk seal go extinct?
The last confirmed sighting was in 1952 at Serranilla Bank between Jamaica and Honduras. NOAA formally declared the species extinct in 2008 after extensive surveys found no evidence of survival.

## What killed the Caribbean monk seal?
Four centuries of hunting for oil, starting with Columbus's second voyage in 1494, combined with killing by fishermen and overfishing of the reef systems the seals fed on.

## Are there any monk seals left?
Two species survive. The Hawaiian monk seal numbers around 1,600 and is Endangered. The Mediterranean monk seal has recovered to roughly 700 and was downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2015.

## Why were monk seals so easy to hunt?
They were unafraid of humans, slow and awkward on land, and hauled out at the same predictable beaches and cays. A sealing crew arriving at a known site could take an entire local population in a single visit.

## Could the Caribbean monk seal still survive?
No. Reports of sightings usually turn out to be hooded seals, which occasionally stray south into Caribbean waters. Dedicated surveys across the historical range have found nothing since 1952.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/moa): Moa — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
Moa were nine species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand, the largest standing 3.6 m tall, driven to extinction around 1445 — approximately 150 years after Polynesian settlers arrived, making it one of the fastest megafaunal extinctions ever documented.

## Introduction
Moa were New Zealand's answer to a continent with no mammals: nine species of flightless birds occupying the roles that deer, cattle and antelope fill elsewhere, ranging from turkey-sized to the giant moa, which reached 3.6 metres with its neck extended and weighed around 230 kg. They had no wings at all — not reduced wings, no wing bones whatsoever, unique among birds. They evolved alongside one predator, the enormous Haast's eagle. Polynesian settlers arrived around 1280 CE. Within roughly 150 years every moa species was gone, and the eagle that depended on them followed.

## When and where it went extinct
Moa (Dinornithiformes — nine species including Dinornis robustus) went extinct: c. 1445 — roughly 150 years after human arrival. Range: New Zealand.

## Causes of extinction
Moa extinction causes: Hunting by the first Polynesian settlers; Egg predation by introduced Pacific rats; Forest clearance by burning.

## Takeaway
Nine moa species existed, from turkey-sized bush moa to the giant moa at 3.6 m tall and around 230 kg.

## Takeaway
Moa are the only birds known to have had no wing bones at all — total wing loss, beyond even the kiwi or ostrich.

## Takeaway
Females of the largest species were up to 150% taller and 280% heavier than males, one of the most extreme size differences known in birds.

## Takeaway
Extinction took roughly 150 years from human arrival — among the fastest megafaunal extinctions on record.

## Takeaway
Haast's eagle, the largest eagle ever known at up to 15 kg, preyed on moa and went extinct with them.

## Takeaway
New Zealand's remaining flightless birds — kiwi, kākāpō, takahē — face the same threat that finished the moa, in the form of introduced stoats, rats and possums.

## How were nine species eliminated in 150 years?
Moa had every characteristic that makes a species vulnerable to a new predator, and they met an efficient one. They were large, providing enormous quantities of meat for relatively little effort. They were flightless and could not escape. They had no experience of ground-based predators, since Haast's eagle attacked from above and generated no useful defensive behaviour against hunters on foot. And they reproduced very slowly, laying small clutches with long incubation and taking years to reach breeding age. Archaeological middens from early Polynesian settlement contain moa bone in enormous quantity, along with vast numbers of eggshell fragments. Pacific rats arrived with the settlers and ate eggs and chicks. Forest was burned to clear land and drive game, destroying habitat across large areas of both islands. Modelling by Richard Holdaway and Chris Jacomb concluded that a founding human population of around 400 people could have eliminated all nine species within 150 years through hunting and egg predation alone.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/moa): Moa — extinct animal profile.

## The eagle that fell with them
Haast's eagle (Hieraaetus moorei) was the largest eagle that has ever lived, with females reaching around 15 kg and a wingspan of up to 3 metres, and it evolved specifically to kill moa. It struck from above at speeds estimated near 80 km/h, using talons the size of a tiger's claws to grip the pelvis and skull of prey many times its own weight. Māori oral tradition preserves accounts of a giant bird called the pouākai that could carry off people, and the eagle was certainly capable of killing a human. When the moa disappeared, Haast's eagle had no prey base — no other animal in New Zealand approached the size it was built to hunt — and it went extinct within the same window. It is one of the clearest documented cases of coextinction: remove a prey species and its specialist predator follows, whether or not anyone touches the predator.

## What this extinction teaches
A small human population with simple technology eliminated nine species in 150 years, and took a specialist predator with them. Extinction cascades through food webs — which is why protecting a keystone prey species protects a set of predators nobody is counting.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Kākāpō (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the moa. New Zealand's surviving flightless giant — the world's heaviest parrot, flightless, slow-breeding, ground-nesting, and defenceless against the introduced stoats and rats that replaced human hunters. It survives only because every single bird is individually monitored on predator-free islands.

## Did you know
Moa gizzard stones — smooth quartz pebbles the birds swallowed to grind food — are still found in New Zealand today, sometimes several kilograms of them in a single spot marking where a bird died 600 years ago.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/moa): Moa — extinct animal profile.

## When did moa go extinct?
Around 1445 CE, roughly 150 years after Polynesian settlers reached New Zealand around 1280 CE. It is one of the fastest documented megafaunal extinctions anywhere.

## How big were moa?
The nine species ranged from turkey-sized to the giant moa, which stood about 3.6 m tall with its neck extended and weighed around 230 kg. Females were dramatically larger than males.

## What killed the moa?
Hunting by the first human settlers, egg predation by introduced Pacific rats, and forest clearance by burning. Moa reproduced very slowly and had no defensive behaviour against ground predators.

## What is the moa's closest living relative?
Genetic analysis places the tinamous of South America — small flying birds — as the moa's closest living relatives, which was a considerable surprise. The kiwi, also from New Zealand, is more distantly related.

## Did moa really have no wings?
Correct. Moa are the only known birds with no wing bones at all. Other flightless birds such as ostriches and kiwi retain reduced wing structures; moa lost them entirely.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/saber-toothed-cat): Sabre-toothed cat — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The sabre-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis) was a heavily built predator with 18 cm canine teeth that went extinct around 10,000 years ago when the large ice-age herbivores it hunted disappeared — it was not a tiger and was not closely related to any living cat.

## Introduction
Smilodon is the most recognisable extinct predator on Earth and is almost universally described wrongly. It was not a tiger; it belonged to a separate subfamily of cats with no living members, and every big cat alive today is more closely related to your house cat than to Smilodon. It was not a lean sprinter but a heavily muscled ambush predator built like a bear, with forelimbs powerful enough to wrestle down prey before its fragile 18-centimetre canines were used. It disappeared around 10,000 years ago along with almost every large mammal in the Americas, because the animals it ate disappeared first.

## When and where it went extinct
Sabre-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis (Leidy, 1869)) went extinct: c. 10,000 years ago. Range: North and South America.

## Causes of extinction
Sabre-toothed cat extinction causes: Collapse of the large-herbivore prey base at the end of the last ice age; Climate change reshaping American grasslands and woodlands; Human hunting pressure on the same megafauna.

## Takeaway
Smilodon was not a tiger and not closely related to any living cat. It belonged to Machairodontinae, a cat subfamily with no surviving members.

## Takeaway
Its canines reached 18 cm but were laterally flattened and comparatively fragile — built for a precise killing bite to the throat, not for wrestling or bone-crushing.

## Takeaway
Its bite force was roughly a third of a lion's. The killing power came from the neck and forelimb muscles driving the head down, not from the jaw.

## Takeaway
The build was bear-like rather than cat-like: heavily muscled, short-limbed, an ambush predator rather than a pursuit hunter.

## Takeaway
Over 2,000 individual Smilodon have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, making it one of the best-known extinct predators anywhere.

## Takeaway
Many La Brea specimens show healed serious injuries, which some researchers read as evidence of social living — injured individuals surviving long enough for bone to heal suggests they were not hunting alone.

## Why did sabre-toothed cats go extinct?
Smilodon was a hyper-specialised predator of very large, slow herbivores — ground sloths, bison, horses, camels and juvenile mammoths and mastodons. That specialisation was an advantage for hundreds of thousands of years and a fatal liability at the end of the Pleistocene. Between roughly 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, the Americas lost the overwhelming majority of their large mammal species in the Quaternary megafauna extinction, driven by a combination of rapid climate change reshaping vegetation and the arrival of human hunters. Smilodon's entire anatomy — the mass, the forelimbs, the sabres — was built for a specific style of attack on very large prey. It could not switch to hunting small, fast animals; nothing about its build permitted it. When the megafauna went, the specialists that ate them went too, including Smilodon, the American lion and the short-faced bear. Generalists such as the puma and the jaguar survived.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/saber-toothed-cat): Sabre-toothed cat — extinct animal profile.

## How the sabres actually worked
The teeth are the reason Smilodon is famous and the reason its hunting method took so long to work out. The canines were long, but laterally compressed and structurally weak against sideways force — they would snap if used against a struggling animal or into bone. Bite force was around one third that of a lion. The current understanding is the canine shear-bite: Smilodon used exceptionally powerful neck and forelimb musculature to pin and immobilise prey with its body, then drove the sabres into the soft tissue of the throat with a downward motion of the head and neck rather than a jaw-powered bite, severing the trachea and major blood vessels for a fast kill. Everything about the animal supports that reconstruction — the massively built forelimbs, the enlarged neck muscle attachments, the short tail giving no high-speed balance. It was a grappler that used a blade, and the design worked for as long as there were animals large enough to be worth grappling.

