Nearly two dozen species, including the ivory-billed woodpecker and a number of other birds, have been declared extinct.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made the decision after years of unconfirmed sightings of the woodpecker and failed searches in the southeast.
Others such as the flat pigtoe, a freshwater mussel in the southeastern U.S., were identified in the wild only a few times and never seen again, meaning by the time they got a name they were fading from existence.
“When I see one of those really rare ones, it’s always in the back of my mind that I might be the last one to see this animal again,” Anthony “Andy” Ford, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Tennessee who specializes in freshwater mussels, said.
Ultimately, experts believe humans are the cause of the disappearance of these animals and plants because of a number of factors, including overdevelopment, logging and pollution.
The inclusion of these species more than triples the previous number of 11 species that the U.S. government had declared extinct since enacting of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973.
One expert, however, said “little is gained and much is lost” with an extinction declaration.
“A bird this iconic, and this representative of the major old-growth forests of the Southeast, keeping it on the list of endangered species keeps attention on it, keeps states thinking about managing habitat on the off chance it still exists,” Cornell University bird biologist John Fitzpatrick said.
An extinction declaration can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy as money dries up and research and conservation efforts stop.
Fish and Wildlife said the declarations made Wednesday were part of a backlog and should have been made years earlier. They said it would free up resources for on-the-ground conservation efforts for species that still have a chance for recovery.
Since 1975, 54 species have left the endangered list after recovering, including the bald eagle and most humpback whales.
With News Wire Services
