World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/canary): Canary — wildlife guide.

## Do only male canaries sing?
Yes — male canaries sing elaborate songs to mark territory and attract females. Females make short chirps and calls but not sustained song.

## Where do wild canaries live?
The Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores in the eastern Atlantic — open woodland, scrub, and coastal gardens.

## Why were canaries used in coal mines?
Canaries are sensitive to carbon monoxide and methane. If a bird stopped singing or died, miners knew to evacuate before gas levels became lethal to humans.

## How long do canaries live?
Typically 7–12 years in captivity with good care — longer than many small pet birds but shorter than large parrots.

## Are canaries finches?
Yes — they belong to the finch family Fringillidae, related to goldfinches and siskins, not true parrots despite their popularity as cage birds.

## What do canaries eat?
Canaries eat Herbivore — seeds, greens, and egg food during breeding. Canaries are domesticated songbirds descended from wild Atlantic canaries of the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores.

## Are canaries dangerous?
Canaries are domesticated animals and are not dangerous to people in the wild-predator sense. Canaries are domesticated songbirds descended from wild Atlantic canaries of the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores. Usual risks are husbandry and handling, not unprovoked attacks.

## How big is a canary?
A Canary is about 7–12 years in captivity; similar in the wild. Canaries are domesticated songbirds descended from wild Atlantic canaries of the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores. Conservation status: Domesticated (IUCN).


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/bed-bug): Bed Bug — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep. Roughly 5 mm long and reddish-brown, it hides in mattress seams and furniture, resists many pesticides, and has resurged globally in hotels and homes — listed Not Evaluated by IUCN.

## Introduction
The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep. Roughly 5 mm long and reddish-brown, it hides in mattress seams and furniture, resists many pesticides, and has resurged globally in hotels and homes — listed Not Evaluated by IUCN.

## Takeaway
Bed bugs emerge from hiding in darkness, attracted by carbon dioxide and body heat.

## Takeaway
Bed bugs nearly disappeared in wealthy countries after DDT use mid-century but resurged since the 1990s with international travel, pesticide resistance, and reduced use of broad-spectrum insecticides.

## Takeaway
Signs include rusty spots (faecal stains), shed skins, and a sweet musty odour in heavy infestations.

## Nocturnal blood feeding
Bed bugs emerge from hiding in darkness, attracted by carbon dioxide and body heat. They pierce skin with elongated mouthparts, feed for 5–10 minutes, then retreat to cracks. Bites often appear in lines or clusters but reactions vary — some people show no marks.

## Resurgence and resistance
Bed bugs nearly disappeared in wealthy countries after DDT use mid-century but resurged since the 1990s with international travel, pesticide resistance, and reduced use of broad-spectrum insecticides. They spread via luggage, furniture, and clothing.

## Detection and treatment
Signs include rusty spots (faecal stains), shed skins, and a sweet musty odour in heavy infestations. Heat treatment above 50°C kills all life stages. Professional extermination often combines heat, steam, encasements, and targeted insecticides.

## Health impacts
Bed bugs are not known to transmit disease to humans despite blood feeding. Bites cause itching, allergic reactions, and psychological distress — anxiety and sleep loss are common during infestations. Not Evaluated by IUCN as a human-associated pest.

## WARN work
WARN does not run a dedicated bed bug programme — this guide is part of the World Animal Rescue Network's free educational library. The bed bug is currently widespread and not globally threatened, and this guide helps readers understand the pressures that can change that. Building public understanding of species like the bed bug supports the broader conservation awareness that underpins WARN's partner-led rescue work across its network.

## Donation hook
If clear, science-based wildlife guides like this help you understand and value animals, please consider supporting the World Animal Rescue Network's educational and rescue work so we can keep producing them.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/bed-bug): Bed Bug — wildlife guide.

## Do bed bugs spread disease?
No confirmed disease transmission to humans — unlike ticks or mosquitoes. The main harm is itching, allergic reaction, and psychological stress.

## How do you get bed bugs?
They hitchhike on luggage, used furniture, and clothing from infested hotels, homes, or public transport. They do not arrive from poor hygiene alone.

## Can bed bugs fly?
No — they have no wings and cannot jump. They crawl between rooms and spread through walls and pipes in multi-unit buildings.

## How do you kill bed bugs?
Professional heat treatment, steam, mattress encasements, and targeted pesticides. Washing bedding at high heat helps but rarely eliminates infestation alone.

## What do bed bugs eat?
Bed Bugs eat Blood — primarily human; also bats and birds in wild settings. The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep.

## Where do bed bugs live?
Bed Bugs live in Human dwellings, hotels, dormitories, and bedding worldwide. The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep.

## Are bed bugs dangerous?
Bed Bugs are not generally dangerous to people. The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep. Give wild individuals space and do not corner or handle them.

## How long do bed bugs live?
Bed Bugs typically live 6–12 months; can survive months without feeding. The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep. Wild and captive figures can differ; use the sources listed on the guide for the underlying studies.

## How big is a bed bug?
A Bed Bug is about 6–12 months; can survive months without feeding. The common bed bug is a small flat insect that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly from humans at night while they sleep. Conservation status: Not Evaluated (IUCN).


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/brown-recluse-spider): Brown Recluse Spider — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The brown recluse is a small venomous spider named for a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and its shy, reclusive habits. Found mainly in the central and southern United States, it bites rarely but can cause necrotic skin lesions.

## Introduction
The brown recluse is a small venomous spider named for a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and its shy, reclusive habits. Found mainly in the central and southern United States, it bites rarely but can cause necrotic skin lesions. Adults are 6–20 mm long and listed Not Evaluated by IUCN.

## Takeaway
Brown recluses avoid open spaces and daylight, spinning irregular webs in undisturbed corners rather than catching prey in orb webs.

## Takeaway
The dark violin-shaped mark on the cephalothorax helps identification, though similar marks occur on harmless species.

## Takeaway
Bites occur when spiders are trapped against skin in clothing or bedding — they do not chase people.

## Reclusive habits
Brown recluses avoid open spaces and daylight, spinning irregular webs in undisturbed corners rather than catching prey in orb webs. They hunt small insects at night and tolerate crowding — dozens may share a hidden void in infested buildings.

## Violin marking and identification
The dark violin-shaped mark on the cephalothorax helps identification, though similar marks occur on harmless species. Six eyes in three pairs (most spiders have eight) is a diagnostic feature. Misidentification is common outside their native range.

## Venom and necrosis
Bites occur when spiders are trapped against skin in clothing or bedding — they do not chase people. Venom contains enzymes that can cause necrotic wounds in some victims, though many bites heal without serious tissue damage. Medical attention is advised for suspected bites.

## Geographic limits and myths
Brown recluses are native to the south-central United States and rarely found outside this range despite frequent misidentifications elsewhere. Not Evaluated by IUCN. Reducing clutter, shaking out stored clothing, and sealing entry points limit indoor encounters.

## WARN work
WARN does not run a dedicated brown recluse spider programme — this guide is part of the World Animal Rescue Network's free educational library. The brown recluse spider is currently widespread and not globally threatened, and this guide helps readers understand the pressures that can change that. Building public understanding of species like the brown recluse spider supports the broader conservation awareness that underpins WARN's partner-led rescue work across its network.

## Donation hook
If clear, science-based wildlife guides like this help you understand and value animals, please consider supporting the World Animal Rescue Network's educational and rescue work so we can keep producing them.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/brown-recluse-spider): Brown Recluse Spider — wildlife guide.

## Are brown recluse bites deadly?
Death is extremely rare. Most bites cause mild irritation; some develop necrotic ulcers requiring medical care. Many suspected bites are misdiagnosed.

## Where do brown recluse spiders live?
South-central United States from Nebraska to Georgia and Texas — not on the West Coast or Northeast despite common misidentifications.

## How do you identify a brown recluse?
Uniform brown colour, violin mark on the back, six eyes in three pairs, and no stripes on the legs. Professional identification is recommended.

## Do brown recluse spiders jump?
No — they run briefly when disturbed but do not jump or actively attack people.

## How do you prevent brown recluse bites?
Shake out shoes and stored clothing, reduce clutter in garages and attics, use sticky traps in infested buildings, and seal cracks where spiders enter.

## What do brown recluse spiders eat?
Brown Recluse Spiders eat Carnivore — insects and other small arthropods. The brown recluse is a small venomous spider named for a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and its shy, reclusive habits. Found mainly in the central and southern United States, it bites rarely but can cause necrotic skin lesions.

## Are brown recluse spiders dangerous?
The brown recluse is a small venomous spider named for a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and its shy, reclusive habits. Give wild brown recluse spiders space; do not corner or handle them.

## How long do brown recluse spiders live?
Brown Recluse Spiders typically live 2–4 years; slow-growing and long-lived for a spider. The brown recluse is a small venomous spider named for a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and its shy, reclusive habits. Wild and captive figures can differ; use the sources listed on the guide for the underlying studies.

## How big is a brown recluse spider?
A Brown Recluse Spider is about 2–4 years; slow-growing and long-lived for a spider. The brown recluse is a small venomous spider named for a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and its shy, reclusive habits. Found mainly in the central and southern United States, it bites rarely but can cause necrotic skin lesions. Conservation status: Not Evaluated (IUCN).


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

## One-line answer
The dodo was a flightless pigeon endemic to Mauritius that went extinct around 1662, less than a century after Dutch sailors arrived; introduced pigs, rats and macaques eating its ground-laid eggs killed it far faster than hunting did.