## What this extinction teaches
Specialists go extinct when their prey does. Predators built for one food source have no route to another — which is why conservation for tigers, snow leopards and wild dogs has to protect the prey base as much as the predator, and why "save the predator" without prey and habitat is not a plan.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Snow leopard (Vulnerable) faces the pressure that ended the sabre-toothed cat. A specialist high-altitude predator whose survival depends entirely on wild sheep and goats that are themselves being displaced by livestock. Remove the blue sheep and ibex and the snow leopard has nowhere to go — the Smilodon problem, still solvable.

## Did you know
Many La Brea Smilodon skeletons show severe injuries that healed — broken bones, damaged hips, spinal trauma. An ambush predator that cannot hunt for weeks should starve, so the healing has been read by some researchers as evidence Smilodon lived socially and shared kills.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/saber-toothed-cat): Sabre-toothed cat — extinct animal profile.

## When did sabre-toothed cats go extinct?
Smilodon fatalis disappeared around 10,000 years ago, as part of the broader Quaternary megafauna extinction that removed most large mammals from the Americas.

## Was the sabre-toothed cat a tiger?
No. Despite the common name "sabre-toothed tiger", Smilodon was not a tiger and was not closely related to any living cat. It belonged to Machairodontinae, a cat subfamily that has no surviving members.

## How did sabre-toothed cats kill prey?
By pinning prey with exceptionally powerful forelimbs, then driving the canines into the throat using neck muscle rather than jaw force. The teeth were fragile against sideways stress, so the prey had to be immobilised first.

## Why did Smilodon go extinct?
Its prey did. Smilodon was specialised for very large, slow herbivores, and when the American megafauna collapsed at the end of the last ice age it had no alternative food source its anatomy could exploit.

## Where are sabre-toothed cat fossils found?
The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles have produced over 2,000 individuals, by far the richest source. Smilodon fossils are also found across North and South America, with a related species, Smilodon populator, in South America.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/carolina-parakeet): Carolina Parakeet — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Carolina parakeet was the only parrot native to the eastern United States; the last captive bird, Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on 21 February 1918 after habitat loss, shooting and the pet trade erased flocks that once ranged across half the country.

## Introduction
The Carolina parakeet was bright green and yellow, travelled in noisy flocks, and was the only parrot native to the eastern United States. Early settlers described birds so numerous they stripped orchards and roosted in hollow trees by the hundred. By the early twentieth century the flocks were gone. The last captive individual, a male named Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on 21 February 1918 — four years after Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died in the same building. The American Ornithologists' Union declared the species extinct in 1939. A continental parrot disappeared in living memory, and the causes were ordinary: trees cut, birds shot, nests emptied for cages.

## When and where it went extinct
Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis (Linnaeus, 1758)) went extinct: 1918 (last captive, Incas, Cincinnati Zoo); declared extinct 1939. Range: Eastern and southern United States — the only parrot native to that region. Incas, a male, died on 21 February 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo, in the same building where Martha, the last passenger pigeon, had died in 1914.

## Causes of extinction
Carolina Parakeet extinction causes: Clearance of bottomland forest and orchard habitat for agriculture; Shooting as a crop pest and for the millinery trade; Flocking behaviour that made entire groups easy to kill once one bird was hit; Capture for the cage-bird trade while wild numbers were still falling.

## Takeaway
The Carolina parakeet was the only parrot native to the eastern United States.

## Takeaway
Incas, the last captive bird, died on 21 February 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo.

## Takeaway
Habitat clearance and shooting for pest control and feathers were the main pressures; flocking made groups easy to wipe out.

## Takeaway
Eggs and nestlings were also taken for the cage-bird trade while wild flocks were collapsing.

## Takeaway
Bayesian analysis of records suggests the western and eastern subspecies may have disappeared decades apart — extinction was not a single moment.

## Takeaway
Every surviving continental parrot facing habitat loss and trade pressure is living the same arithmetic on a different map.

## How a common parrot disappeared
Nineteenth-century accounts describe Carolina parakeets from the Great Lakes to Florida and west into the Great Plains fringe. They ate seeds, fruit and cockleburs, nested in tree cavities, and stuck together when threatened — a defence that worked against hawks and failed against guns. Farmers shot them as orchard pests; the millinery trade wanted feathers; collectors wanted skins and cage birds. As bottomland forest was cleared, roost trees and nest cavities disappeared with the flocks.

John James Audubon noted the decline as early as the 1830s. By the 1880s the species was largely gone east of the Mississippi outside Florida. The last widely accepted wild specimen was taken in Florida in 1904. Unconfirmed sightings continued for years afterward, which is normal for a vanishing bird: the last individuals are the hardest to prove.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/carolina-parakeet): Carolina Parakeet — extinct animal profile.

## Incas and the Cincinnati Zoo
Incas spent decades in captivity with a mate, Lady Jane, who died in 1917. Keepers reported that the pair laid eggs over many years but failed to raise young. When Incas died on 21 February 1918, during a cold snap in Cincinnati, the species lost its last confirmed living member. He had been housed in the same pagoda building associated with Martha, the last passenger pigeon. Two North American icons of abundance ended in the same institution within four years — a coincidence of logistics that still lands like a verdict.

## What remains uncertain
The major cause is not a single smoking gun. Habitat loss, persecution and trade all operated together, and no modern survey quantified their relative weight while flocks still existed. Recent statistical work treating the eastern and western subspecies separately suggests they may have gone extinct decades apart, which would mean the process was staggered rather than simultaneous. That uncertainty does not soften the outcome. It only means the Carolina parakeet is a poor candidate for tidy morality tales and a good candidate for the harder lesson: a wide-ranging, familiar bird can be erased by ordinary land use before anyone builds a recovery plan.

## What this extinction teaches
A parrot that was once common across a continent can be gone within a human lifetime when habitat, persecution and trade act together. Living Neotropical parrots face the same combination — which is why wild-caught trade and cavity-tree loss remain the pressures that decide whether macaw and amazon flocks persist.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Macaw (Varies by species — several Endangered or Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the carolina parakeet. Large, cavity-nesting Neotropical parrots still hit by habitat clearance and the pet trade — the Carolina parakeet's pressures, still active where forests and enforcement are weakest.

## Did you know
Incas died in the same Cincinnati Zoo building associated with Martha, the last passenger pigeon — two emblems of North American abundance extinguished four years apart under one roof.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/carolina-parakeet): Carolina Parakeet — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Carolina parakeet go extinct?
The last captive bird died on 21 February 1918. The species was declared extinct in 1939. Some analyses suggest wild subspecies may have persisted unevenly into the early twentieth century.

## Was the Carolina parakeet the only US parrot?
It was the only parrot native to the eastern United States. Thick-billed parrots historically reached the far southwest; the Carolina parakeet was the eastern species people meant.

## Why did Carolina parakeets go extinct?
Forest clearance removed roosts and nest cavities; shooting for pest control and feathers killed flocks quickly because the birds gathered around wounded companions; the cage trade removed more birds while numbers were already falling.

## Who was Incas?
Incas was the last known captive Carolina parakeet, a male that died at the Cincinnati Zoo on 21 February 1918 after his mate Lady Jane died the previous year.

## Could the Carolina parakeet be brought back?
No complete living lineage remains. Any "de-extinction" discussion would be genome engineering from museum specimens into a related parrot, not a true restoration — and the orchards and forests that supported the original flocks are gone.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/yangtze-paddlefish): Yangtze Paddlefish — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Yangtze paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) was a giant freshwater fish endemic to China's Yangtze River, last seen alive in 2003 and declared Extinct by the IUCN in July 2022 after dams and overfishing erased a species that had already been functionally extinct since the early 1990s.

## Introduction
The Yangtze paddlefish was one of the largest freshwater fishes ever recorded, with reported lengths approaching 7 m, a elongated snout, and a life history that required long migrations through the Yangtze basin. It was already rare by the late twentieth century. The last confirmed live sighting was in 2003. Researchers later concluded the species had been functionally extinct since the early 1990s — still present as scattered adults, no longer replacing itself. The IUCN formally moved it to Extinct in July 2022. Captive breeding programmes never held a viable insurance population. When the river's migration routes were cut and fishing pressure stayed high, there was no second chance.

## When and where it went extinct
Yangtze Paddlefish (Psephurus gladius (Martens, 1862)) went extinct: Declared Extinct by IUCN July 2022; last live sighting 2003; functional extinction by early 1990s. Range: Yangtze River basin, China — found nowhere else. Last confirmed live individual observed in 2003; intensive later surveys found none.

## Causes of extinction
Yangtze Paddlefish extinction causes: Overfishing across decades of commercial pressure; Dams blocking migration — notably Gezhouba Dam from 1981; Habitat degradation and shipping in the Yangtze mainstem; Late recognition that the population was already functionally extinct.

## Takeaway
The Yangtze paddlefish was declared Extinct by the IUCN in July 2022 after the last live sighting in 2003.

## Takeaway
Researchers estimate functional extinction by the early 1990s — adults persisted after breeding had already failed.

## Takeaway
Gezhouba Dam and later barriers blocked access to upstream spawning habitat.

## Takeaway
Overfishing removed large adults while the population was still thought recoverable.

## Takeaway
No captive population survived to support reintroduction.

## Takeaway
Sturgeons and paddlefish remain the most threatened group of fishes globally; the Yangtze loss is a finished case of a pattern still underway elsewhere.

