Real Talk!

I’ve been reading lots about Hubert’s Peak and the oil crisis. I feel a bit like I am revisiting my schooldays. After all, that’s when I first started hearing about pollution, global environmental concerns, energy crisis, ecological stress and lots more! I have lots of friends who are counting the days now, until the end.

Recently, we were told that after two decades of warnings, the western black rhino has apparently met its final end. Its cousin, the northern white rhino may be down to as few as four remaining.

This morning, a friend sent me a website link to a recently published list of threatened wildlife, that article said that one in four of the world's mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70 per cent of the world's assessed plants are in jeopardy.

The baiji (China’s delicate, grey-white, long nosed, near blind, dolphin) is functionally extinct. It is the first large aquatic mammal to have gone extinct since hunting and overfishing killed off the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s. This marks the world's first cetacean -the order of whales, dolphins and porpoises -to be made extinct by man. The extinction is blamed on a degraded habitat in the Yangtze waters of eastern China and on uncontrolled and unselective local fisheries, which use rolling hook long lines, nets and electro-fishing.

The Spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus), a large, nearly flightless seabird lived on a few remote islands at the western end of the Aleutian chain. First identified in 1741 by the naturalist George Steller, who traveled with Vitus Bering on his exploration of Alaska. Steller was the only naturalist to see the spectacled cormorant alive. The population of spectacled cormorants declined quickly as whalers, fur traders and Aleut Natives (brought to Bering Island by the Russian-American Company) killed the birds for food and feathers. By 1850, fewer than 100 years after Steller first saw these seabirds, the spectacled cormorant became extinct.

Also extinct, is the little known "long horse". It was strong, handsome and could carry up to four people at one time. Often overworked, the horses did not live long and eventually there were none left to breed. See:
http://www.digital-art.org/D/Portraits/Burmeier/BurmeierFrames.html

A crow found in Hawaii and nowhere else in the world is believed to be extinct in the wild. Known locally as the 'alala, the Hawaiian crow, Corvus hawaiiensis, was once widespread on the island of Hawaii, but now survives only in captivity.

A quick search revealed the following:

Threatened:
African elephant
American White Pelican
Atlantic salmon
Atlantic loggerhead turtle
giant anteater
piping plover
pygmy hippo
sea otter

Endangered:
African wild ass
African wild dogs
American alligator
Asian (Indian) elephant
Asian lion
Black lemur
Black footed ferret
blue whale
bowhead whale
the cheetah
Chimpanzee
common green turtle
Crested Ibis
Eastern Cougar
Eskimo curlew
Fin Whale
Gaur: Wild cattle
Gavial Crocodile
giant armadillo
giant panda
gorilla
Grey Whale
Grizzly Bear
Humpback Whale
Imperial Amazon
Indian rhinoceros
Jaguar
Kagu
Kakapo
ridley turtle
Komodo dragon
Leatherback turtle
Leopard
Mediterranean Monk Seal
Mountain Gorilla
Orangutan
Philippine Eagle
Pronghorn
Przewalski’s Horse
Sei Whale
Shortnose Sturgeon
snow leopard
Takahe
Tapirs
Tiger

Extinct:
Abingdon Island Tortoise
Black Soft-Shell Turtle
Carolina parakeet
Cachorrito de Charco Palmal
Cachorrito Enano de Potosi
Dodo
Egyptian Barbary Sheep
Great Auk
Goodeid
Moas (15 species of flightless birds)
Mongolian Wild Horse
Moorean Viviparous Tree Snail
Oahu Deceptor Bush Cricket
passenger pigeon
Perrito de Potosi
Red-tailed Shark
Saudi Gazelle
Socorro Isopod
Sutural Partula
Tammar Wallaby
Vancouver Island Marmot
West Indian Manatee
White Rhino
Whooping Crane
Wyoming Toad
Yak

Vulnerable:
Coelacanth

Rare:
Flightless Cormorant
Monitored:
Trumpeter Swans

How much more is there that we don’t even know about?

I want to read Alan Greenspan’s memoirs.

I keep thinking, this is not a dress rehearsal.