## Introduction
The dodo is the most famous extinct animal on Earth and the most misunderstood. It was not a stupid bird, and it was not eaten into oblivion. It was a large flightless pigeon that had evolved for millions of years on an island with no ground predators, and it laid a single egg on the forest floor. When Dutch ships reached Mauritius in 1598 they brought pigs, rats, crab-eating macaques and cats. Within roughly 64 years the dodo was gone — a speed that still defines how conservationists think about island species today.

## When and where it went extinct
Dodo (Raphus cucullatus (Linnaeus, 1758)) went extinct: 1662 (last credible sighting). Range: Mauritius, Indian Ocean — found nowhere else on Earth.

## Causes of extinction
Dodo extinction causes: Introduced mammals — pigs, macaques, rats and cats eating eggs and chicks; Habitat clearance by Dutch settlers; Direct hunting by sailors (a smaller factor than the popular story suggests).

## Takeaway
The dodo was a pigeon, not a turkey or a duck. Its closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon of Southeast Asia, confirmed by DNA analysis of surviving bone material.

## Takeaway
It went extinct around 1662, roughly 64 years after Europeans first landed on Mauritius — one of the fastest documented extinctions of a large animal.

## Takeaway
Introduced mammals, not hunting, did most of the damage. A single ground-laid egg has no defence against pigs, rats or macaques.

## Takeaway
The dodo was not clumsy or unintelligent; it was simply unafraid, because nothing on Mauritius had ever hunted it. Fearlessness is an evolutionary asset until the day it is not.

## Takeaway
No complete stuffed dodo exists. The Oxford specimen — a head and a foot — is the only surviving soft tissue, and it is the source of the DNA that settled the pigeon question.

## Takeaway
Mauritius has since lost most of its endemic vertebrates. The dodo was the first of a cascade, not an isolated event.

## Why did the dodo go extinct?
The dodo went extinct because of what arrived with people rather than what people did directly. Dutch sailors reached Mauritius in 1598 and established a permanent settlement in 1638. Their ships carried pigs, rats, cats and crab-eating macaques, all of which thrived on an island with no native mammalian predators. The dodo laid one egg at a time, directly on the forest floor, with no capacity to defend it. Pigs rooted up nests, macaques took eggs, and rats killed chicks. At the same time, settlers cleared the lowland forest the birds depended on for fruit. Sailors did eat dodos, and contemporary accounts describe the meat as tough and unappealing, but the arithmetic of predation on a single-egg clutch is what made recovery impossible. A population that cannot replace itself faster than its eggs are eaten will disappear no matter how few adults are killed.


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

## Was the dodo really stupid?
No, and the evidence points the other way. A 2016 study of a dodo braincase by Eugenia Gold and colleagues, published in the Journal of the Anatomical Record, found that the dodo's brain-to-body-size ratio was comparable to that of modern pigeons — entirely normal for a bird of its type. The same study identified an enlarged olfactory bulb, suggesting the dodo had a well-developed sense of smell and probably located fallen fruit by scent. The reputation for stupidity comes from sailors' accounts of birds that did not flee when approached. That is not a measure of intelligence. It is the predictable behaviour of an animal on an island where no predator had ever existed, and it is a pattern repeated across island faunas worldwide, from the Galápagos to New Zealand.

## What did the dodo actually look like?
Less rotund than the famous illustrations. Many well-known dodo paintings — including the widely reproduced Roelandt Savery works — appear to have been based on overfed captive birds shipped to Europe, or copied from earlier images rather than drawn from life. Skeletal analysis by Andrew Kitchener and later researchers suggests a leaner, more upright bird, better suited to moving through forest. The plumage colour is genuinely uncertain: contemporary descriptions disagree, and no feathers survive. Most modern reconstructions show brownish-grey plumage, a bare face, and a large hooked bill, but any depiction of a dodo — including every image you have ever seen — is an interpretation rather than a record.

## Could the dodo be brought back?
De-extinction efforts for the dodo are underway and are further along than most people assume, but "bringing back the dodo" is not what the science would actually deliver. The usable dodo DNA that exists is degraded and incomplete. The realistic approach is to edit the genome of a Nicobar pigeon toward dodo-like traits, producing an animal that resembles a dodo rather than a genuine restoration of the species. Even a successful result raises a harder question: Mauritius still contains the pigs, rats, macaques and cats that killed the original. Without solving that, a released dodo-like bird would meet the same fate for the same reason. This is why most conservation biologists argue that the money involved delivers more animals saved if spent on habitat and invasive-predator control for species that are still alive.

## What this extinction teaches
Island species with low reproductive rates collapse in decades, not centuries, once non-native predators arrive. That exact scenario is playing out right now across Southeast Asia and the Pacific — which is why invasive-predator control is one of the cheapest, highest-yield conservation interventions available.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Kākāpō (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the dodo. A flightless, ground-nesting, slow-breeding parrot on islands overrun by introduced predators — the dodo's situation almost exactly, except the kākāpō is still here. Intensive predator control and nest guarding have lifted it from 51 birds in 1995 to over 240.

## Did you know
The phrase "dead as a dodo" entered English within about 150 years of the bird disappearing — the dodo became a synonym for extinction faster than most species get a scientific description.


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

## When did the dodo go extinct?
The last widely accepted sighting was in 1662, reported by the shipwrecked sailor Volkert Evertsz. Some statistical analyses of sighting records place the true extinction slightly later, around 1690, because the final individuals of any species are rarely the ones recorded.

## What killed the dodo?
Introduced mammals were the main cause. Pigs, rats, cats and crab-eating macaques brought by Dutch ships ate the dodo's ground-laid eggs and chicks. Habitat clearance and some hunting added to the pressure, but the single-egg clutch is what made the population unable to recover.

## What is the dodo's closest living relative?
The Nicobar pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica), a colourful pigeon of Southeast Asian islands. DNA extracted from the Oxford dodo specimen confirmed the dodo belonged to the pigeon family, Columbidae.

## Are there any stuffed dodos in museums?
No complete specimen survives anywhere in the world. The Oxford University Museum of Natural History holds a mummified head and foot — the only dodo soft tissue on Earth. Everything else on display in museums is a model, a cast, or a composite skeleton assembled from multiple birds.

## Could scientists bring the dodo back?
Not as a true dodo. Available dodo DNA is too degraded for cloning. The realistic route is editing a Nicobar pigeon genome toward dodo traits, which produces a lookalike rather than the original species. The invasive predators that caused the extinction also still occupy Mauritius.


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

## One-line answer
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was a striped carnivorous marsupial that went extinct in 1936 when the last known animal died in Hobart Zoo; a Tasmanian government bounty that paid out on 2,184 thylacines between 1888 and 1909 was the decisive cause.

## Introduction
The thylacine was the largest carnivorous marsupial of modern times — a dog-shaped predator with a stiff tail, a jaw that opened to roughly 80 degrees, and dark stripes across its lower back. It was not a tiger and not a wolf; its closest living relatives are quolls and the Tasmanian devil. Australia's mainland population disappeared thousands of years ago, but Tasmania held a viable population until European settlers arrived. It was deliberately, systematically destroyed by a government policy, and the protection order that might have saved it was granted 59 days before the last one died.

## When and where it went extinct
Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus (Harris, 1808)) went extinct: 1936 (last captive animal); declared extinct 1982. Range: Tasmania; formerly mainland Australia and New Guinea. The last known thylacine died at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo on 7 September 1936.

## Causes of extinction
Thylacine extinction causes: Government-funded bounty scheme — £1 per adult, paid on 2,184 animals; Habitat loss to sheep farming; Disease in the remaining population; Competition and predation pressure from introduced dogs.

## Takeaway
The thylacine was a marsupial, not a canid. Its dog-like shape is one of the most striking cases of convergent evolution known — two unrelated lineages arriving at the same body plan for the same job.

## Takeaway
Both males and females had pouches. The male pouch was a backward-facing protective sheath, an unusual arrangement among marsupials.

## Takeaway
The Tasmanian government paid a bounty of £1 per adult and 10 shillings per pup from 1888 to 1909, with 2,184 claims recorded. Private and company bounties ran alongside it.

## Takeaway
The last known thylacine — often called Benjamin, though the name is not contemporaneous — died on 7 September 1936, reportedly from exposure after being locked out of its shelter.

## Takeaway
Australia now marks 7 September as National Threatened Species Day, named for that death.

## Takeaway
The species was declared extinct by the IUCN in 1982, 46 years after the last confirmed animal, because unverified sightings kept the case open.

## Why did the thylacine go extinct?
The thylacine was hunted to extinction as a matter of policy. Tasmania's sheep industry blamed the animal for stock losses, and in 1888 the colonial government introduced a bounty of £1 for each adult killed and 10 shillings for each pup. Between 1888 and 1909 the scheme paid out on 2,184 thylacines, and private landholders and the Van Diemen's Land Company ran their own bounties before and alongside it. Later analysis suggests the thylacine was responsible for far fewer sheep deaths than claimed — feral dogs and poor husbandry accounted for much of the loss — but the policy had already done its work. Habitat clearance for grazing, competition from introduced dogs and an apparent disease outbreak in the early twentieth century finished a population that bounty hunting had already reduced past the point of recovery.