## A river fish that needed the whole river
Paddlefish and sturgeons are ancient lineages with slow growth and delayed maturity. The Yangtze species migrated between feeding and spawning areas along a river system that has been engineered for flood control, power and shipping. When Gezhouba Dam closed the mainstem in 1981, upstream spawning migrations were severed for fish that could not pass. Downstream stretches alone could not sustain recruitment.

Large, valuable fish are also the first removed by intensive fisheries. By the time formal protection and breeding attempts scaled up, surveys were already failing to find juveniles. A 2019 analysis concluded extinction had occurred between about 2005 and 2010, with functional extinction earlier. The IUCN's 2022 update made the paperwork match the biology.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/yangtze-paddlefish): Yangtze Paddlefish — extinct animal profile.

## Why captive breeding failed to save it
Emergency breeding only works if enough reproductive adults still exist and can be found. For the Yangtze paddlefish, searches after 2003 produced no confirmed animals to bring into captivity. Related Chinese sturgeon programmes show how hard river giants are to culture even with living stock. Declaring a species Extinct after the last sighting is not sudden death; it is the official end of a long interval in which every survey returned empty.

## What the July 2022 listing changed
The IUCN update also reassessed living sturgeons and found every remaining species at risk — confirming sturgeons as the most threatened group of species on the Red List at that review. The paddlefish entry is the terminal case: Extinct, not Extinct in the Wild, because there is no captive fallback. The lesson for living river giants is timing. Migration passages, fishing limits and broodstock banking have to happen while adults still reproduce, not after the last echo on a sonar trace.

## What this extinction teaches
Migratory river fish disappear when dams and nets remove adults faster than slow life histories can replace them. Living sturgeons face the same traps on other rivers — which is why passage, harvest control and early captive insurance decide whether any giant freshwater fish remains.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Sturgeon (Most species Threatened — several Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the yangtze paddlefish. Slow-growing migratory fishes hit by dams, overfishing and caviar markets — the Yangtze paddlefish's pressures, still active wherever sturgeon rivers are fragmented.

## Did you know
The Yangtze paddlefish was already functionally extinct for roughly a decade before the last confirmed sighting — a reminder that "last seen" is often the end of a long silence, not the moment of death.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/yangtze-paddlefish): Yangtze Paddlefish — extinct animal profile.

## When was the Yangtze paddlefish declared extinct?
The IUCN listed Psephurus gladius as Extinct in July 2022. The last confirmed live sighting was in 2003, and researchers estimate the species was gone by about 2005–2010.

## How big did Yangtze paddlefish get?
Historical reports describe lengths up to around 7 m, making it one of the largest freshwater fishes known. Exact maximum size is uncertain because the largest individuals were recorded before modern survey standards.

## What killed the Yangtze paddlefish?
Overfishing and dams that blocked spawning migrations, compounded by habitat degradation on the Yangtze. By the early 1990s the population appears to have stopped replacing itself.

## Is there any Yangtze paddlefish in captivity?
No viable captive population remained. Breeding programmes could not locate reproductive adults after the species had already collapsed.

## Are other paddlefish still alive?
Yes. The American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) survives in North America and is a related but separate lineage. It faces its own pressures from rivers and harvest and is not a substitute for the Yangtze species.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/bali-tiger): Bali Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Bali tiger was a small island population of tiger endemic to Bali, hunted and squeezed into extinction; the last confirmed animal was a female shot on 27 September 1937, and the population was gone by about the 1950s.

## Introduction
The Bali tiger was the smallest of the historical tiger forms and the first island tiger population erased in modern times. Confined to Bali, it never had the demographic buffer of a continental subspecies. Hunting intensified after colonial rule tightened in the early twentieth century, and forest gave way to farms on an island with little room to spare. The last confirmed specimen, an adult female, was shot on 27 September 1937 in west Bali. A game reserve followed in 1941 — too late. By the 1950s the population was gone. Unconfirmed sightings trickled on for years, as they often do after the last skin is taken.

## When and where it went extinct
Bali Tiger (Panthera tigris (Bali population; historically P. t. balica, now often included in P. t. sondaica)) went extinct: Last confirmed specimen 1937; extinct by about the 1950s. Range: Island of Bali, Indonesia — found nowhere else. An adult female shot on 27 September 1937 at Sumbar Kima, west Bali — the last confirmed specimen.

## Causes of extinction
Bali Tiger extinction causes: Trophy and control hunting after Dutch colonial expansion; Conversion of forest to agriculture on a small island; Naturally tiny population constrained by Bali's area; Protection arriving too late — a reserve declared in 1941 after the last confirmed kill.

## Takeaway
The Bali tiger was endemic to one small island and had no escape once hunting and clearance intensified.

## Takeaway
The last confirmed animal was shot on 27 September 1937.

## Takeaway
A reserve created in 1941 came after the documented population had already collapsed.

## Takeaway
Modern taxonomy often treats Bali, Javan and Sumatran tigers as one Sunda subspecies — two of those island populations are already gone.

## Takeaway
Small-island carnivores are lost faster than continental ones because every hectare cleared is a larger share of the range.

## Takeaway
Sumatran tigers remain the last Sunda island tigers — the living end of the same lineage.

## An island population with no margin
Bali is small. A tiger population there was always limited by prey and forest area. When rifles and land conversion arrived together, the arithmetic was simple: each adult killed was a measurable fraction of the whole, and each clearing removed hunting ground that could not be replaced elsewhere on the island. Continental tigers can lose a valley and retain another. Island tigers cannot.

## Hunting until the skins ran out
Photographs and trophy records from the 1910s and 1920s show Bali tigers killed as prizes. The last confirmed animal, a female at Sumbar Kima on 27 September 1937, entered the record as a specimen at the end of that process. Later sightings in the 1940s and 1950s were never backed by a collected animal. When a large predator leaves no verified trace for years on a densely inhabited island, extinction is the working conclusion.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/bali-tiger): Bali Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## Taxonomy after the fact
Older lists treated the Bali tiger as its own subspecies, Panthera tigris balica. A 2017 revision of felid taxonomy grouped Bali and Javan tigers with the living Sumatran tiger under P. t. sondaica. That change does not resurrect Bali's animals. It underlines that the Sunda island tigers were one connected story — and that only Sumatra still holds wild tigers in that chain.

## What this extinction teaches
Island tiger populations vanish when hunting and habitat loss coincide, and paperwork for reserves does not help if it arrives after the last confirmed kill. Sumatran tigers are the remaining Sunda island population under the same pressures.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Tiger (Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the bali tiger. The Sumatran tiger is the last Sunda island tiger population — still facing poaching and forest loss on a finite island, the Bali problem before the ending.

## Did you know
West Bali's first game reserve was created in 1941 to protect tigers that, on the evidence of specimens, had already been shot out of confirmed existence four years earlier.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/bali-tiger): Bali Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Bali tiger go extinct?
The last confirmed specimen was shot on 27 September 1937. The population is generally considered extinct by the 1950s; later sightings were never confirmed with specimens.

## Was the Bali tiger a separate subspecies?
It was long listed as Panthera tigris balica. Many modern taxonomists now include it with Javan and Sumatran tigers in P. t. sondaica. Either way, the Bali population is gone.

## How big was the Bali tiger?
It was the smallest historical tiger form. Published figures put females roughly in the 65–80 kg range and males higher, comparable to a large leopard rather than an Amur tiger.

## Why did Bali tigers die out so fast?
A tiny island range, intensive hunting, and rapid conversion of forest left no refuge. Protection in 1941 came after the last confirmed kill.

## Are there any Bali tigers left?
No. There is no wild or captive population. The living Sunda island tiger is the Sumatran tiger.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/aurochs): Aurochs — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The aurochs was the wild ox that gave rise to domestic cattle; the last recorded individual died in 1627 in Poland's Jaktorów Forest after centuries of hunting and habitat conversion erased a species that once ranged across Europe, North Africa and Asia.

## Introduction
Every domestic cow alive today descends from the aurochs — a tall, long-horned wild ox that shaped European landscapes and human farming. Domestication began thousands of years ago in the Near East and elsewhere; the wild form was then hunted and squeezed into shrinking forests until the last recorded animal died in 1627 in Poland. The aurochs is not a prehistoric myth. It overlapped with printed books, royal hunting laws and the early modern state. What killed it was the ordinary expansion of farms and the prestige of killing the largest wild cattle left.

## When and where it went extinct
Aurochs (Bos primigenius (Bojanus, 1827)) went extinct: 1627 (last recorded individual, Jaktorów Forest, Poland). Range: Much of Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia — wild ancestor of domestic cattle. Last recorded animal died in 1627 in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland, after royal protection came too late to reverse the decline.

## Causes of extinction
Aurochs extinction causes: Hunting for meat, horn and status across medieval Europe; Conversion of wilderness to farmland and pasture; Competition and hybridisation pressure from expanding domestic cattle; Fragmentation into tiny forest populations that could not recover.

## Takeaway
The aurochs is the wild ancestor of domestic cattle; the last recorded individual died in 1627 in Poland.

## Takeaway
Hunting and farmland expansion reduced wild herds to forest remnants that could not sustain themselves.

## Takeaway
Royal protection in Poland came after the population was already too small.

## Takeaway
Modern "breeding-back" cattle can resemble aurochs in horn and colour but are domestic animals, not resurrected wild oxen.

## Takeaway
European bison show that a wild bovine can be pulled back from a few dozen captives — the aurochs never got that second chance in time.

