The Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō bird and the secrets of extinct animals

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced a list of 21 species removed from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to their extinction. The list included, for example, the Hawaiian Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō bird, whose last song was recorded in 1986, a year before the species became extinct. Other extinct species include the Bachman’s warbler and the Little Mariana fruit bat. Meanwhile, the French authorities have been accused by nature conservationists of breaking EU regulations regarding the trapping of wild birds. The local ministers allegedly listened to hunting groups to allow the trapping of thousands of birds – larks, lapwings and golden plovers – as part of “experimental research”.

According to researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), climate change is responsible for the extinction of over 10 billion snow crabs around Alaska. The 2018-2019 Bering Sea heatwaves led to mass starvation of these creatures – higher water temperatures caused crabs to increase their caloric intake, and many animals could no longer get enough food. The mystery of the death of almost 400 elephants in Botswana and Zimbabwe in 2020 has probably also been solved. According to an international team of scientists, the cause was a little-known bacteria, Pasteurella Bisgaard taxon 45. It caused sepsis, i.e. blood poisoning.