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

## The 59 days that define the story
The Tasmanian government granted the thylacine legal protection on 10 July 1936. The last known individual died in captivity at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart on 7 September 1936 — 59 days later. Accounts indicate the animal died of exposure after being shut out of its sheltered sleeping quarters overnight. It is the detail that makes the thylacine the standard reference case in conservation policy: protection that arrives after a population has already collapsed is a gesture, not a rescue. Every functioning early-warning system in modern conservation — the IUCN Red List assessments, CITES appendices, national threatened species legislation — exists because of extinctions that followed this exact shape.

## Do thylacines still exist?
Almost certainly not. Thousands of sightings have been reported across Tasmania and mainland Australia since 1936, and a small number came from experienced bushmen and wildlife officers, but none has produced verifiable evidence. Extensive searches — including government-funded expeditions in the 1930s and 1980s, and decades of camera-trap deployment — have found nothing. A 2021 analysis by Barry Brook and colleagues modelled the sighting record and concluded extinction most likely occurred in the 1940s to 1950s, somewhat later than 1936 but well inside the twentieth century. Persistent sighting reports after extinction are a well-documented psychological pattern rather than evidence of survival; the same phenomenon surrounds the ivory-billed woodpecker and the baiji.

## Can the thylacine be de-extincted?
This is the most actively funded de-extinction project in the world, and the thylacine is a better candidate than most. Preserved specimens include ethanol-stored pups that have yielded a nearly complete genome, and the fat-tailed dunnart has been proposed as a genetic template and surrogate. Serious obstacles remain: the size difference between a dunnart and a thylacine is enormous, marsupial reproductive technology is far less developed than the equivalent for placental mammals, and no marsupial has yet been cloned. Even a technical success would produce an edited dunnart genome expressing thylacine traits rather than a resurrected species, and it would emerge into a Tasmania whose ecology has moved on by ninety years. The argument for the work is largely that the techniques developed may help living marsupials, including the Tasmanian devil, which is currently being pushed toward extinction by a transmissible facial cancer.

## What this extinction teaches
A government can legislate a species out of existence and grant it protection in the same lifetime. The thylacine bounty ran for 21 years on an evidence base that later analysis showed was wrong — which is why conservation policy now demands population data before predator-control decisions, not after.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Tasmanian devil (Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the thylacine. The thylacine's closest surviving relative, on the same island, now facing a transmissible facial cancer that has cut wild numbers by more than 80% since 1996. Insurance populations and disease-resistant breeding are the only things standing between it and the same ending.

## Did you know
The thylacine could open its jaws to roughly 80 degrees — wide enough that early film footage of a captive animal yawning was long mistaken for aggression. It is one of the widest gapes recorded in any mammal.


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

## When did the Tasmanian tiger go extinct?
The last known thylacine died in captivity at Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart, on 7 September 1936. The IUCN formally declared the species extinct in 1982, and modelling of the sighting record suggests the true wild extinction probably occurred in the 1940s or 1950s.

## Was the thylacine a tiger or a wolf?
Neither. It was a marsupial, more closely related to kangaroos and Tasmanian devils than to any dog or cat. Its wolf-like build is convergent evolution — an unrelated lineage evolving the same shape for the same predatory role.

## Why was there a bounty on thylacines?
Tasmania's sheep farming industry blamed thylacines for livestock losses. The government bounty ran from 1888 to 1909 and paid out on 2,184 animals. Later research indicates thylacines killed far fewer sheep than claimed, with feral dogs responsible for much of the loss.

## Have there been thylacine sightings since 1936?
Thousands have been reported, but none has produced verifiable photographic, physical or DNA evidence despite decades of organised searching and camera trapping. Scientists treat the species as extinct.

## Are scientists bringing back the thylacine?
A well-funded de-extinction project is working on it using a near-complete thylacine genome and the fat-tailed dunnart as a template species. The result, if achieved, would be a genetically edited marsupial expressing thylacine traits rather than a true restoration of the species.


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

## One-line answer
The passenger pigeon was the most abundant bird in North America — an estimated 3 to 5 billion birds — and went from that number to extinct in roughly fifty years, with the last individual, Martha, dying at Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914.

## Introduction
No extinction in recorded history is as difficult to accept as the passenger pigeon's. This was not a rare island endemic clinging on in one valley. It was the most numerous bird on the planet, accounting for something between a quarter and two-fifths of all birds in North America. Flocks took days to pass overhead and broke the limbs off mature trees when they roosted. Within a single human lifetime, commercial hunting and forest clearance reduced billions of birds to one elderly female in an Ohio zoo. It is the clearest evidence there is that abundance guarantees nothing.

## When and where it went extinct
Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius (Linnaeus, 1766)) went extinct: 1914. Range: Eastern and central North America. Martha died at Cincinnati Zoo at about 1pm on 1 September 1914.

## Causes of extinction
Passenger pigeon extinction causes: Industrial-scale commercial hunting supplied by railways and telegraph; Deforestation of the eastern North American hardwood forests; Collapse of colonial breeding behaviour below a critical density.

## Takeaway
Peak population is estimated at 3 to 5 billion — the most abundant bird species ever recorded, and possibly 25 to 40% of all birds in North America.

## Takeaway
A single 1871 nesting in Wisconsin covered roughly 850 square miles and was estimated at 136 million breeding birds.

## Takeaway
The railway and the telegraph industrialised the slaughter: telegraph reported flock locations, and railways carried hunters in and barrels of dead birds out to city markets within a day.

## Takeaway
The species bred colonially and appears to have needed enormous colonies to breed successfully at all. Below a critical density, reproduction failed even where birds survived.

## Takeaway
The last confirmed wild bird was shot in Ohio around 1900. Martha, the last of the species, died in Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914.

## Takeaway
The extinction directly drove early American conservation law, including the 1900 Lacey Act and the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

## How did billions of birds disappear?
Two forces worked together, and neither alone would have been enough. The first was commercial hunting on an industrial scale. Passenger pigeons were cheap protein for growing cities, and by the 1860s the trade was fully mechanised: telegraph operators reported flock movements, railways delivered professional hunters to nesting sites within hours, and refrigerated cars carried barrels of carcasses to New York and Chicago. Hunters used nets, fire, sulphur smoke and stool pigeons — live birds sewn to a perch to lure flocks down. The second force was the felling of the eastern hardwood forest. Passenger pigeons depended on the mast crop of beech and oak, and the forest that produced it was cut for timber and farmland across the same decades. A bird that needs both vast forests and vast flocks lost both at once.


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

## Why couldn't the last thousands recover?
This is the part that changed conservation science. Passenger pigeons appear to have been obligate colonial breeders — they needed enormous aggregations to breed at all. Massive colonies overwhelmed predators through sheer numbers, a strategy called predator satiation, and there is evidence the birds required the social stimulus of a large flock to come into breeding condition. Once the colonies were broken up, the remaining birds could not reproduce successfully even in places where they were not being shot. Attempts to breed the species in captivity in the final decades produced almost nothing. This is now recognised as a form of the Allee effect: below a threshold density, a population's per-capita growth rate goes negative and decline becomes self-sustaining. Thousands of birds remained long after the species was already doomed.

## What the extinction changed
The passenger pigeon did more for conservation dead than alive. Public revulsion at the extinction — an animal so numerous it had seemed inexhaustible, gone inside fifty years — fed directly into the first serious American wildlife legislation. The Lacey Act of 1900 banned interstate trade in illegally taken wildlife, striking at the commercial machinery that had done the killing. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, signed four years after Martha died, made it illegal to take or sell migratory birds without a permit and remains one of the strongest wildlife statutes in the United States. Martha's body was frozen into a 140 kg block of ice and shipped to the Smithsonian, where she remains. She is arguably the single most consequential specimen in the history of conservation.

## What this extinction teaches
Abundance is not safety, and population counts alone can hide a collapse already in motion. Species with density-dependent breeding — colonial seabirds, schooling fish, herd migrators — can pass the point of no return while millions of individuals are still alive.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Vaquita (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the passenger pigeon. The mirror image and the same lesson: roughly 10 animals remain, below any plausible density for recovery. The passenger pigeon proved that a population can be doomed while it still looks large — the vaquita is what the last chapter looks like when we can still see it happening.

## Did you know
Flocks were described as darkening the sky for days. The ornithologist Alexander Wilson estimated one Kentucky flock at over 2 billion birds — and noted that the sound of their wings resembled a hard gale at sea.


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

## How many passenger pigeons were there?
Estimates put the peak population at 3 to 5 billion birds, possibly 25 to 40% of all birds in North America. A single 1871 Wisconsin nesting was estimated at 136 million breeding birds across roughly 850 square miles.

## When did the passenger pigeon go extinct?
The species became extinct on 1 September 1914, when Martha, the last known individual, died at Cincinnati Zoo. The last confirmed wild bird was shot in Ohio around 1900.

## Why did the passenger pigeon go extinct so fast?
Industrial-scale commercial hunting, enabled by railways and the telegraph, combined with the clearing of the eastern hardwood forests the birds depended on for food. Colonial breeding then failed once flock sizes fell below a critical density, so the remaining birds could not reproduce.

## Who was Martha the passenger pigeon?
Martha was the last passenger pigeon on Earth, an elderly female who lived at Cincinnati Zoo and died at around 1pm on 1 September 1914. Her body was preserved in ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is still held.

## Could the passenger pigeon be brought back?
A de-extinction project is attempting it by editing band-tailed pigeon genomes with passenger pigeon sequences from museum specimens. Even if birds are produced, the species' colonial breeding behaviour may be impossible to recreate without the billions of individuals that made it work.