## Takeaway
Keeping wild relatives of livestock is part of conservation, not nostalgia: they carry ecology domestic breeds do not replace.

## From dominant herbivore to royal rarity
Aurochs bones and images run through European prehistory into the Middle Ages. As agriculture spread, wild oxen lost floodplain forest and were hunted as trophies and food. By the 1500s they survived mainly in protected forests under noble or royal control. Poland's Jaktorów herd was among the last. When that herd died out in 1627, the wild species ended. Domestic cattle continued — genetically descended, ecologically different.

## Domestication is not conservation
People sometimes treat the aurochs as unfinished business solved by milk and beef. Domestication saved genes in a transformed body; it did not save the wild animal's role as a large, free-ranging browser and grazer. Restoring that role today means living wild bovines — European bison, and carefully managed rewilding cattle — not pretending a dairy Holstein is an aurochs.

## Breeding-back is approximation
Twentieth-century Heck cattle and later projects selected domestic breeds for aurochs-like horns, colour and size. They can be useful in grazing projects. They are not Bos primigenius. Extinction of the wild type removed behaviours, parasite relationships and genetic diversity that no museum cross can fully reconstruct.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/aurochs): Aurochs — extinct animal profile.

## What this extinction teaches
Wild ancestors of livestock are lost when hunting and farmland leave only token forest herds. European bison prove recovery is possible when captives still exist; the aurochs shows what happens when protection arrives after the last breeding population is gone.

## Living species facing the same pressure
European bison (Near Threatened) faces the pressure that ended the aurochs. A wild bovine reduced to a few dozen captives in the 1920s and recovered by breeding and reintroduction — the second chance the aurochs never received.

## Did you know
The aurochs survived into the age of printed books and royal game laws — then vanished in 1627, close enough to modernity that its end is a date, not a geological epoch.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/aurochs): Aurochs — extinct animal profile.

## When did the aurochs go extinct?
The last recorded individual died in 1627 in the Jaktorów Forest in Poland.

## Are cows descended from aurochs?
Yes. Domestic cattle derive from aurochs domesticated millennia ago. That ancestry does not make modern breeds wild aurochs.

## Can scientists bring the aurochs back?
Not as a true wild aurochs. Breeding-back projects create lookalike domestic cattle. Full restoration of the extinct wild type is not available from living animals.

## How big was an aurochs?
Larger than most modern cattle. Bulls are often estimated around 160–180 cm at the shoulder, with substantial horns; exact averages vary by region and period in the fossil and historical record.

## What is the difference between aurochs and European bison?
Different species. European bison (Bison bonasus) is a living wild bovine recovered from captivity. Aurochs (Bos primigenius) was the wild ox ancestral to cattle and is extinct.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/huia): Huia — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The huia was a New Zealand wattlebird extinct after the last confirmed sighting in 1907, famous for extreme sexual bill dimorphism; forest clearance, introduced predators and collecting for feathers erased a species found nowhere else on Earth.

## Introduction
The huia is remembered for a bill difference so extreme that males and females look like different species in profile: the male's stout and chiselling, the female's long and curved for probing. They were North Island forest birds, already scarce when European settlement accelerated. Tail feathers became status objects; collectors paid for skins; rats, stoats and cats reached the understorey; axes took the trees. The last confirmed sighting was in 1907. New Zealand has lost many endemic birds; the huia is the one whose tool-kit of two bill shapes still stops people mid-sentence.

## When and where it went extinct
Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris (Gould, 1837)) went extinct: 1907 (last confirmed sighting). Range: North Island, New Zealand — endemic forest bird. Last confirmed sighting in 1907; later reports never verified with specimens.

## Causes of extinction
Huia extinction causes: Clearance of native forest for farms and timber; Introduced mammalian predators — rats, stoats, cats; Collecting for skins and tail feathers prized in fashion and ceremony; Naturally low density and specialised feeding that made losses hard to replace.

## Takeaway
The huia's male and female bills differ more than those of any other living or recently extinct bird.

## Takeaway
The last confirmed sighting was in 1907 on New Zealand's North Island.

## Takeaway
Introduced mammals and forest clearance were decisive; collecting for feathers added pressure to a specialised endemic.

## Takeaway
New Zealand's remaining endemic birds survive mainly where predators are controlled or islands are cleared of them.

## Takeaway
The kākāpō recovery shows intensive management can reverse island-bird collapse when enough individuals remain.

## Takeaway
Once a low-density forest specialist is gone, the bill morphology that made it famous exists only in museum drawers.

## Two bills, one pair
Huia pairs are thought to have foraged cooperatively: males chiselling into rotting wood, females probing the openings. Whether that division was as neat as later storytelling claims is debated, but the anatomical difference is not. No other bird shows such extreme sexual bill dimorphism. That specialisation may have made the species efficient in intact forest and brittle when forest structure and invertebrate prey changed under human pressure.

## Feathers, rats and axes
Māori traditionally valued huia feathers; colonial fashion and specimen collecting intensified take in the nineteenth century. At the same time, mustelids and rats — introduced to control rabbits or arriving with ships — entered forest that had evolved without mammalian predators. Birds that nested in cavities or foraged on the ground paid first. Forest clearance removed the rest. By 1907 confirmed birds were gone; searches afterward returned rumour.

## Why New Zealand endemics still tip over
The huia's pressures never left the country. Stoats, rats and cats still limit forest birds; habitat is still fragmented. Species such as the kākāpō persist only because every individual is managed on predator-free islands. The huia is the finished version of that story — the endemic that ran out of islands and out of time before the modern toolkit existed.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/huia): Huia — extinct animal profile.

## What this extinction teaches
Island forest birds with specialised ecology collapse when predators and clearance arrive together, and collecting can finish what habitat loss starts. New Zealand's living endemics survive where those pressures are actively removed — the work the huia never received in time.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Kākāpō (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the huia. Another New Zealand endemic forest bird reduced to a handful of individuals by introduced predators — recovered only through intensive island management the huia never got.

## Did you know
Huia pairs were so often described as lifelong that Victorian writers treated them as emblems of fidelity — then collected them in numbers that helped end the species that inspired the metaphor.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/huia): Huia — extinct animal profile.

## When did the huia go extinct?
The last confirmed sighting was in 1907. Later reports were never verified with specimens, and the species is treated as extinct.

## Why were huia bills different in males and females?
Males had shorter, stouter bills for chiselling; females had longer, curved bills for probing. It is the most extreme sexual bill dimorphism known in birds.

## What killed the huia?
Forest clearance, introduced mammalian predators, and collecting for skins and feathers acting on a specialised North Island endemic.

## Are there any huia left?
No living birds remain. Specimens exist in museums. Related wattlebirds — kōkako and saddleback — still survive under active management.

## Could the huia be brought back from DNA?
Museum DNA is degraded. Any future attempt would be experimental genome engineering into a related species, not a simple clone, and New Zealand forests still require predator control for any released bird to survive.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/ivory-billed-woodpecker): Ivory-billed Woodpecker — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The ivory-billed woodpecker was a large woodpecker of southern US and Cuban forests, last undisputed in the United States in 1944 after old-growth bottomlands were logged; the IUCN still lists it as Critically Endangered and possibly extinct, while US authorities have proposed treating it as extinct.

## Introduction
The ivory-billed woodpecker is the most contested "extinction" on this list — and that uncertainty is the point of the page. The last universally accepted sighting in the United States was in Louisiana's Singer Tract in April 1944, as the old-growth forest that supported the bird was being cut. Decades of later claims, including a high-profile Arkansas announcement in 2005, never produced unequivocal evidence that convinced the whole ornithological community. The IUCN still lists the species as Critically Endangered and possibly extinct. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed removing it from the Endangered Species Act as extinct. This profile treats the bird as functionally gone from confirmed science while stating that disagreement plainly.

## When and where it went extinct
Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis (Linnaeus, 1758)) went extinct: Last undisputed US sighting 1944; IUCN still Critically Endangered (possibly extinct); USFWS has proposed treating it as extinct. Range: Bottomland forests of the southern United States and historically Cuba. Last universally accepted sighting in the United States: Singer Tract, Louisiana, April 1944 (artist Don Eckelberry). Later claims, including Arkansas 2004–05, remain disputed.

## Causes of extinction
Ivory-billed Woodpecker extinction causes: Logging of old-growth bottomland forest — especially the Singer Tract; Shooting and specimen collecting while numbers were already low; Confusion with the common pileated woodpecker, which complicated late searches; Habitat fragmentation that left no continuous mature forest large enough for a viable population.

## Takeaway
The last undisputed United States sighting was in 1944 on the Singer Tract as logging finished the forest.

## Takeaway
The IUCN has not moved the species to Extinct; it remains Critically Endangered and possibly extinct.

## Takeaway
Post-1944 claims, including Arkansas 2004–05, are disputed and have not produced consensus-level evidence.

## Takeaway
Old-growth bottomland clearance was the decisive habitat loss; collecting added pressure earlier.

## Takeaway
Pileated woodpeckers are the common lookalike that makes unconfirmed sightings hard to trust.

## Takeaway
Living woodpeckers that need large snags and mature forest face a milder version of the same habitat arithmetic.

