Black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), a North American species presumed extinct in 1979 until it was rediscovered in 1981. Same thing happened to the Bermuda petrel, peccary, venomous Cuban Solenodon etc.
And the list is much bigger.
The main argument is that if there is no concrete reason, why the organisations are putting the term 'extinct' for a species?
Is it not controversial and funny?
Is it not time to rethink about this problem?
Please jot down your opinions here with any updates in this area.
Thanks in advance.
'Probably extinct' is perhaps better than 'extinct'. It is very difficult to predict the mysteries of nature
It's true. Often species are declared extinct after just a cursory look and not even a thorough search :)
Probablemente extinta sería el término apropiado, estoy de acuerdo, es una voz de alarma, su uso hace que se hagan esfuerzos para encontrarla, estudiarla en profundidad y tratar de protegerla. Muchas especies se extinguiran antes de eso lamentablemente.
The fact that a species is officially declared extinct responds to some ecological parameters, and to the direct or indirect registration of its abundance. In the case of species that appear after a period in which they were thought to be extinct, the term "lazarus taxon" is used here. There are some articles that deal more deeply with this sibject.
My concern is not when a species is completely gone, but when it is already gone from 99% of it original habitat and we do not have any notice of that loss here in the USA, except to List it as Threatened or Endangered, and then there is a fight to not list. My example is the Greater Sage Grouse that I petitioned in 2002 to get listed, using the government's own documents with all their reasons to list--and the USFWS was going to list about 10 years ago, then the Congress did an unconstitutional move when they added a rider to the annual budget, that they were removing all funding to list that species, and have added that rider every year since. At least in the USA, concerns about extinctions gets trumped by economic uses, so unless extinctions can trump economic uses, we will be talking about extinctions, and having discussions about that word for a long long time.
My point here is, we should not be having any discussion about the word "extinction" of a single species on the planet, because it indicates we need to change our behavior to stop the Sixth Extinction event where we are the cause and not an asteroid hitting the Yucatan.
The IUCN have spent a lot of time pondering this and include some discussion parameters in the IUCN threat category Extinct in the Wild.
https://www.iucnredlist.org/#:~:text=A%20taxon%20is%20Extinct%20In,well%20outside%20the%20past%20range.
Use of the word extinction may not be technically right for species still surviving under unknown conditions, however, it also awakens us for the species to look around more. Moreover, the word extinction focuses us again on losing biodiversity in nature. Of course, we can remove the lable of extinction from a species once it is established that it's still there.
It's a very interesting question because in many cases it doesn't seem justified to declare any species extinct if it's not found after conducting a few field surveys. It is clearly mentioned in the 'IUCN Red List categories and criteria, version 3.1, second edition' that "A taxon is Extinct when there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died. A taxon is presumed Extinct when exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times (diurnal, seasonal, annual), throughout its historic range have failed to record an individual. Surveys should be over a time frame appropriate to the taxon’s life cycle and life form."1 The significance of the criteria I see is that it motivates researchers to get involved in more thorough field surveys in order to get any clue about presumed extinct species. In many cases presumed extinct species were rediscovered after a gap of a few years, but it doesn't mean that the previous researcher failed to locate the plant due to less dedication, we know that the distribution of many species is extremely random and the geographical area is so vast, and in some cases inaccessible.
In my opinion, it's not controversial but yes the criteria should be more precise and after the field surveys which failed to record an individual, there should be a set time period after which species should be declared extinct. We also have to understand that we can't be everywhere and thus we miss the plant's population and it happens a lot. If we set a certain time period there are many chances that the researcher could find the species before getting extinct status.
Reference:
1. IUCN. (2012). IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria: Version 3.1. Second edition. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK: IUCN. iv + 32pp.
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