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

## One-line answer
The woolly mammoth was a cold-adapted elephant relative that died out across its mainland range around 10,000 years ago, with a final isolated population surviving on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until roughly 4,000 years ago — meaning mammoths were still alive when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built.

## Introduction
The woolly mammoth is the animal most people picture when they think of the ice age, and the one whose extinction is most often described wrongly. It did not vanish in a single dramatic event. Mainland populations declined over thousands of years as the mammoth steppe — a vast, dry, grassy ecosystem that once stretched from Spain to Canada — was replaced by wet tundra and forest as the climate warmed. Human hunting pushed already-shrinking populations further. A remnant survived on Wrangel Island until around 2000 BCE, long enough to overlap with ancient Egypt.

## When and where it went extinct
Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799)) went extinct: c. 4,000 years ago (final population, Wrangel Island). Range: Northern Eurasia and North America — the mammoth steppe.

## Causes of extinction
Woolly mammoth extinction causes: Rapid warming at the end of the last ice age destroying the mammoth steppe; Human hunting pressure on already-fragmented populations; Genetic collapse in the final isolated island populations.

## Takeaway
Woolly mammoths are more closely related to Asian elephants than Asian elephants are to African elephants — the mammoth and Asian elephant lineages split around 6 million years ago.

## Takeaway
Mainland populations died out around 10,000 years ago as the mammoth steppe collapsed; the Wrangel Island population survived until roughly 4,000 years ago.

## Takeaway
Mammoths were still alive when the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed, around 2560 BCE — one of the most reliably surprising facts in palaeontology.

## Takeaway
Genomic work on the Wrangel population found an accumulation of harmful mutations, a phenomenon known as genomic meltdown, consistent with long-term inbreeding in a tiny isolated group.

## Takeaway
The debate over climate versus hunting is largely settled as "both": climate change fragmented and shrank the populations, and hunting pressure on those fragments removed the capacity to recover.

## Takeaway
Permafrost preservation makes the mammoth one of the best-sequenced extinct animals, which is why it dominates de-extinction discussion.

## What killed the woolly mammoth?
The long-running argument between climate change and human hunting has resolved into a combined answer, with the balance differing by region. As the last glacial period ended roughly 12,000 years ago, warming and increased precipitation converted the mammoth steppe — a dry, cold, highly productive grassland — into wet tundra, bog and expanding forest. That ecosystem could not support herds of six-tonne grazers, and mammoth range fragmented into shrinking pockets. Human hunters were present across much of that range and killed mammoths for meat, hide and ivory. Modelling work indicates hunting alone could not have caused the extinction, and climate alone would likely have left refugial populations, but the combination was decisive: climate created small isolated groups, and predation on small isolated groups prevents recovery. The final Wrangel population then faced a third problem, being too genetically depleted to persist even without either pressure.


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

## The Wrangel Island endgame
A population of woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, off the northeastern Siberian coast, for around 6,000 years after their mainland relatives died out. Sea-level rise had cut the island off, isolating a small founder group. Genomic analysis of these animals found an accumulation of deleterious mutations that natural selection in a tiny population could not purge — reduced olfactory receptors, altered urinary proteins associated with mate choice, and a translucent satin coat defect. Researchers have described the pattern as genomic meltdown. A 2024 analysis complicated the simple story by showing the population was genetically stable for most of its 6,000 years, suggesting the final disappearance may have been abrupt — possibly a disease event or a single bad season — rather than a slow genetic decline. Either way, the island mammoths are the clearest available case study in what happens to a species reduced to one small isolated group, which is the position a great many living species now occupy.

## Should the woolly mammoth be brought back?
The mammoth is the flagship de-extinction target because permafrost has preserved usable genetic material, the genome is well sequenced, and a close living relative exists in the Asian elephant. The stated ecological argument is that restoring large grazers to the Arctic could help maintain grassland, which reflects more sunlight than forest and may slow permafrost thaw. The objections are substantial. The product would be a genetically modified Asian elephant carrying mammoth cold-adaptation genes, not a mammoth. Asian elephants are themselves Endangered, and the process would involve experimental reproductive procedures on a threatened species. Elephants are long-lived, highly social animals whose calves learn behaviour from herds that would not exist. And the funding involved could protect very large areas of habitat for elephants that are alive now. The scientific interest is real; the conservation case is contested, and this site's position is that living elephants have the stronger claim on limited money.

## What this extinction teaches
A species does not need to be hunted to zero to be finished. Habitat change that fragments a population into small isolated groups does most of the work, and the final groups then fail from inbreeding and chance. That is the exact process now running on forest elephants, tigers and orangutans as their ranges break into islands.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Asian elephant (Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the woolly mammoth. The mammoth's closest living relative, now down to roughly 48,000–52,000 wild animals in fragmented pockets across 13 countries. The habitat fragmentation that finished the mammoth is the primary threat to the Asian elephant today — and this one can still be prevented.

## Did you know
Mammoth tusks grew continuously and recorded growth in daily layers, so a single tusk preserves a life history — one 17,000-year-old Alaskan male's tusk showed he travelled far enough in his 28 years to have circled the Earth nearly twice.


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

## When did woolly mammoths go extinct?
Mainland populations died out around 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. A final isolated population survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until roughly 4,000 years ago.

## Were mammoths alive when the pyramids were built?
Yes. The Wrangel Island mammoths persisted until around 2000 BCE, several centuries after the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed around 2560 BCE.

## Did humans kill all the mammoths?
Not alone. The scientific consensus is that climate change at the end of the last glacial period destroyed the mammoth steppe and fragmented populations, and human hunting on those small fragmented populations prevented recovery. Neither factor is sufficient on its own.

## What is the mammoth's closest living relative?
The Asian elephant. Mammoths and Asian elephants share a more recent common ancestor with each other than either does with the African elephant.

## Can woolly mammoths be cloned?
Not by true cloning — no intact living cell has been recovered from permafrost. Current de-extinction work aims to edit Asian elephant cells with mammoth cold-adaptation genes, producing a modified elephant with mammoth traits rather than a restored mammoth.


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

## One-line answer
The great auk was a flightless North Atlantic seabird — the original "penguin" — killed for its down, meat and oil until the last confirmed pair was strangled on the Icelandic island of Eldey on 3 June 1844, with the female's single egg crushed underfoot.

## Introduction
The great auk was a metre-tall flightless seabird that bred on remote North Atlantic islands and swam with a speed and grace that left it defenceless on land. It was the original penguin: the name was applied to it centuries before Europeans reached the Southern Hemisphere, and the Antarctic birds were named after it by resemblance. Its extinction is unusually well documented, and unusually damning, because the last stage was driven not by hunger but by collectors who wanted specimens precisely because the bird was nearly gone.

## When and where it went extinct
Great auk (Pinguinus impennis (Linnaeus, 1758)) went extinct: 3 June 1844. Range: North Atlantic — Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Britain, Scandinavia. The last confirmed pair was killed on Eldey, Iceland, on 3 June 1844.

## Causes of extinction
Great auk extinction causes: Harvesting for down, meat, oil and fishing bait; Collecting by museums and private collectors as the bird became rare; Loss of safe breeding islands.

## Takeaway
The great auk was the original "penguin". European sailors applied the name to it first; Antarctic penguins were named later for their resemblance, despite being unrelated.

## Takeaway
It stood about 75–85 cm tall, was flightless, and was an exceptional swimmer capable of diving deep in pursuit of fish.

## Takeaway
A single egg per year gave the species almost no capacity to absorb losses from harvesting.

## Takeaway
Great auks had been exploited for millennia — Neanderthal and early human sites contain their bones — but industrial-scale harvesting for down in the 1700s caused the collapse.

## Takeaway
The final phase was driven by collectors. As the bird became rare, museum and private specimen prices rose, and rarity itself became the incentive to kill the remaining birds.

## Takeaway
The last confirmed pair was killed on Eldey, Iceland, on 3 June 1844 by three fishermen commissioned by a collector. The egg the female was incubating was crushed in the process.

## How was the great auk hunted to extinction?
Great auks bred in dense colonies on a small number of low, flat, predator-free islands, and they could not fly. Sailors could walk among them and kill them with clubs, or drive them up gangplanks directly into ships' holds. For centuries this was subsistence and provisioning: fishing fleets crossing the Atlantic used auk colonies as reliable food and bait stations. The lethal escalation came in the eighteenth century, when the European eiderdown trade collapsed local eider populations and harvesters turned to great auks for feathers. Crews were landed on breeding islands for entire seasons to kill birds, strip the down and boil the carcasses for oil, using the bodies of previous birds as fuel. Newfoundland's Funk Island colony, the largest known, was destroyed this way. By 1800 the species was reduced to a handful of Icelandic skerries.


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

## The collectors who finished the job
The great auk's last years established a pattern that still drives wildlife trafficking today: rarity increases value, and increased value accelerates extinction. As the species became scarce, European museums and wealthy private collectors competed for skins and eggs, and prices climbed steeply. Icelandic fishermen were paid to raid the remaining colonies. The volcanic island of Geirfuglasker, the last major refuge, was destroyed by eruption in 1830, driving survivors to the more accessible Eldey. There, on 3 June 1844, three fishermen — Jón Brandsson, Sigurður Ísleifsson and Ketill Ketilsson — commissioned by a collector, strangled the last known pair. The egg the female was incubating was cracked underfoot and abandoned. The same economics operate now on totoaba swim bladders, pangolin scales and rhino horn: as supply falls, price rises, and the incentive to take the last individuals grows rather than shrinks.