## What is actually agreed
Everyone agrees the ivory-billed woodpecker was a large, black-and-white woodpecker of mature forests in the southern United States and Cuba, and that the Singer Tract population was studied and filmed in the 1930s when only a handful of birds remained. Everyone agrees that tract was logged. The April 1944 sighting by Don Eckelberry is the last record that nearly all authorities accept for the United States. Beyond that line, claims diverge.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/ivory-billed-woodpecker): Ivory-billed Woodpecker — extinct animal profile.

## Why later sightings did not settle it
Blurry video, brief field views and sound recordings are easy to misattribute when a common pileated woodpecker shares the same woods. The 2005 Cornell-led announcement that the species persisted in Arkansas generated intense search effort and equally intense rebuttal. Without a clear photograph, specimen or sustained, independently verified detection, agencies eventually treated the post-1944 record as insufficient. That is a higher evidence bar than hope wants — and lower drama than headlines prefer.

## How to read "possibly extinct"
IUCN's Critically Endangered (possibly extinct) tag is deliberate: the bird meets extinction criteria in practice for many assessors, but the formal Extinct label waits on exhaustive survey standards. USFWS proposing delisting as extinct is a policy judgment that the bird is gone. This page sits with the undisputed timeline — last clear US record 1944, habitat destroyed — while refusing to invent certainty the sources do not share.

## What this extinction teaches
Mature-forest specialists disappear when the last continuous stands are cut, and contested late sightings do not replace habitat. Living woodpeckers that need large dead trees and unfragmented woodland are running a slower version of the same clock.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Woodpecker (Varies by species — many Least Concern; cavity specialists declining with old trees) faces the pressure that ended the ivory-billed woodpecker. Woodpeckers that depend on mature trees and snags lose breeding sites when forests are simplified — the ivorybill's pressure, scaled down to species still present.

## Did you know
The nickname "Lord God bird" is itself folklore — a claim that people exclaimed on seeing one — which fits a species whose modern story is as much about belief and evidence standards as about feathers.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/ivory-billed-woodpecker): Ivory-billed Woodpecker — extinct animal profile.

## Is the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct?
Most ornithologists treat it as gone from confirmed science after 1944. The IUCN still lists it as Critically Endangered and possibly extinct rather than Extinct. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed treating it as extinct for listing purposes.

## When was the last confirmed sighting?
The last universally accepted United States sighting was in April 1944 on the Singer Tract in Louisiana. A Cuban sighting in 1987 is sometimes cited; later US claims remain disputed.

## What about the 2005 Arkansas rediscovery?
A research team announced persistence based on video and sightings. Many experts were unconvinced the bird shown was not a pileated woodpecker, and no consensus-level confirmation followed.

## Why did ivory-billed woodpeckers decline?
Logging of old-growth bottomland forest removed the large trees and continuous habitat they needed. Shooting and collecting contributed while populations were already small.

## How do you tell an ivorybill from a pileated woodpecker?
Ivorybills were larger with extensive white on the wings in flight and a pale bill. Pileated woodpeckers are common, smaller, and the usual explanation for hopeful misidentifications.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/japanese-sea-lion): Japanese Sea Lion — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Japanese sea lion (Zalophus japonicus) was a western Pacific pinniped hunted to extinction; commercial harvests removed thousands in the early twentieth century, and the last confirmed animal was recorded in 1974 off Hokkaido.

## Introduction
The Japanese sea lion is one of the most recent marine-mammal extinctions. Once common around Japan and Korea, it was hunted commercially until harvest numbers crashed from thousands per year to a few dozen by the 1930s. A 1950s survey reported only 50–60 animals on the Liancourt Rocks. The last confirmed record is a juvenile taken in 1974 off Rebun Island. Closely related to the California sea lion, it was long treated as a subspecies before being recognised as its own species — taxonomy that arrived too late to save it.

## When and where it went extinct
Japanese Sea Lion (Zalophus japonicus (Peters, 1866)) went extinct: Last confirmed record 1974; extinct by the late 1970s. Range: Coastal seas of Japan, Korea and nearby western North Pacific waters. Last confirmed record: a juvenile captured in 1974 off Rebun Island, Hokkaido; unconfirmed later sightings in the 1980s.

## Causes of extinction
Japanese Sea Lion extinction causes: Commercial hunting — harvest records show thousands taken in the early 1900s; Collapse of breeding colonies as numbers fell from thousands to dozens; Habitat disturbance including wartime activity around breeding rocks; No effective protection while a recoverable population still existed.

## Takeaway
Commercial hunting drove Japanese sea lions from abundant to remnant within decades.

## Takeaway
The last confirmed record is 1974; the species is treated as extinct.

## Takeaway
Harvest statistics from Japanese fisheries document the decline in hard numbers.

## Takeaway
Recognition as a full species came after the population was already gone.

## Takeaway
Living sea lions show that pinnipeds can recover under protection — this lineage never received it in time.

## Takeaway
It is among the most recent marine mammal extinctions, alongside the Caribbean monk seal.

## How fast a sea lion can be erased
Early twentieth-century harvest records describe thousands of Japanese sea lions taken annually at the peak, falling to hundreds by 1915 and to dozens by the 1930s. That trajectory is extinction arithmetic: remove breeding adults faster than a slow-maturing pinniped can replace them, and colonies empty. By mid-century only a handful of sites held animals. Wartime disturbance around coastal rocks added pressure to a population already past recovery without active protection.

## Related — and still here
California sea lions belong to the same genus and illustrate what protection can do: their numbers rebounded under legal safeguards in the eastern Pacific. The Japanese species had no equivalent safety net while commercial take continued. Genetic and morphological work later confirmed Zalophus japonicus as distinct, which matters for museums and for honesty about what was lost — it was not merely a local stock of California sea lions.

## What this extinction teaches
Coastal marine mammals disappear quietly when harvest statistics replace conservation plans. Living sea lions recover when killing stops; the Japanese sea lion shows the deadline is real.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Sea lion (Varies by species — several recovering under protection) faces the pressure that ended the japanese sea lion. Related Zalophus and other sea lions still face bycatch, disturbance and local hunting pressure — the same coastal harvest problem, still solvable where law and enforcement hold.

## Did you know
Japanese fisheries logbooks are part of the extinction evidence — the decline is written in harvest tallies, not only in the absence of later photographs.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/japanese-sea-lion): Japanese Sea Lion — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Japanese sea lion go extinct?
The last confirmed record is 1974. Unconfirmed sightings in the 1980s were never verified, and the species is treated as extinct.

## What killed the Japanese sea lion?
Commercial hunting on a scale that removed thousands of animals in the early 1900s, collapsing breeding colonies within a few decades.

## Is a Japanese sea lion the same as a California sea lion?
No. They are closely related in the genus Zalophus, but the Japanese animal is recognised as its own extinct species.

## Are there any Japanese sea lions left?
No confirmed living population remains.

## Could California sea lions replace them?
Not as the same species. Reintroduction discussions would be about a related animal filling an empty niche, not restoring Zalophus japonicus.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/javan-tiger): Javan Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Javan tiger was the tiger population endemic to Java, squeezed into remote forests by agriculture and hunting until the last confirmed animals disappeared in the 1970s; the IUCN assessed it as Extinct in 2008.

## Introduction
The Javan tiger shared the Sunda island story with the Bali tiger — and finished it second. Once found across Java, it retreated to montane forest as farmland expanded. By around 1970 the only known animals were in what became Meru Betiri. Sightings there faded through the mid-1970s. Camera traps in the early 1990s returned no tigers. The IUCN assessed the Javan tiger as Extinct in 2008. Modern taxonomy often groups Bali, Javan and living Sumatran tigers under Panthera tigris sondaica — which means Sumatra holds the last of that island lineage.

## When and where it went extinct
Javan Tiger (Panthera tigris (Javan population; historically P. t. sondaica)) went extinct: Last confirmed sightings 1970s; assessed Extinct by IUCN in 2008. Range: Island of Java, Indonesia — found nowhere else. Last widely cited sightings in Meru Betiri in the mid-1970s; camera-trap surveys in the 1990s found no tigers.

## Causes of extinction
Javan Tiger extinction causes: Conversion of forest to agriculture and settlements across Java; Hunting and persecution as livestock and human conflict rose; Prey depletion in remaining forest fragments; Isolation of tiny mountain populations that could not reconnect.

## Takeaway
Javan tigers lost most of Java's forest to agriculture before reserves could hold a viable population.

## Takeaway
The Meru Betiri remnant was the last known group; camera surveys later found none.

## Takeaway
IUCN assessed the Javan tiger Extinct in 2008.

## Takeaway
Sumatran tigers are the last Sunda island tigers under current taxonomy.

## Takeaway
Prey loss and conflict hunting compound habitat loss on crowded islands.

## Takeaway
Bali fell first, Java second — the island tiger sequence is a warning, not a coincidence.

## An island that filled with people
Java is one of the most densely populated large islands on Earth. Tiger habitat shrank to steep, remote forests as rice fields and settlements spread. A predator that needs large territories and wild ungulate prey cannot persist in fragments the size of a park surrounded by farmland. By the mid-twentieth century the Javan tiger was already a mountain rumour in most provinces.

## Meru Betiri and the empty cameras
Wildlife reserve status in the 1970s came when only a handful of tigers were thought to remain. Sightings trickled, then stopped. When camera traps were deployed in the early 1990s across Meru Betiri, they photographed no tigers. That absence, after years of survey effort, underpinned the Extinct assessment. Hopeful later reports have not overturned it.

## What this extinction teaches
Island tigers disappear when forest and prey shrink faster than protection expands. Sumatra is the last Sunda island with wild tigers — the Javan ending is the preview.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Tiger (Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the javan tiger. Sumatran tigers are the remaining Sunda island population, still facing poaching and forest conversion on a finite island.

