Recently Extinct Animals

• published: 30 Apr 2015
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Recently Extinct Animals 1. Ivory-billed woodpecker Last reported sighting in 2004 but no definitive confirmation emerged despite intensive searching over five years. An anonymous $10,000 reward was offered in June 2006 another $50,000 by the Nature Conservancy in December 2008 for information leading to the discovery of an ivory-billed woodpecker. 2. Sea Mink The sea mink was hunted to extinction to satisfy the demand of the European fur market. Another possible contributing factor was the high mortality rate of the young. Ultimately, the sea mink became extinct sometime between 1860 and 1870. 3. Japanese Sea Lion Harvest records from Japanese commercial fishermen in the early 1900s show that as many as 3,200 japanese sea lions were harvested at the turn of the century, and overhunting caused harvest numbers to fall drastically to a few dozen sea lions by the 1930s. Japanese commercial harvest of Japanese sea lions ended in the 1940s when the species became virtually extinct and the last confirmed record being a juvenile specimen captured in 1974. 4. Pyrenean ibex The Pyrenean ibex was once numerous and roamed across France and Spain, but by the early 1900s its numbers had fallen to fewer than 100. The last Pyrenean ibex, a female nicknamed Celia, was found dead in northern Spain on Jan. 6, 2000, killed by a falling tree. Scientists took skin cells from the animal's ear and in 2009 an ibex was cloned, making it the first species to become "unextinct." However, the clone died just seven minutes later due to lung defects. 5. Baiji River Dolphin The baiji population declined drastically in decades as China industrialized and made heavy use of the Yangtze river. Efforts were made to conserve the species, but a late 2006 expedition failed to find any baiji in the river. Organizers declared the baiji functionally extinct. The last known living baiji was Qiqi, who died in 2002. 6. Queen Of Sheba's Gazelle The Queen of Sheba's gazelle or Yemen gazelle is found on the mountains and hillsides in Yemen, but none has been sighted since 1951. Surveys in the area of their former occurrence have failed to find any sign of its presence. 7. Falkland Islands wolf When Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands in 1833 he found that the Falkland Islands wolf is tame it had no fear of man; it was possible to lure the animal with a chunk of meat held in one hand, and kill it with a knife or stick held in the other. It was hunted for its valuable fur, and the settlers, regarding the wolf as a threat to their sheep, poisoned it. This endemic canid became extinct in 1876. 8. Caribbean Monk Seal The Caribbean monk seal was a species of seal native to the Caribbean and now believed to be extinct. Overhunting of the seals for oil, and overfishing of their food sources, are the established reasons for the seals' extinction. The last confirmed sighting of the Caribbean Monk Seal was in 1952 and in 2008 the species was officially declared extinct in the United States of America after an exhaustive search for the seals which lasted for about five years. 9. Saudi Gazelle The Saudi gazelle once lived in gravel and sandy plains with acacias of the northern and western Arabian peninsula from Kuwait to Yemen, with most of the records coming from western Saudi Arabia. Due to hunting by humans in its native lands it was declared to be extinct in 2008, but it is likely to have disappeared before then. 10. Black Rhino By 2015, 5 out of 8 subspecies of the Black Rhino are already extint. Of the three surviving subspecies, two survives only in reserves in very small numbers and constantly under threat to poaching. One subspecies, the Chobe black rhinoceros is believed to have only one surviving individual left in Botswana recently extinct animals recently extinct animals recently extinct animals recently extinct animals recently extinct animals