## What this extinction teaches
Rarity raises price, and price accelerates extinction. Any species whose value to traffickers increases as it becomes scarcer is in a self-reinforcing spiral that market forces will not correct — which is why enforcement and demand reduction, not scarcity, are the only things that stop it.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Vaquita (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the great auk. Roughly 10 remain, drowning in gillnets set for totoaba, whose swim bladders rise in value with every fish removed. The great auk's extinction economics are running again in the Gulf of California, on a shorter timescale.

## Did you know
The word "penguin" belonged to the great auk for at least a century before anyone in Europe had seen an Antarctic bird — which means the birds we now call penguins are, etymologically, named after a North Atlantic seabird that no longer exists.


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

## When did the great auk go extinct?
The last confirmed pair was killed on the island of Eldey, Iceland, on 3 June 1844. A possible sighting off Newfoundland in 1852 is the last credible record of the species.

## Was the great auk a penguin?
It was the original penguin by name but not by relationship. European sailors called it a penguin first; Antarctic penguins were named after it for their similar appearance. The great auk was an auk, most closely related to the razorbill.

## Why was the great auk killed?
Initially for meat, eggs, oil and fishing bait. The collapse came from industrial harvesting for down after European eider populations were depleted. The final individuals were killed to supply museum and private specimen collectors.

## How many great auk specimens survive?
Approximately 78 skins and 75 eggs are held in museums and collections worldwide, along with a number of skeletons and bone assemblages.

## Could the great auk be de-extincted?
It has been proposed, using razorbill genomes edited with great auk DNA from specimens. The technical barriers are the same as for other bird de-extinction projects, and no viable programme has yet been established.


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

## One-line answer
The baiji was a freshwater dolphin found only in China's Yangtze River, declared functionally extinct in 2006 after a six-week survey of the entire river found none — the first cetacean driven to extinction by human activity.

## Introduction
The baiji is the most recent large-animal extinction and, for conservation, the most instructive, because it happened in full view with everyone watching. It was a freshwater dolphin that had lived in the Yangtze for around 20 million years, nearly blind, navigating the muddy river by echolocation. It was not hunted. It drowned in fishing gear, was struck by ships, and lost its river to dams and industry. A 2006 expedition surveyed the entire historical range with the best equipment available and found nothing. The species was declared functionally extinct — the first cetacean lost to human activity, and the first large vertebrate extinction in over fifty years.

## When and where it went extinct
Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer (Miller, 1918)) went extinct: Declared functionally extinct in 2006. Range: The Yangtze River, China.

## Causes of extinction
Baiji extinction causes: Bycatch in fishing gear, especially rolling hook longlines and electrofishing; Dam construction fragmenting the river and blocking fish migration; Ship traffic — collisions and acoustic interference with echolocation; Industrial pollution and habitat degradation.

## Takeaway
The baiji was in the Yangtze for roughly 20 million years and had no close living relatives — its loss removed an entire mammalian family, not just a species.

## Takeaway
It was functionally blind, navigating one of the world's muddiest rivers entirely by sonar, which made heavy ship traffic both a collision hazard and an acoustic one.

## Takeaway
Nobody hunted the baiji deliberately. It died from bycatch, ship strikes, dam construction and pollution — the cumulative effect of an industrialising river.

## Takeaway
The population fell from about 400 in the 1980s to 13 counted in 1997. The 2006 survey of the full range found none.

## Takeaway
It is the first documented human-caused cetacean extinction and the first large vertebrate extinction since the Caribbean monk seal and Japanese sea lion in the 1950s.

## Takeaway
The conservation plan that could have saved it — moving animals into a protected oxbow reserve — was well understood and repeatedly delayed. The delay was the cause of death.

## How was the baiji lost without anyone hunting it?
The baiji is the definitive case of extinction by accumulation. No single actor set out to kill it. Fishermen using rolling hook longlines — unbaited hooks strung across the riverbed — snagged and drowned dolphins as bycatch, and electrofishing killed both dolphins and the fish they ate. Cargo traffic on one of the world's busiest rivers struck animals directly and filled the acoustic environment with engine noise, degrading the sonar a functionally blind animal depended on to feed and navigate. Dam construction, above all the Gezhouba and Three Gorges projects, fragmented the river and blocked the fish migrations the baiji fed on. Industrial and agricultural pollutants accumulated in the water. Each pressure alone was survivable. Together, across four decades of rapid industrialisation, they were not.


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

## The rescue that was always about to happen
The tragedy of the baiji is that the solution was known and agreed for two decades before it was needed. Conservationists proposed as early as the 1980s that animals be captured and moved to the Tian-e-Zhou oxbow, a protected side-channel of the Yangtze where they could breed away from shipping and fishing gear. The plan had scientific support, government awareness and international backing. It was not executed at scale in time. A small number of capture attempts were made; one male, Qi Qi, lived in a research facility for 22 years, and a female captured in 1995 died within months. By the time serious effort was mobilised there were too few animals left to find. The Tian-e-Zhou reserve now holds a thriving population of Yangtze finless porpoises — proof the approach works, applied to the second species after the first was lost.

## What is happening to the Yangtze finless porpoise?
The Yangtze finless porpoise shares the baiji's river and faces every pressure that killed it. It is listed as Critically Endangered, with recent surveys estimating around 1,200 animals. The difference is that the lesson was taken. China imposed a ten-year total fishing ban on the Yangtze from 2021, established protected reserves, and moved animals into oxbow lakes including Tian-e-Zhou for managed breeding. The 2022 survey recorded the first population increase in decades. It is the clearest evidence available that this class of extinction is preventable when intervention arrives before the population reaches double digits — and the clearest evidence of what the baiji's outcome cost, since precisely this programme, applied twenty years earlier, would have saved it.

## What this extinction teaches
Extinction rarely needs a villain. Bycatch, noise, dams and pollution killed the baiji while everyone agreed it should be saved and the rescue plan sat ready. Delay is a cause of death, and a well-understood conservation plan that is not funded is indistinguishable from no plan at all.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Indus river dolphin (Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the baiji. Another functionally blind freshwater dolphin in another heavily industrialised river system, facing the same combination of bycatch, irrigation barrages, boat traffic and pollution. Around 2,000 remain in a fraction of their original range — the baiji's position in the 1970s, with the outcome still open.

## Did you know
The baiji was called the "Goddess of the Yangtze" and features in Chinese texts going back more than 2,000 years — the species outlasted every dynasty in Chinese history and then disappeared inside a single human generation.


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

## When did the baiji go extinct?
It was declared functionally extinct in 2006, after a six-week survey covering the entire historical range of the Yangtze failed to find a single animal. Unconfirmed sightings have been reported since, but no verified individual has been recorded.

## What does "functionally extinct" mean?
It means that even if a few individuals survive, there are too few for the population to reproduce and recover. The species is no longer viable, whether or not the very last animal has died.

## What killed the baiji?
No single cause. Bycatch in fishing gear, especially rolling hook longlines and electrofishing, plus ship strikes, dam construction, acoustic disturbance and pollution across four decades of rapid Yangtze industrialisation.

## Was the baiji hunted?
Not systematically in the modern era. Its extinction came almost entirely from accidental death and habitat destruction rather than deliberate killing, which is what makes it such a significant case study.

## Are there other river dolphins left?
Yes. The Ganges and Indus river dolphins, the Amazon river dolphin (boto) and the Yangtze finless porpoise all survive, and all are threatened. The Yangtze finless porpoise, in the baiji's own river, has begun to increase following a ten-year fishing ban and reserve programme.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/western-black-rhino): Western black rhino — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
The western black rhino was a subspecies of black rhino found in west-central Africa, declared extinct by the IUCN in 2011 after surveys in northern Cameroon found no surviving animals — poaching for horn was the sole significant cause.

## Introduction
The western black rhino is the most recent large mammal extinction, and the one with the least ambiguity about its cause. There is no climate debate here, no habitat argument, no accumulation of small pressures. Poachers killed them for horn. Surveys of the last known range in northern Cameroon in 2006 found no animals, and the IUCN declared the subspecies extinct in 2011. It is the reference case for what happens when anti-poaching funding fails in a range state, and it is a live warning for every rhino population still standing.

## When and where it went extinct
Western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes (Zukowsky, 1949)) went extinct: Declared extinct 2011 (last seen 2006). Range: Savanna of west and central Africa — final population in northern Cameroon.

## Causes of extinction
Western black rhino extinction causes: Poaching for horn to supply traditional medicine and status markets; Failure of anti-poaching enforcement in the final range; Political instability and lack of sustained conservation funding.

## Takeaway
The western black rhino was declared extinct by the IUCN in 2011; the last confirmed sighting was in 2006 in northern Cameroon.

## Takeaway
Poaching for horn was the overwhelming cause. Unlike most extinctions, there is no meaningful secondary factor.

## Takeaway
The population fell from several hundred in 1980 to fewer than ten by 2001 — a collapse of roughly two decades.

## Takeaway
Rhino horn is keratin, chemically the same as hair and fingernails, with no demonstrated medicinal effect. The entire market rests on a false premise.

## Takeaway
The northern white rhino is now in the same position: two females remain, both unable to carry a pregnancy, and the subspecies is functionally extinct.

## Takeaway
Black rhinos as a species survive. Focused anti-poaching work has lifted total numbers from around 2,400 in 1995 to over 6,400 — proof that funded protection works when it arrives.