## Did you know
Java lost its tiger after Bali — two islands, one genus of pressure, and only Sumatra left holding the Sunda tiger line.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/javan-tiger): Javan Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Javan tiger go extinct?
Last confirmed sightings date to the 1970s. Camera-trap surveys in the 1990s found none, and the IUCN assessed the population as Extinct in 2008.

## Is the Javan tiger a separate subspecies?
Historically yes. Many modern taxonomies group Javan, Bali and Sumatran tigers as Panthera tigris sondaica. The Javan population itself is gone.

## What killed Javan tigers?
Habitat conversion to agriculture, hunting and prey depletion on a crowded island that left only isolated forest fragments.

## Could Javan tigers still survive?
No verified evidence supports a living population after decades of surveys. The working conclusion is extinction.

## How does this relate to Sumatran tigers?
Sumatran tigers are the last wild Sunda island tigers. Their survival is the unfinished half of the same story.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/caspian-tiger): Caspian Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Caspian tiger was a tiger population of river forests from the Caucasus and Iran through Central Asia, erased by hunting and clearance of tugai habitat; genetic work links it closely to the living Amur tiger, but the western population itself is extinct.

## Introduction
The Caspian tiger — also called the Hyrcanian or Turan tiger — lived not in tropical jungle but in the reed beds and riverside forests that threaded arid Central Asia and the Caspian shores. Those corridors were cleared, drained and hunted empty through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the mid-1900s the population was collapsing region by region. Genetic studies later showed Caspian and Amur tigers were closely related — close enough that reintroduction proposals have discussed using Amur stock in former Caspian range. The western animals themselves are gone.

## When and where it went extinct
Caspian Tiger (Panthera tigris (Caspian / Turan population; historically P. t. virgata)) went extinct: Last well-documented records mid-20th century; assessed Extinct. Range: Riverine forests and reed beds from Turkey and Iran through Central Asia toward western China. Last firmly documented kills and sightings cluster in the 1950s–1970s across the Caspian–Central Asian range; later claims are sparse and unconfirmed.

## Causes of extinction
Caspian Tiger extinction causes: Hunting for sport, skins and livestock protection; Clearance and drainage of tugai riverine forest; Military and agricultural campaigns that destroyed reed-bed cover; Prey depletion along river corridors.

## Takeaway
Caspian tigers were river-corridor specialists in arid landscapes, not jungle cats.

## Takeaway
Hunting and clearance of tugai forest removed cover and prey together.

## Takeaway
The population winked out region by region through the twentieth century.

## Takeaway
DNA links Caspian tigers closely to Amur tigers — useful for reintroduction debate, not resurrection.

## Takeaway
Living tigers still need connected prey-rich habitat; corridor loss remains the same threat in different geography.

## Takeaway
A tiger can be extinct in one landscape while a close relative survives in another.

## Tigers of the reeds
Popular images of tigers default to rainforest or Indian grassland. Caspian tigers hunted wild pigs and deer in gallery forest and reeds along rivers such as the Amu Darya and in Hyrcanian woodlands south of the Caspian. Drain the reeds, settle the floodplain, and the cat has nowhere left that matches its hunting method.

## Genetics after extinction
Museum specimens show Caspian and Amur tigers were closely related lineages. That finding fuels proposals to place Amur tigers into parts of Kazakhstan or Central Asia where tugai might be restored. Those projects, if they proceed, would be conservation introductions of a living relative — not the return of the Caspian population that hunters and ploughs removed.

## What this extinction teaches
Tigers vanish when riverine cover and prey are stripped from arid landscapes as surely as when tropical forest is cleared. Corridor restoration for living tigers is the unfinished work the Caspian population never saw.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Tiger (Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the caspian tiger. Amur and other living tigers still depend on connected habitat and prey — the Caspian failure mode wherever corridors are broken.

## Did you know
Caspian tigers are genetically closer to Amur tigers than old subspecies maps suggested — extinction erased a western branch of a lineage that still survives in the Russian Far East.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/caspian-tiger): Caspian Tiger — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Caspian tiger go extinct?
Documented populations disappeared through the mid-to-late twentieth century across Central Asia and the Caspian region. Exact last-animal dates vary by country; the population is assessed as extinct.

## Was the Caspian tiger a separate subspecies?
It was long listed as Panthera tigris virgata. Genetic work shows close relationship to Amur tigers; modern taxonomy often folds both into Panthera tigris tigris.

## What habitat did Caspian tigers use?
Riverine forests and reed beds — tugai — in otherwise dry landscapes, not continuous tropical rainforest.

## Could Caspian tigers be brought back?
Not as the original population. Reintroduction proposals discuss using Amur tigers in restored habitat, which would be a related living animal, not a resurrected Caspian lineage.

## What killed them?
Sustained hunting combined with clearance and drainage of the river forests and reed beds that held their prey.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/falkland-islands-wolf): Falkland Islands Wolf — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The Falkland Islands wolf, or warrah (Dusicyon australis), was the only native land mammal of the Falklands and was hunted to extinction by settlers; the last known animal was killed in 1876.

## Introduction
The warrah was a fox-like canid that evolved in isolation on the Falkland Islands and was the archipelago's only native land mammal. Early accounts describe animals so unafraid they could be approached closely — the classic island tameness that becomes fatal the day people arrive with guns and poison. Settlers killed them as a threat to sheep. The last known individual was killed in 1876. No wild canid remains on the Falklands. Genetic work later linked Dusicyon to South American canids, including a relationship to the extinct mainland Dusicyon avus and affinities near the maned wolf lineage.

## When and where it went extinct
Falkland Islands Wolf (Dusicyon australis (Ker, 1792)) went extinct: 1876 (last known animal killed). Range: Falkland Islands — the only native land mammal. Last known individual killed in 1876 at Shallow Bay, West Falkland.

## Causes of extinction
Falkland Islands Wolf extinction causes: Hunting by settlers who feared livestock losses; Poisoning campaigns against a naive island predator; No fear of humans — approachable animals were easy to kill; Tiny island range with nowhere to retreat.

## Takeaway
The warrah was the Falklands' only native land mammal and is now extinct.

## Takeaway
The last known animal was killed in 1876.

## Takeaway
Island tameness made hunting trivial; fearlessness is not stupidity, it is an evolutionary default until predators arrive.

## Takeaway
Settlers treated the species as a sheep threat and used guns and poison.

## Takeaway
Genetic work places it among South American canids, not as a true wolf.

## Takeaway
Living wild canids still face persecution wherever livestock conflict goes unmanaged.

## An island without escape
Unlike continental foxes, the warrah had no inland wilderness beyond the islands' horizons. Every valley was reachable. Once sheep farming and deliberate persecution began, the population had nowhere to buffer losses. Darwin visited the Falklands in the 1830s and already noted the animal's approaching extinction as likely.

## Not a wolf, still gone
Common names mislead. The warrah was a distinct Dusicyon canid, fox-like in build, not a grey wolf. That taxonomic detail does not soften the outcome. It does matter for living parallels: South American canids under livestock conflict — including foxes and the maned wolf — face the same human response that emptied the Falklands.

## What this extinction teaches
Island predators that never learned human fear are erased quickly once livestock economies arrive. Living wild canids under persecution need conflict tools that are not simply poison and bullets.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Fox (Varies by species — many Least Concern; several threatened island and specialist foxes) faces the pressure that ended the falkland islands wolf. Wild canids still killed as livestock threats — the warrah's pressure, still active wherever poison and persecution are the default response.

## Did you know
Darwin predicted the warrah's extinction decades before the last known animal was killed — a rare case where a field naturalist's forecast matched the historical record almost exactly.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/falkland-islands-wolf): Falkland Islands Wolf — extinct animal profile.

## When did the Falkland Islands wolf go extinct?
The last known individual was killed in 1876 on West Falkland.

## Was it really a wolf?
No. It was a distinct canid in the genus Dusicyon, often called the warrah or Falkland fox. "Wolf" is a common name, not an accurate relationship to grey wolves.

## Why did it go extinct?
Settlers hunted and poisoned it as a threat to sheep. The species was unafraid of people and confined to small islands, so persecution finished it quickly.

## Was it the only land mammal on the Falklands?
It was the only native land mammal. Other mammals arrived with people.

## Did Darwin see one?
Darwin visited the Falklands on the Beagle voyage and wrote about the warrah, already noting its likely extinction under settler pressure.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/laughing-owl): Laughing Owl — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The laughing owl, or whēkau, was a New Zealand owl extinct after the last confirmed specimen in 1914; introduced predators and habitat change erased a ground-friendly endemic that had no defences against stoats and cats.

## Introduction
The laughing owl was named for a call that early settlers compared to a descending laugh. It hunted in open country and forest edge across New Zealand and nested in ways that left eggs and chicks exposed once stoats, cats and rats arrived. Specimens were still being taken in the late nineteenth century as the species slid toward disappearance. The last confirmed specimen is generally dated to 1914. Like the huia and so many New Zealand endemics, it was not hunted out by Māori tradition alone — the decisive blow was the mammalian predator guild that accompanied European settlement.

## When and where it went extinct
Laughing Owl (Ninox albifacies (Gray, 1844) — formerly Sceloglaux albifacies) went extinct: Last confirmed specimen 1914; extinct soon after. Range: New Zealand — both main islands historically, declining to South Island strongholds. Last confirmed specimen generally cited from 1914; later reports unverified.

