Small victories: Five animals we pulled back from extinction
Digital Reporter
Sunday, January 25, 2015, 11:00 AM - You're more likely to hear about species that are going extinct than you are to hear about ones that are actually recovering.
But it does happen. Earlier this month, India announced its tiger population had grown by 30 per cent since 2011, thanks in no small part to conservation efforts.
And tigers aren't the only ones. Here are only five other species that have been rescued from extinction.
Blue iguana, Cayman Islands
This is pretty much the poster-reptile for how it is, in fact, possible to haul a species back from the point of no return.
And by all accounts, the scaly blue iguana wasn’t at that point, so much as hanging onto its edge by its talons.
"Grand Cayman Blue Iguana" by Original uploader was BIRP at en.wikipedia - Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here.. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Found only on the island of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean, the iguanas’ numbers had dwindled to an estimated 10-25 in the wild by 2002, earning it the uncoveted “critically endangered” designation from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). That was thanks to the usual culprits: Human development, and predation by species like cats and dogs, which could be formidable even to a species that can grow up to a metre and a half from snout to tail.
Thanks to tireless conservation efforts, particularly the Blue Iguana Recovery Plan on the island, within eight years the decline had been reversed. The IUCN officially upgraded the iguanas to “endangered” rather than “critically endangered” status (hey, small victories, right?) in 2010, by which point their numbers had swelled to 750.
It was such a flat-out conservation effort that the program’s director literally incubated eggs in his home office before passing the hatchlings onto a sanctuary in a national park (according to National Geographic).
"Blue Iguana on Wilderness Trail at QEII Botanic Park" by Lhb1239 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
But the upgrade makes the lizards’ situation seem less dire than it still is, such that the program’s director told National Geographic funding has been harder to come by.
And even if they meet their goal of 1,000 blue iguanas on the island, human activity has shrunk their natural habitat so thoroughly, the species will likely never regain its former numbers, once in the teeming tens of thousands.
Still. From 25-max to 750 is still a huge victory.
Northern flying squirrel, West Virginia
In our opinion, the flying squirrel belongs in the same category as the duck-billed platypus – which is, “animals coughed up by evolution on a dare.”
It looks like the Virginian northern flying squirrel need never set foot on the predator-infested ground. Watch it live up to its name in the video below, at about the 0:35 mark:
A squirrel learns the art of gliding at the age of three months, and develops such control of its mid-air trajectory it can actually pull up slightly when it nears its destination, using its tail for steering.
It’s remarkable adaptation didn’t do it much good against the march of human progress. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says their numbers took a bad hit when logging from the 1800s to the 1940s decimated their habitat. Insect pests harmed their sylvan home even further, as did the pesticides meant to eradicate the insects.
By 1985 only 10 individuals were captured in the wild.
Fortunately, habitat restoration got the species back on track, and within a couple of decades, more than 1,000 individuals were captured at several locations in West Virginia.
"Flying squirrel in a tree" by Original uploader was Angie spuc at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Sreejithk2000 using CommonsHelper.. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Although the Fish and Wildlife says they are “unlikely to ever be plentiful,” their population are stable enough to prompt its upgrade to “threatened” status, although court action delayed the change until 2013.
Green sea turtle, Hawaii
Pretty much everyone is aware of the human impact on the green sea turtle, which was subject to commercial fishing for its meat and eggs until the 1970s, when bans started being passed.
Once the fishing stopped, though, their numbers were still at a critical low, and given its wide geographic distribution, it’s hard to coordinate a global response.
"Hawaiian green sea turtle" by Dr. Donald B. MacGowan - https://www.public-domain-image.com/public-domain-images-pictures-free-stock-photos/fauna-animals-public-domain-images-pictures/reptiles-and-amphibians-public-domain-images-pictures/turtles-pictures/hawaiian-green-sea-turtle.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
What you can do is work on individual populations, and the green turtle population in Hawaii has recovered so dramatically that a 2004 study said it was a candidate for delisting under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
That sub-population has been under review for delisting since 2012, and even the IUCN lists the Hawaiian offshoot as a species of least concern.
Trouble is, that’s just one sub-population. The IUCN still has the species as a whole firmly in the “Endangered” category, with threats including human harvesting and loss of beach habitat.
Even among the relatively healthier Hawaiian population, not everyone is convinced it should be taken off the endangered list.
"Green Sea Turtle Dec 05". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
A 2013 study from Stanford says even with the recovery, 80 per cent of historic nesting sites are unsuitable, and the last major site, accounting for 90 per cent of nesting in Hawaii, is threatened by sea level rise. Even the IUCN says there’s risk from climate change effects, like warmer ocean temperatures and more violent storms.
A good example of why it’s so hard to hit the reset button on endangered species.
NEXT PAGE: The fastest bird on Earth needed a hand outrunning extinction