## Why did the western black rhino go extinct?
Poaching, and the failure to stop it. Rhino horn commands extreme prices in illegal markets in parts of Asia, driven by traditional medicine claims and status consumption, and the western black rhino's final range in northern Cameroon had almost no effective protection. Anti-poaching patrols were underfunded and undermanned across a large, remote area, and regional instability made sustained enforcement harder still. Survey teams in 2006 searched the last known habitat and found only old signs — no animals, no fresh tracks, no dung. The IUCN waited five years before formally declaring extinction, the standard precaution against premature declarations, and confirmed it in 2011. The point that matters for present-day conservation is that this was not a species with an intractable biological problem. It needed armed patrols, sustained funding and political stability in one region for two decades. It did not get them.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/western-black-rhino): Western black rhino — extinct animal profile.

## The horn market that has no basis
Rhino horn is compacted keratin, the same structural protein as hair, fingernails and hooves. Clinical evidence for any medicinal property is absent, and the traditional-medicine claims — fever reduction, detoxification, and in more recent marketing, cancer treatment — are not supported. Newer demand is driven substantially by status: horn as a luxury gift, an investment asset, or a display of wealth. This matters because it changes what conservation has to do. A demand rooted in status does not respond to evidence that the product does not work, so demand-reduction campaigns aimed at debunking medical claims have limited effect on the segment doing the most damage. Enforcement, prosecution of trafficking networks, and protection at the animal have carried most of the load — which is precisely what the western black rhino's range never received.

## What this means for the rhinos still here
Five rhino species survive, and the picture is not uniformly bleak. Black rhino numbers have risen from a low of around 2,400 in 1995 to over 6,400 today, entirely because of funded anti-poaching operations, translocation programmes and community conservancy work — the same interventions the western subspecies never got. The greater one-horned rhino has recovered from fewer than 200 animals to over 4,000. Against that, the Javan rhino is down to roughly 76 animals in a single Indonesian park, the Sumatran rhino to fewer than 50 in fragmented pockets, and the northern white rhino to two females who cannot carry a pregnancy. The lesson from the western black rhino is not that rhinos are doomed. It is that the difference between recovery and extinction is whether protection is funded before the population reaches double digits.

## What this extinction teaches
This extinction had one cause and one solution, and the solution was well understood the entire time. When a species needs sustained anti-poaching funding and does not get it, the outcome is predictable — and it is the outcome the Javan and Sumatran rhinos are currently heading toward.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Javan rhino (Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the western black rhino. Roughly 76 animals in one Indonesian national park — every Javan rhino on Earth in a single location, vulnerable to one poaching incursion, one disease outbreak or one volcanic event. This is the western black rhino's position in the 1990s.

## Did you know
A black rhino's prehensile upper lip works like a finger, gripping and stripping branches — it is the fastest way to tell a black rhino from a white rhino, whose wide flat lip is built for grazing grass.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/western-black-rhino): Western black rhino — extinct animal profile.

## When was the western black rhino declared extinct?
The IUCN declared the subspecies extinct in 2011. The last confirmed sighting was in 2006 in northern Cameroon, and the five-year gap reflects the standard caution before a formal declaration.

## What killed the western black rhino?
Poaching for horn, with essentially no significant secondary cause. Anti-poaching enforcement in its final Cameroonian range was underfunded and unable to protect a small, scattered population.

## Are black rhinos extinct?
No. The western black rhino was one subspecies. Black rhinos as a species survive and are recovering, rising from about 2,400 animals in 1995 to over 6,400 today thanks to funded anti-poaching and translocation work.

## Does rhino horn have medicinal value?
No. Rhino horn is keratin, the same protein as human hair and fingernails, and there is no clinical evidence supporting the traditional medicine claims made for it. Much current demand is driven by status rather than medicine.

## Which rhinos are closest to extinction now?
The northern white rhino is functionally extinct with two females remaining, neither able to carry a pregnancy. The Sumatran rhino numbers fewer than 50 animals, and the Javan rhino roughly 76 in a single park.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/steller-sea-cow): Steller's sea cow — extinct animal profile.

## One-line answer
Steller's sea cow was a nine-metre marine mammal of the Bering Sea, discovered by Europeans in 1741 and hunted to extinction by 1768 — just 27 years, the shortest interval between scientific description and extinction of any large animal.

## Introduction
Steller's sea cow holds a record no species should: 27 years from formal scientific description to extinction. It was an enormous, slow, docile relative of the manatee and dugong, up to nine metres long and possibly ten tonnes, grazing kelp in the frigid shallows of the Commander Islands. Georg Steller described it in 1741 while shipwrecked on Bering Island. Fur-trade crews working the North Pacific used the animals as a convenient meat supply, and by 1768 there were none. The population Steller found was already a tiny relict — a few thousand animals — which is why it took so little to finish.

## When and where it went extinct
Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas (Zimmermann, 1780)) went extinct: 1768 — 27 years after being described by science. Range: Commander Islands, Bering Sea.

## Causes of extinction
Steller's sea cow extinction causes: Hunting by fur-trade crews for meat as ship provisions; A tiny relict population with no reserve capacity; Loss of kelp forest food supply as sea otters were hunted out.

## Takeaway
Steller's sea cow was the largest member of the order Sirenia ever recorded — up to 9 m long and possibly 10 tonnes, dwarfing living manatees and dugongs.

## Takeaway
It went extinct in 1768, only 27 years after Georg Steller described it in 1741 — the shortest documented gap between scientific description and extinction for any large animal.

## Takeaway
It could not submerge fully and grazed kelp at the surface, which made it trivially easy to harpoon from a boat.

## Takeaway
The population Steller encountered was already a relict of a few thousand animals confined to the Commander Islands; the species had once ranged across the North Pacific rim.

## Takeaway
Steller observed the animals defending an injured companion, returning repeatedly to a harpooned individual — behaviour that made systematic hunting more efficient rather than less.

## Takeaway
Sea otter hunting in the same period removed the predators that control sea urchins, and urchin grazing degrades kelp forest — so the fur trade attacked the sea cow's food supply at the same time as the sea cow.

## How was a species eliminated in 27 years?
Because there were very few left when Europeans found it, and because it was almost impossible to miss. By 1741 Steller's sea cow survived only around the uninhabited Commander Islands, a relict population of a few thousand animals. Fossil evidence shows the species once ranged widely around the North Pacific rim; earlier human hunting had already reduced it to that final refuge. The animals were enormous, slow, unafraid, and unable to dive — they grazed kelp at the surface in shallow water within easy reach of a boat. Russian fur-trade expeditions working the Aleutian and Commander chain found them an ideal provisioning stop: one animal yielded enormous quantities of meat and fat that kept well. Steller also recorded that injured animals were attended by others, which made repeat kills easier. Crews took far more than they used, wounding animals that drifted away and died. A population of a few thousand large, slow-breeding mammals cannot absorb that for three decades.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/steller-sea-cow): Steller's sea cow — extinct animal profile.

## The kelp forest connection
The sea cow's extinction is a textbook trophic cascade, and it is why the species appears in ecology courses rather than only in extinction lists. Sea otters eat sea urchins. Sea urchins eat kelp. When the Russian fur trade removed sea otters from the North Pacific on an industrial scale, urchin populations expanded and grazed kelp forests down to bare rock — a state marine ecologists call an urchin barren. Steller's sea cow was an obligate kelp grazer. So at the same time as crews were killing sea cows directly, the trade in a different species was destroying the only food the sea cow ate. This is the mechanism that makes single-species conservation insufficient: the fur trade never targeted sea cows as an industry, but it removed their food supply as a side effect, and the two pressures together closed the window in under thirty years.

## What this extinction teaches
A species can be destroyed by a trade that never targets it, through the food web. Protecting one animal while removing the species it depends on is not protection — which is why modern marine conservation works on whole systems, from kelp forests to coral reefs, rather than on charismatic animals alone.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Dugong (Vulnerable) faces the pressure that ended the steller's sea cow. Steller's sea cow's closest surviving relative, and an obligate seagrass grazer facing exactly the analogous problem: its food meadows are being lost to coastal development, dredging, boat scarring and warming seas. Some regional dugong populations are already listed as Critically Endangered.

## Did you know
Steller wrote the only scientific account of the living animal while shipwrecked on Bering Island during the winter of 1741–42, and the crew survived partly by eating the species he was describing — the sole eyewitness record of a species is also, in part, a record of eating it.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/extinct-animals/steller-sea-cow): Steller's sea cow — extinct animal profile.

## When did Steller's sea cow go extinct?
In 1768, just 27 years after Georg Steller described it in 1741 — the shortest recorded interval between the scientific description of a large animal and its extinction.

## How big was Steller's sea cow?
Up to about 9 metres long and an estimated 8 to 10 tonnes, making it by far the largest sirenian ever recorded — several times the size of a modern manatee or dugong.

## What killed Steller's sea cow?
Hunting by Russian fur-trade crews using the animals as ship provisions, applied to a relict population of only a few thousand. The simultaneous collapse of kelp forests, caused by sea otter hunting, removed its food supply.

## What are its closest living relatives?
The dugong and the manatees, all members of the order Sirenia. The dugong is the closest surviving relative and is currently listed as Vulnerable, with several regional populations far worse off.

## Could it still survive somewhere?
No credible evidence supports survival. Unverified reports surfaced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but a nine-metre surface-grazing mammal in shallow coastal water is not a species that could go unrecorded for 250 years.