## Causes of extinction
Laughing Owl extinction causes: Introduced mammalian predators — stoats, cats, rats; Habitat clearance of open country and forest edge; Collection of specimens while the species was already rare; Ground-nesting habits that offered no defence against mustelids.

## Takeaway
The laughing owl's last confirmed specimen dates to 1914.

## Takeaway
Introduced stoats, cats and rats were decisive against a bird that nested within their reach.

## Takeaway
Open-country habitat change compounded predation pressure.

## Takeaway
Specimen collecting continued while numbers were already low.

## Takeaway
New Zealand's remaining endemic birds survive mainly under predator control.

## Takeaway
The kākāpō programme is the modern counterexample — intensive management the laughing owl never received.

## A call, then silence
Nineteenth-century accounts describe the laughing owl's vocalisations clearly enough that the common name stuck. Sightings declined as mustelids spread and land was burned or grazed. By the early twentieth century the bird was rare enough that each specimen mattered — and collectors still took them. The 1914 specimen marks the end of the confirmed record.

## Same island, same predator problem
The laughing owl belongs on the same shelf as the huia: New Zealand forest and open-country birds that evolved without mammalian predators. Once stoats and cats occupied the understorey and rock piles, ground-accessible nests failed. Living New Zealand endemics persist where those predators are fenced out or eradicated from islands — the operational definition of hope in this fauna.

## What this extinction teaches
Island owls and other endemics that nest within reach of introduced mammals disappear unless predators are removed. New Zealand's surviving rarities exist because that work is funded — the laughing owl shows the default ending without it.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Kākāpō (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the laughing owl. Another New Zealand endemic driven nearly extinct by introduced mammals — held only by intensive predator-free management the laughing owl never received.

## Did you know
The laughing owl kept its common name from a sound nobody living has verified in the wild — the call survives in written description longer than the bird did in the field.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/laughing-owl): Laughing Owl — extinct animal profile.

## When did the laughing owl go extinct?
The last confirmed specimen is generally dated to 1914. Later reports were not verified, and the species is treated as extinct.

## Why was it called the laughing owl?
Early settlers described its call as a descending series of notes resembling laughter. The Māori name is whēkau.

## What killed the laughing owl?
Introduced mammalian predators were the main driver, with habitat change and collecting adding pressure to a declining endemic.

## Are there any laughing owls left?
No. Specimens exist in museums. New Zealand's living native owl is the morepork (ruru), a different species.

## How does it relate to other extinct NZ birds?
It shares the same cause-list as the huia and many rails: island evolution without mammals, then rapid collapse after stoats, rats and cats arrived.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-police-rescue-400-stolen-cats): Vietnam Police Rescue More Than 400 Stolen Cats Bound for the Meat Trade.

## Summary
In June 2026, Vietnamese police dismantled an alleged cat-theft ring in southern Vietnam, recovering more than 400 live cats and around 80 dead animals preserved on ice during raids in Tay Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City; nine people were arrested and welfare groups said more than 40 stolen cats were later reunited with owners.

## Excerpt
Authorities in southern Vietnam dismantled an alleged cat-theft ring in June 2026, recovering more than 400 live cats and dozens preserved on ice. Nine people were arrested after raids in Tay Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City.

## Takeaway
Police recovered more than 400 live cats and around 80 dead cats on ice during raids linked to an alleged theft-and-collection ring operating across southern Vietnam.

## Takeaway
Nine people were arrested; investigators said the group had trapped and collected cats over roughly three years before selling them to traders every two to three days.

## Takeaway
Humane World for Animals said more than 40 stolen cats were reunited with owners, though some animals later died from the ordeal.

## Takeaway
Dog and cat meat consumption remains legal in Vietnam, but vendors require permits showing animal origin — stolen pets enter the trade illegally.

## Takeaway
Welfare groups estimate around one million cats and five million dogs are caught, stolen, trafficked or slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-police-rescue-400-stolen-cats): Vietnam Police Rescue More Than 400 Stolen Cats Bound for the Meat Trade.

## Briefing
Southern Vietnamese authorities dismantled an alleged cat-theft ring in June 2026, recovering more than 400 live cats destined for slaughter alongside dozens of dead animals preserved on ice, according to police reports and animal welfare groups.

Rescued cats held in stacked cages following raids in Tay Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City.

Photo: Phuong Pham / Humane World for Animals Viet Nam.

What happened in the June 2026 raids?

Police described the operation as targeting a "criminal group specialising in stealing and collecting cats" .

Officers tracked the network after investigating a spate of pet thefts in Ho Chi Minh City, with the breakthrough coming on 11 June 2026 .

Raids across Tay Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City recovered: More than 400 live cats Around 80 dead cats preserved on ice 21 additional cats at a separate facility Nine people were arrested.

Investigators said suspects admitted trapping and collecting cats across southern Vietnam over roughly three years , moving stolen animals to holding sites before selling them to traders in transactions every two to three days.

Cats recovered at a holding site after the raids.

Photo: Humane World for Animals Viet Nam.

Survivors receiving emergency veterinary care after seizure.

Photo: AFP.

Timeline: how the case unfolded 2023–2026: Investigators allege the group collected stolen cats across southern Vietnam, holding them before sale to meat traders.

Early June 2026: Ho Chi Minh City police investigate a surge in reported pet cat thefts.

11 June 2026: Authorities identify and track the alleged theft ring.

Mid-June 2026: Coordinated raids in Tay Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City recover hundreds of cats.

16 June 2026: Humane World for Animals reports 40+ reunions with owners; police urge more pet owners to come forward.

Local authorities took decisive action that saved the lives of so many animals — but a number had later died as a result of their ordeal.

— Humane World for Animals Stolen pets, not anonymous strays The most important detail for pet owners internationally is how the supply chain works.

Demand for cat meat in Vietnam outstrips available strays in many areas, so collectors target owned cats taken from yards and doorsteps .

The reunion of more than 40 cats with their owners after this raid is direct evidence that pet theft feeds the trade.

Welfare investigators have long documented cats being transported in cramped wire crates without food or water, frequently mixed with dogs of unknown vaccination status — creating severe welfare harm and public-health risk in a country where rabies remains endemic.

What happens after a raid?

Police seizures only save lives if rescued cats have quarantine space, veterinary care and shelter capacity waiting.

That is what WARN's cat appeal is being built to fund.

Support the cat appeal What happens to rescued cats next?

Even when police succeed, the bottleneck moves to quarantine, veterinary triage and shelter placement .

Cats held as evidence need daily care.

Survivors may require wound treatment, parasite control, vaccination and behaviour support before they can be adopted locally or returned to identified owners.

Humane World for Animals told reporters it was supplying food and other materials for animals still in police custody while the investigation continues.

Without funded shelter capacity, welfare groups cannot absorb large seizure numbers — which makes donor support for post-raid care structurally important, not optional.

The wider cat meat trade in Vietnam This raid does not exist in isolation.

Humane World for Animals estimates that around one million cats and five million dogs are captured, stolen, trafficked or slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year.

Cats sold for meat are locally known as tiểu hổ — "little tiger".


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-police-rescue-400-stolen-cats): Vietnam Police Rescue More Than 400 Stolen Cats Bound for the Meat Trade.

Consumption remains legal, but vendors require permits proving animal origin.

Stolen pets bypass that traceability entirely.

Campaigners cite growing public opposition — particularly among younger urban residents and pet owners — with survey work commissioned by welfare groups finding majorities backing trade bans.

For background, see WARN's briefing on Vietnam's cat meat trade and the cat meat trade rescue guide .

How WARN fits in WARN is a global not-for-profit animal welfare organisation.

Vietnam is wider search and educational context for the dog and cat meat trade on this site — WARN's current in-network focus is Indonesia and Malaysia for partner-led rescue.

We report raids like this because accurate, citation-backed news helps donors understand why post-seizure cat rescue capacity matters.

When enforcement succeeds, the limiting factor is often whether local partners have quarantine pens, vaccines and staff to say yes to the next load of survivors.

That is what supporter funding is for.

Sources & further reading BBC News — Hundreds of cats stolen for food in Vietnam rescued by police (16 Jun 2026) WARN briefing — Vietnam's cat meat trade: scale, stolen pets and public health


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-police-rescue-400-stolen-cats): Vietnam Police Rescue More Than 400 Stolen Cats Bound for the Meat Trade.

## How many cats were rescued in the Vietnam police raid?
Reporting from welfare groups and police accounts cites more than 400 live cats recovered, around 80 dead cats preserved on ice, and a further 21 cats seized at a separate facility during raids in Tay Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City in June 2026.

## Were the rescued cats stolen pets?
Investigators described a criminal group specialising in stealing and collecting cats across southern Vietnam. Humane World for Animals said more than 40 of the recovered cats were reunited with owners, indicating many were stolen pets rather than strays.

## Is cat meat legal in Vietnam?
Consumption of dog and cat meat is legal in Vietnam, but vendors require permits that show where animals came from. Cats stolen from homes and sold without traceability enter the trade illegally.

## What happens to cats after a meat-trade police rescue?
Survivors need quarantine, rabies risk assessment, wound treatment, vaccination and shelter space. Without post-seizure capacity, even successful raids can overwhelm local teams — which is why rescue funding for veterinary care and shelter placement matters.

