We live in an age of accelerated extinction.
Today’s rate of extinctions — driven by a quintuple-whammy of destroyed wilderness, exploited critters, invasive species, rapid climate change, and widespread pollution — are happening “at least tens to hundreds of times higher” than extinctions occurred over the past 10 million years, the UN concluded in a major 2019 report.
Since the 1500s, at least 680 vertebrate species have permanently disappeared from Earth. And in the relatively short-lived history of the United States, biologists have declared 150 animals and plants extinct here, though the true number is likely hundreds more.
In 2021, extinctions loomed large in the U.S. This September, the Fish and Wildlife Service declared that 23 species, some not seen in decades, had gone extinct and should be taken off the nation’s endangered species list. Many of these losses, in the globe’s wealthiest nation, weren’t inevitable. Neither are future losses.
“Extinction, especially in the U.S., is preventable,” Tierra Curry, a conservation biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an organization that works to protect endangered species, said in an interview.
“Extinction, especially in the U.S., is preventable.”
The loss of species doesn’t mean the landmark Endangered Species Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973 and which seeks to conserve vulnerable species, has failed. It’s just the opposite. The law has prevented the extinction of some 291 species, and recovered dozens from their endangered status. And that’s with the vast majority of endangered species receiving under 25 percent of the funding needed to recover their populations.
But some species were already in dire straits before the conservation law came into existence. Certain populations had already dwindled so much by the early 1970s that costly conservation efforts were ultimately too little, too late. (The Bald Eagle’s recovery, however, is a great success story.)
The list of recently declared extinctions, which includes 22 animal species (many birds and mussels) and one plant species, is certainly grim. But the Fish and Wildlife Service said it should serve as motivation to protect many other endangered, threatened, or increasingly vulnerable species.
“Almost 3 billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970,” the agency said in a statement. “These extinctions highlight the need to take action to prevent further losses.”
Here are the losses:
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Bachman’s warbler: Last seen in 1988
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Bridled white-eye: Last seen in 1983
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Flat pigtoe mussel: Last seen in 1984
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Green-blossom pearly mussel: Last seen in 1982
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Ivory-billed woodpecker: Last seen in 1944
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Kaua’i ‘akialoa: Last seen in 1969
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Kaua’i nukupu’u: Last seen in 1899
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Kaua’i ‘ō’ō: Last seen in 1987
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Large Kauai thrush: Last seen in 1987
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Little Mariana fruit bat: Last seen in 1968
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Maui ākepa: Last seen in 1988
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Maui nukupu’u: Last seen in 1996
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Molokai creeper: Last seen in 1963
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Phyllostegia glabra var. Lanaiensis: Last seen in 1914
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Po’ouli: Last seen in 2004
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San Marcos gambusia: Last seen in 1983
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Scioto madtom: Last seen in 1957
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Southern acornshell mussel: Last seen in 1973
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Stirrupshell mussel: Last seen in 1986
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Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel: Last seen in 1969
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Turgid-blossom pearly mussel: Last seen in 1972
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Upland combshell mussel: Last seen in the mid-1980s
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Yellow-blossom pearly mussel: Last seen in the 1980s
Credit: Jerry A. Payne / USDA Agricultural Research Service
It’s immensely difficult to declare an extinction. There’s the difficulty of observing dwindling (or non-existent) individuals amid remote and forested habitat. And endangered plants can exist in the soil for years as seeds before reappearing. Then, there’s the sensitive, trying aspect of acknowledging a lifeform is gone forever.
“It’s sad because it’s a final giving up of hope,” said Curry.
Eventually the mounting evidence, or lack of evidence, compels an agency like the Fish and Wildlife Service to announce extinctions. The agency oversees 1,667 animals and plants in the U.S. currently on the endangered list, so declaring extinctions can afford them more time to address other rare species on the list — or to assess unlisted species that might warrant more protection. “They have no shortage of work to do,” noted Curry.
“It’s sad because it’s a final giving up of hope.”
For one well-publicized species, however, not everyone is ready to lose hope. The bird expert Tim Gallagher says he spotted an elusive ivory-billed woodpecker in 2004, though he spooked the bird before he could photograph it in a remote Arkansas swamp. After the Sept. 2021 extinction announcement, Gallagher argued in Audubon that it’s too early to declare the woodpecker extinct. If the bird is no longer on the endangered species list, parts of its habitat can lose critical protection. “And what’s the hurry to declare the bird extinct anyway?” he wrote. “Is any harm being done if people have to take a little extra time and thought before clearing vital southern forest habitat to make way for fields of rice and soybeans? These forests are far too important for all the plant and animal species and other life forms that exist within them.”
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The federal government, however, maintains the last confirmed sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker was in 1944, nearly three decades before Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act.
What can we do?
We’re not helpless. You can make a difference.
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Help endangered species where you live: Put pressure on cities or local governments to protect dwindling species, Curry suggested. For example, she noted there are mussels on the brink of extinction in Big Darby Creek outside of Columbus, Ohio. But the local government wants to increase wastewater runoff into the creek. “The fate of the mussels is in the hands of these city planners,” Curry said. “It’s extinction playing out in real time.”
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Have a cat? Keep it indoors: Domestic cats slaughter birds. “We could save a huge number of birds,” the bird biologist Nico Arcilla told Mashable in 2019. Arcilla noted that cats are either the number one or number two killer of birds in North America. “Just one person keeping their cat indoors can save hundreds, maybe thousands, of birds. That’s a no-brainer.”
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Have a yard? Plant native plants: Lawns are ecological disasters. But native vegetation is habitat for diverse life.
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Support the Extinction Crisis Emergency Act: Vote for lawmakers who support conservation. Better yet, support your candidates who endorse the Extinction Crisis Emergency Act (its congressional cosponsors are listed here). It’s legislation that would “establish a robust federal response” to ongoing extinctions. Such a bill would prioritize funding for things like wildlife overpasses and underpasses (to allow species to migrate and succeed), and it would direct all federal agencies to consider the impact of their actions (like infrastructure and development) on wildlife populations.
Although many endangered species can be helped and recovered, everyone should expect more extinction announcements in the coming years. For biologists, unofficial extinctions (among animals like birds, snails, mussels, and beyond) are already almost certain. Officials just haven’t announced them yet.
“There are more extinct species on the endangered species list,” said Curry.