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

## One-line answer
The quagga was a southern African zebra with stripes only on its head, neck and forequarters, hunted out in the wild by the 1870s; the last individual died in Amsterdam Zoo on 12 August 1883, with no one aware at the time that the species had ended.

## Introduction
The quagga was a zebra that had given up on stripes halfway down its body — boldly marked at the head and neck, fading to plain brown across the hindquarters. It grazed the Karoo of South Africa in large numbers until European settlers shot it out for meat, hides, and to free grass for sheep and cattle. The wild population was gone by the 1870s. The last individual, a mare in Amsterdam, died in 1883, and nobody recorded it as an ending: the animal was assumed to be one of many, and no one had noticed that the species had already stopped existing everywhere else.

## When and where it went extinct
Quagga (Equus quagga quagga (Boddaert, 1785)) went extinct: 12 August 1883. Range: The Karoo and southern Free State, South Africa. The last quagga died at Artis Magistra zoo, Amsterdam, on 12 August 1883.

## Causes of extinction
Quagga extinction causes: Mass hunting by settlers for meat, hide and to clear grazing for livestock; No recognition that the wild population had collapsed until it was over; No captive breeding attempt while animals remained in European zoos.

## Takeaway
The quagga was not a separate species but a subspecies of the plains zebra — established in 1984 when it became the first extinct animal to have its DNA analysed.

## Takeaway
Its stripe pattern faded from bold at the head to absent at the rear, a variation unlike any zebra alive today.

## Takeaway
Settlers hunted quaggas in enormous numbers for meat and hides, and to remove grazing competition for domestic livestock.

## Takeaway
The wild population was gone by the 1870s. The last individual died in Amsterdam on 12 August 1883.

## Takeaway
Nobody realised at the time. The Amsterdam mare's death was recorded as an ordinary zoo death, and the species' extinction was recognised only afterwards.

## Takeaway
The Quagga Project has selectively bred plains zebras since 1987 toward the quagga's reduced-stripe appearance, producing animals that resemble it — a lookalike, not a restoration.

## Why did the quagga go extinct?
European settlement of the Cape brought commercial hunting on a scale the Karoo's grazing herds could not sustain. Quaggas were shot for meat to feed farm labourers, for hides that were traded and used locally, and — most decisively — to remove them from grazing land wanted for sheep and cattle. There was no legal protection, no population monitoring and no sense that a common animal could run out. Hunting continued at full intensity right through the final decline, because the concept of a species being finite was not part of how the land was managed. By the 1870s no wild quaggas remained. A handful survived in European zoos, but no coordinated breeding was attempted, in part because the animals were not recognised as the last of anything.


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

## Can selective breeding bring the quagga back?
The Quagga Project, running in South Africa since 1987, has selectively bred plains zebras showing reduced striping, generation after generation, and has produced animals that look strikingly like historical quagga specimens. The genetic basis is sound in one narrow sense: the 1984 DNA work showed the quagga was a plains zebra subspecies, so the relevant genetic variation may still exist within the living population. But what selective breeding recovers is appearance. It does not restore the quagga's specific genome, its adaptation to the Karoo, or whatever behavioural and physiological traits went with it. The project is best understood as producing zebras that resemble quaggas — which has real value for public engagement and for restoring a grazer to Karoo habitat, but is not the same as undoing the extinction. The distinction matters because "we brought it back" is a story that makes extinction sound reversible, and it is not.

## What this extinction teaches
A species can end without anyone noticing, because common animals are not monitored. Population data on abundant species is the cheapest insurance in conservation, and it is routinely the first thing cut — which is why several once-common species are now in decline that no one has quantified.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Zebra (Endangered — Grévy's zebra) faces the pressure that ended the quagga. The quagga was a plains zebra, and its surviving relatives show the range of outcomes. Plains zebras remain widespread; Grévy's zebra has fallen from around 15,000 in the 1970s to roughly 2,000 in Kenya and Ethiopia, squeezed by livestock competition for grazing and water. The same pressure that ended the quagga, on a population we are actually counting this time.

## Did you know
Five photographs exist of a living quagga, all of one mare at London Zoo, taken in 1870. They are among the only photographs ever taken of an animal that would be extinct within thirteen years.


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

## When did the quagga go extinct?
The wild population was hunted out by the 1870s, and the last individual died at Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam on 12 August 1883. The extinction was not recognised at the time.

## Was the quagga a separate species?
No. DNA analysis in 1984 — the first ever performed on an extinct animal — showed the quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra, Equus quagga quagga, rather than a distinct species.

## Why did the quagga have stripes on only half its body?
Stripe patterns vary considerably across plains zebra populations, generally reducing toward the south of the range. The quagga was the extreme southern end of that gradient, with stripes confined to the head, neck and forequarters.

## Has the quagga been brought back?
No. The Quagga Project has selectively bred plains zebras toward the quagga's reduced-stripe appearance and produced convincing lookalikes, but these are plains zebras selected for appearance, not restored quaggas.

## How many quagga specimens survive?
About 23 skins are held in museums worldwide, along with skeletal material and a small number of photographs of the living animal — including images of the Amsterdam mare taken at London Zoo in 1870.


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

## One-line answer
The golden toad was a brilliant orange amphibian found only in a 10 km² patch of Costa Rican cloud forest, last seen on 15 May 1989 and declared extinct in 2004 — the first extinction widely attributed to climate change and the chytrid fungus pandemic.

## Introduction
The golden toad was almost implausibly bright — males a solid, glossy tangerine that looked painted rather than evolved. It lived in a single 10 km² patch of high-altitude cloud forest above Monteverde, Costa Rica, inside a protected reserve, and it was in no danger from logging, hunting or trade. In 1987 researchers counted over 1,500 breeding adults. In 1988 they found ten. In 1989 they found one. It has never been seen since. Nothing was cut down and nothing was killed: the species died inside its own protected reserve, which is what makes it the emblem of the global amphibian crisis.

## When and where it went extinct
Golden toad (Incilius periglenes (Savage, 1967)) went extinct: Last seen 15 May 1989; declared extinct 2004. Range: A 10 km² area of the Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica.

## Causes of extinction
Golden toad extinction causes: Chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis); Climate-driven changes to cloud forest moisture patterns; An extremely small range with nowhere to retreat to.

## Takeaway
The golden toad lived in roughly 10 km² of protected cloud forest and nowhere else on Earth — one of the smallest ranges of any vertebrate.

## Takeaway
Males and females looked so different that they were hard to recognise as the same species: males uniform orange, females dark with scarlet and yellow markings.

## Takeaway
Over 1,500 breeding adults were counted in 1987. Ten were found in 1988. One was found in 1989. None since.

## Takeaway
It is the first extinction widely attributed to climate change, and an early casualty of the chytrid fungus pandemic that has since affected over 500 amphibian species.

## Takeaway
Legal protection did not help. The species disappeared inside a reserve, from causes that reserve boundaries cannot stop.

## Takeaway
Chytrid fungus is now implicated in the decline of more than 500 amphibian species and the presumed extinction of around 90 — the most destructive wildlife disease ever recorded.

## What killed the golden toad?
The best-supported explanation is a combination of disease and climate. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the amphibian chytrid fungus, spread globally through the late twentieth century and attacks amphibian skin — which for amphibians is a respiratory and osmoregulatory organ, so infection causes cardiac arrest. Chytrid arrived in Central American cloud forests in this period and devastated amphibian communities. At the same time, warming sea surface temperatures were lifting the cloud base at Monteverde, reducing the mist that kept the forest floor permanently damp and drying the shallow pools the toads bred in. Drier conditions concentrated toads in fewer pools, which increased disease transmission, while also stressing animals in ways that reduce immune response. The 1987 breeding season fell in an exceptionally strong El Niño. The population that gathered to breed that year was the last one.


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

## The amphibian extinction crisis
The golden toad is not an isolated case; it is the best-known member of the largest extinction event currently underway. Amphibians are the most threatened vertebrate class on Earth, with around 41% of assessed species threatened with extinction — against roughly 26% of mammals and 13% of birds. Chytrid fungus alone is implicated in declines across more than 500 species and the presumed extinction of around 90, making it the most destructive wildlife pathogen ever documented. The reason amphibians are so exposed is physiological: permeable skin that absorbs water and oxygen also absorbs pollutants and pathogens, and a life cycle split between water and land doubles the number of habitats that must remain intact. Amphibians are also the group that receives the least conservation funding relative to the threat, which is why the crisis proceeds with so little public attention.

## What this extinction teaches
Protected status does not stop disease or climate. A reserve boundary cannot keep out a fungus or hold a cloud layer in place — which is why captive assurance colonies and disease surveillance now matter as much as land protection for amphibians.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Glass frog (Varies — several species Endangered or Critically Endangered) faces the pressure that ended the golden toad. Central and South American cloud-forest amphibians directly in the chytrid fungus's path, several with ranges as small as the golden toad's and the same dependence on constant humidity. Captive assurance colonies and habitat protection are the only defences that exist.

## Did you know
The golden toad spent almost its entire life underground, emerging only for a few days each year to breed. Researchers who worked at Monteverde for years might see the species on fewer than a dozen days in total.


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

## When did the golden toad go extinct?
The last individual was seen on 15 May 1989 — a single male. The IUCN formally declared the species extinct in 2004 after extensive searching found nothing.

## What caused the golden toad's extinction?
Most likely a combination of chytrid fungus infection and climate-driven drying of its cloud forest habitat. Warming sea temperatures raised the cloud base at Monteverde, drying the breeding pools, while the chytrid pandemic was sweeping Central American amphibians.