## How can I help cats rescued from the meat trade?
UK and international supporters can fund partner-led quarantine, veterinary care and shelter capacity through WARN's cat appeal and dog-and-cat-meat trade programmes. Symbolic cat adoption from £5/month directs support to community cat welfare and anti-cruelty work.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/kalimantan-orangutans-released-2026): Three Rehabilitated Orangutans Released Back Into the Wild in East Kalimantan.

## Summary
On 23 June 2026, three rehabilitated Bornean orangutans — Bagus, Eboni and Ruby — were released into the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest in Busang district, East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. All three are Critically Endangered Pongo pygmaeus that had been kept illegally as pets before being rescued between 2020 and 2024 and rehabilitated to climb, forage and nest. East Kalimantan's Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) coordinated the release with the provincial forestry authority and conservation partners.

## Excerpt
Three Bornean orangutans — Bagus, Eboni and Ruby — were released into a protected forest in East Kutai, East Kalimantan, on 23 June 2026, after years of rehabilitation following rescue from the illegal pet trade. All three are Critically Endangered Pongo pygmaeus.

## Takeaway
Three Bornean orangutans — Bagus, Eboni and Ruby — were released into the wild in the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest, East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan, on 23 June 2026.

## Takeaway
All three had been kept illegally as pets and were rescued between September 2020 and April 2024 from villages in Berau and East Kutai regencies.

## Takeaway
Before release, each orangutan spent years in a forest-school rehabilitation programme relearning to climb, forage for wild foods and build sleeping nests.

## Takeaway
The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with roughly 104,700 left and about half its habitat lost in two decades.

## Takeaway
The illegal pet trade — where infants are taken after their mothers are killed — and deforestation for palm oil, timber and mining remain the species' biggest threats.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/kalimantan-orangutans-released-2026): Three Rehabilitated Orangutans Released Back Into the Wild in East Kalimantan.

## Briefing
Three Critically Endangered Bornean orangutans — Bagus, Eboni and Ruby — were released back into the wild on 23 June 2026 in the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest in East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan , on the Indonesian side of Borneo, after years of rehabilitation following their rescue from the illegal pet trade.

A wild Bornean orangutan in the Borneo forest canopy — the life Bagus, Eboni and Ruby are returning to.

Photo: Charles J.

Sharp / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), illustrative.

What happened: three orangutans returned to the wild On 23 June 2026, conservation authorities in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province released three rehabilitated Bornean orangutans ( Pongo pygmaeus ) into the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest, in the Busang district of East Kutai regency.

The release marked the end of a rehabilitation journey that, for the longest-held of the three, had lasted almost six years.

The operation was coordinated by East Kalimantan's Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) together with the provincial forestry authority, a local forest-management unit and the conservation partners who ran the animals' rehabilitation.

M.

Ari Wibawanto, who heads East Kalimantan BKSDA, described the release as a collaboration between the province's conservation and forestry bodies and their training partners.

Meet Bagus, Eboni and Ruby All three orangutans share the same underlying story: each had been taken from the forest and kept illegally as a pet before being rescued and handed into rehabilitation.

Their rescue dates span four years: Bagus — rescued in September 2020 from Merabu village, Berau regency.

Eboni — evacuated in April 2022 from Long Beliu, Berau regency.

Ruby — evacuated in April 2024 from Sekurau Atas village, East Kutai regency.

Keeping orangutans as pets is illegal in Indonesia, where the species is legally protected.

Infants are typically captured after their mothers are killed — a single pet orangutan usually represents the loss of at least one wild adult — which is why confiscations feed directly into rescue and rehabilitation programmes rather than back into the wild straight away.

Lowland forest in Borneo — the intact, fruiting habitat a released orangutan needs to survive.

Why orangutan rehabilitation takes years, not weeks Orangutans are among the slowest-developing mammals on Earth.

In the wild an infant stays with its mother for up to eight years, learning where and when hundreds of forest foods ripen, how to move safely through the canopy, and how to build a fresh sleeping nest every night.

An orangutan taken as a baby and raised by people misses all of this.

Rehabilitation — often called "forest school" — has to rebuild those skills from scratch before an animal can be considered releasable.

Before Bagus, Eboni and Ruby were signed off for release, each had to prove it could: Climb and travel through the canopy confidently rather than staying on the ground; Find and process wild foods — fruit, bark, shoots and insects — without being hand-fed; Build a secure night nest in the treetops, which orangutans do every single evening.

Only once an orangutan can reliably feed, move and shelter itself — and passes a full veterinary and disease-screening check — is it matched to a protected release forest with enough food and few resident wild orangutans to compete with.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/kalimantan-orangutans-released-2026): Three Rehabilitated Orangutans Released Back Into the Wild in East Kalimantan.

Timeline: from pet to protected forest September 2020: Bagus is rescued from Merabu village, Berau regency, and enters rehabilitation.

April 2022: Eboni is evacuated from Long Beliu, Berau, after being kept as a pet.

April 2024: Ruby is evacuated from Sekurau Atas village, East Kutai regency.

2020–2026: Each orangutan completes forest-school rehabilitation — climbing, foraging and nest-building — and passes health screening.

23 June 2026: All three are released into the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest, East Kutai, East Kalimantan.

What a wild release actually costs Every release like this is the end of a years-long chain: rescue, quarantine, forest-school rehabilitation, disease screening — and a protected forest to return to.

That partner-led orangutan work in Borneo is exactly what WARN's orangutan appeal is built to fund.

Support the orangutan appeal Why Bornean orangutans are Critically Endangered The Bornean orangutan is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List — the highest risk category before extinction in the wild.

Roughly 104,700 Bornean orangutans are estimated to remain, and around half of the species' habitat has been lost in the past two decades .

All three orangutan species — Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli — are Critically Endangered.

Two pressures drive the decline.

The first is habitat loss : lowland Bornean forest has been cleared and fragmented for palm oil, timber and mining, leaving fewer connected areas with enough year-round food.

The second is the illegal wildlife and pet trade — the exact route that put Bagus, Eboni and Ruby in human hands.

Because orangutans breed so slowly, with females giving birth only once every six to eight years, populations cannot absorb these losses and recover quickly.

For the wider picture, see our briefings on why orangutans are endangered and Borneo deforestation and palm oil , or the full orangutan wildlife guide .

Why a single successful release matters Three animals may sound small against a population of six figures, but every rehabilitated orangutan returned to a protected forest matters for a Critically Endangered species with a birth rate this low.

Releases also demonstrate something bigger: that confiscation from the pet trade, long-term rehabilitation and habitat protection can work together to put wild-born animals back where they belong — provided the funding and the forest are there.

How WARN's orangutan work connects to this World Animal Rescue Network is a registered global not-for-profit animal welfare organisation (Company no.

17298990).

Indonesia and Malaysia are in-network for our orangutan work — our orangutan appeal funds partner-led rescue, forest-school rehabilitation and habitat protection in Borneo.

WARN was not part of this particular government-led release, but we report releases like it because they show donors precisely what their support pays for: the long, expensive road from a confiscated pet to a wild orangutan nesting in the canopy again.

When rehabilitation succeeds, the limiting factor is almost always whether partners have the funding for veterinary care, forest-school staff and protected release habitat to say yes to the next rescued infant.

That is what supporter giving is for.

How you can help orangutans UK and international supporters can back Bornean orangutan rescue and rehabilitation through WARN's Borneo orangutan appeal , or support the species directly with a symbolic orangutan adoption from £5 a month.

You can also make a one-off gift or set up monthly giving to fund partner deployments where the need is greatest.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/kalimantan-orangutans-released-2026): Three Rehabilitated Orangutans Released Back Into the Wild in East Kalimantan.

Sources & further reading The Jakarta Post — Three Kalimantan orangutans released into wild (29 Jun 2026) IUCN Red List — Pongo pygmaeus (Bornean orangutan), Critically Endangered WARN briefing — Why are orangutans endangered?

WARN geo-programme — East Kalimantan orangutan rehabilitation & release


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/kalimantan-orangutans-released-2026): Three Rehabilitated Orangutans Released Back Into the Wild in East Kalimantan.

## How many orangutans were released in Kalimantan in June 2026?
Three Bornean orangutans — named Bagus, Eboni and Ruby — were released into the wild on 23 June 2026 in the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest, Busang district, East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

## Where were the orangutans released?
They were released into the Gunung Batu Mesangat protected forest in Busang district, East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan province, on the Indonesian side of Borneo — a lowland forest area chosen as suitable long-term habitat for wild Bornean orangutans.

## Why were Bagus, Eboni and Ruby in rehabilitation?
All three had been kept illegally as pets. Bagus was rescued in September 2020 from Merabu village in Berau regency, Eboni was evacuated in April 2022 from Long Beliu in Berau, and Ruby was evacuated in April 2024 from Sekurau Atas village in East Kutai. Each then spent years relearning wild skills before being judged ready for release.

## What subspecies are they, and are orangutans endangered?
They are Bornean orangutans, Pongo pygmaeus. All three orangutan species — Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli — are classed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Roughly 104,700 Bornean orangutans remain, and about half of the species' habitat has been lost in the past two decades.

## Who released the orangutans?
The release was coordinated by East Kalimantan's Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), working with the provincial forestry authority, a local forest-management unit and conservation partners who ran the rehabilitation programme.

## How can I help orangutans returned to the wild?
Wild releases are the end of a years-long, costly chain of rescue, rehabilitation and habitat protection. Supporters can fund partner-led orangutan rescue and forest-school rehabilitation through WARN's East Kalimantan programme page or the Borneo orangutan appeal, or back the species with a symbolic orangutan adoption from £5 a month.