## Why is the golden toad significant?
It is widely cited as the first species extinction attributed to climate change, and it disappeared from inside a protected reserve — demonstrating that legal protection cannot address disease or atmospheric change.

## What is chytrid fungus?
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a fungal pathogen that attacks amphibian skin. Because amphibians breathe and regulate water balance through their skin, infection causes cardiac arrest. It is implicated in declines across over 500 species.

## Could the golden toad still exist?
It is considered extremely unlikely. Its entire range was a well-studied 10 km² area inside a reserve, searched intensively for more than three decades with no result.


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

## One-line answer
The Pyrenean ibex, or bucardo, was a mountain goat of the Spanish Pyrenees whose last individual — a female named Celia — was killed by a falling tree on 6 January 2000; in 2003 a cloned bucardo was born and died within minutes, making it the first and so far only species to go extinct twice.

## Introduction
The Pyrenean ibex was one of four subspecies of Spanish ibex, a heavy-horned mountain goat of the high Pyrenees. Hunting and grazing competition reduced it over centuries to a single population in Ordesa National Park, and by the 1990s to a handful of animals. The last, a female called Celia, was found dead beneath a fallen tree on 6 January 2000. Her cells had been preserved a year earlier. In 2003 a cloned bucardo was born by caesarean, breathed for a few minutes, and died from a lung defect — the only time an extinct animal has been brought back, and the only time a species has gone extinct twice.

## When and where it went extinct
Pyrenean ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica (Schinz, 1838)) went extinct: 6 January 2000. Range: The Pyrenees, on the Spanish–French border. Celia, killed by a falling tree in Ordesa National Park on 6 January 2000.

## Causes of extinction
Pyrenean ibex extinction causes: Centuries of trophy and subsistence hunting; Competition with domestic livestock for alpine grazing; A final population too small to withstand ordinary chance events.

## Takeaway
The Pyrenean ibex was one of four Spanish ibex subspecies; two survive today, and the Portuguese ibex is also extinct.

## Takeaway
Hunting reduced the population to fewer than 100 animals by 1900, and grazing competition with domestic livestock prevented any recovery.

## Takeaway
The last individual, Celia, was fitted with a radio collar in 1999 and cells were taken from her ear — an unusually forward-looking decision that made everything afterwards possible.

## Takeaway
Celia was killed by a falling tree on 6 January 2000, an entirely random event that a healthy population would have absorbed without notice.

## Takeaway
On 30 July 2003, a cloned Pyrenean ibex was born by caesarean section to a hybrid goat surrogate. It lived several minutes before dying from a malformed lung.

## Takeaway
This makes the Pyrenean ibex the first extinct animal ever cloned, and the only species to have become extinct twice.

## Why did the Pyrenean ibex go extinct?
Centuries of hunting did the structural damage. Bucardos were taken for meat and, increasingly through the nineteenth century, as trophies — the males' heavy backswept horns were prized, and trophy hunting selectively removes the largest breeding males. By 1900 fewer than 100 remained. Spain granted legal protection in 1973, but by then the population was confined to Ordesa National Park and was competing for alpine grazing with domestic sheep, goats and cattle, which occupied the best pasture through the summer growing season. Numbers hovered between 6 and 14 through the 1990s. At that size, ordinary chance takes over from any identifiable threat: a small population is destroyed not by hunting or grazing but by whatever happens next, which in Celia's case was a tree.


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

## The species that went extinct twice
In 1999, researchers captured Celia, fitted a radio collar and took a skin biopsy from her ear, freezing the cells in liquid nitrogen. It was speculative work with no defined plan. When she died in January 2000, those cells were the only Pyrenean ibex material left in existence. A Spanish and French team used somatic cell nuclear transfer — the Dolly the sheep technique — inserting Celia's nuclei into enucleated domestic goat eggs and implanting the embryos into hybrid goat surrogates. Of 57 implantations, seven pregnancies established and one went to term. On 30 July 2003 a female Pyrenean ibex was delivered by caesarean section. She had a large solid extra lobe in one lung, could not breathe adequately, and died after several minutes. It remains the only case of an extinct animal being brought back to life, and it lasted less than ten minutes.

## What the bucardo clone actually proved
The bucardo is the most cited de-extinction case and the most misread. What it demonstrated is that the nuclear transfer step works: cells frozen from a dead animal can produce a live birth of an extinct subspecies. What it also demonstrated, more importantly, is everything that step does not solve. Cloning efficiency was extremely low — one live birth from 57 implantations. The animal had a fatal developmental defect, a common outcome in cloning. Every clone would have been female, since Celia was, and genetically identical to her, so there was no route to a breeding population from a single individual's cells. And the alpine grazing competition that reduced the bucardo in the first place was unchanged. The bucardo is the strongest available evidence that de-extinction technology is not a substitute for keeping species alive: the one time it worked, it produced an animal that lived for minutes and left the species exactly as extinct as before.

## What this extinction teaches
Below a certain population size, the specific threat stops mattering and random chance finishes the job. A falling tree ended a subspecies. This is why conservation targets minimum viable population sizes in the hundreds, not the last few animals — and why the "we can always clone it back" argument fails on its only real-world test.

## Living species facing the same pressure
Markhor (Near Threatened) faces the pressure that ended the pyrenean ibex. A spectacular wild goat that was pushed to the edge by trophy hunting and livestock competition in the same way — and then recovered, from fewer than 2,500 animals to over 6,000, through community conservancy programmes in Pakistan and Tajikistan. It is the outcome the bucardo did not get.

## Did you know
The frozen ear cells that produced the 2003 clone were taken in 1999 by researchers who had no cloning programme, no funding for one, and no expectation the animal would die within the year. It is the only reason the attempt was possible at all.


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

## When did the Pyrenean ibex go extinct?
On 6 January 2000, when the last individual — a female named Celia — was found dead in Ordesa National Park, killed by a falling tree.

## Was the Pyrenean ibex successfully cloned?
Partially. A cloned female was born on 30 July 2003 using frozen cells taken from Celia in 1999. She was born alive by caesarean section but died within several minutes from a lung defect. It remains the only extinct animal ever brought back to life.

## Why is it called the species that went extinct twice?
Because the subspecies became extinct in 2000 with Celia's death, was briefly restored by the 2003 cloned birth, and became extinct again minutes later when the clone died.

## What killed the Pyrenean ibex?
Centuries of hunting, including trophy hunting, reduced it to under 100 animals by 1900. Competition with domestic livestock for alpine grazing prevented recovery. The final individual was killed by a random accident.

## Are other ibex subspecies still alive?
Yes. Two of the four Spanish ibex subspecies survive and are doing reasonably well. The Portuguese ibex is also extinct, having disappeared in the late nineteenth century.


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

## One-line answer
The Caribbean monk seal was the only seal native to the Caribbean, hunted for its oil from 1494 onwards and last seen in 1952 at Serranilla Bank; the United States formally declared it extinct in 2008, the first seal species lost to human causes.

## Introduction
The Caribbean monk seal was the first New World animal recorded as killed by Europeans — Columbus's crew took eight on the second voyage in 1494, describing them as sea wolves. The killing did not stop for the next four centuries. Seals were rendered for oil to lubricate machinery and fuel lamps on the sugar plantations, and later shot by fishermen who blamed them for catches. Docile, slow on land and predictable in their haul-out sites, they were exceptionally easy to kill. The last confirmed sighting was a small colony at Serranilla Bank in 1952. NOAA declared the species extinct in 2008.

## When and where it went extinct
Caribbean monk seal (Neomonachus tropicalis (Gray, 1850)) went extinct: Last seen 1952; declared extinct 2008. Range: Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.

## Causes of extinction
Caribbean monk seal extinction causes: Hunting for oil, beginning with Columbus's second voyage in 1494; Killing by fishermen who regarded seals as competition; Overfishing of the reef systems the seals depended on.

## Takeaway
The Caribbean monk seal was the only seal native to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and the first New World mammal documented as killed by Europeans.

## Takeaway
Hunting for oil ran from 1494 to the early twentieth century — a four-century harvest with no restriction at any point.

## Takeaway
The seals hauled out on predictable beaches and cays, were unafraid of people, and moved slowly on land, which made systematic killing straightforward.

## Takeaway
Overfishing of Caribbean reefs removed the seals' food supply in parallel with the direct killing.

## Takeaway
The last confirmed sighting was at Serranilla Bank, between Jamaica and Honduras, in 1952. NOAA declared the species extinct in 2008.

## Takeaway
Both surviving monk seal species are in trouble: the Hawaiian monk seal is Endangered with around 1,600 animals, and the Mediterranean monk seal, once Critically Endangered, has recovered to roughly 700.

## Four centuries of hunting
The Caribbean monk seal was exploited continuously from first European contact until there was nothing left to exploit. Columbus's crew killed eight in 1494. Through the colonial period, seals were hunted for oil rendered from their blubber, used to lubricate sugar-mill machinery, waterproof ships and fuel lamps. Sealing expeditions targeted breeding colonies directly, since a haul-out beach delivered the entire local population in one place. Monk seals were extremely vulnerable to this: they were unafraid of humans, slow ashore, and returned to the same predictable sites. Later, as the population thinned, fishermen shot seals as competitors for a declining catch. By the twentieth century the species was reduced to remnant groups on remote banks and cays. Overfishing of Caribbean reef systems compounded it, removing the fish and invertebrates the remaining seals needed.