Caribbean monk seal is now extinct

[Xenotime]

Source: MSNBC

MSNBC
updated 2:42 p.m. CT, Fri., June. 6, 2008

After five years of futile efforts to find or confirm sightings of any Caribbean monk seals — even just one — the U.S. government on Friday announced that the species is officially extinct and the only seal to vanish due to human causes.

"Humans left the Caribbean monk seal population unsustainable after overhunting them," Kyle Baker, a biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this led to their demise and labels the species as the only seal to go extinct from human causes."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25007277

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This is truly a sad time......

[BearSquirrel2]

1. I'm shocked ...

I thought we took endangered species into zoos to stave off such a prospect.

[BrotherBuzz]

7. Sometimes that doesn't work and is a case of 'to little to late'

Martha, the last passenger pigeon died in captivity.

In 1857, a bill was brought forth to the Ohio State Legislature seeking protection for the passenger pigeon. A Select Committee of the Senate filed a report stating "The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced" (Hornaday, W.T. 1913: Our Vanishing Wild Life. Its Extermination and Preservation)

Fifty-seven years later, on September 1, 1914, Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died in the Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati, Ohio. She was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where she was skinned and mounted. Currently, Martha (named after Martha Washington) is in the museum's archived collection, and not on display

[NewEnglandGirl]

2. That's It

We'll never see them again. I hate people who harm animals. And they usually harm other people too. :grr:

[pleah]

3. How very sad.

:cry:

[ooglymoogly]

4. extinct means final.....shame

[ooglymoogly]

5. kr nt

[Bob Dobbs]

6. Humans are next.

And not undeservedly.

[Xenotime]

10. Only if we join together.

Those interested might want to read here.

http://www.vhemt.org/

[Spouting Horn]

14. Sad

[Frisbee]

13. I don't know about next...

but we have certainly brought on our own demise, should it happen. And while I don't think extinction is close, I expect a massive decline in population could be coming for any number of reasons, and would not be a bad thing.

[onehandle]

8. Columbus. Destroyer of World. nt

[debunkthelies]

9. How very sad

The next to go will be the Polar Bear if we don't act soon.

[Spouting Horn]

15. Where is the evidence

that polar bears are going extinct?

Are they even hunted?

Are their populations dwindling?

[Maestro]

19. Are you kidding me?

Read: Polar Bears are endangered and Time article It took a lot of action just to get this disgusting administration to recognize the fact that polar bears are threatened.

[psychopomp]

20. I recommend the polar bear quiz at the bottom of the page in the first link

I learned a lot and got rid of that warm, fuzzy feeling I had been saddled with today.

[Kool Kitty]

23. Yes, the polar bear population is dwindling.

[slampoet]

24. Duude don't type to DU before you do a Google search.

It is not the responsibility of us here to correct ignorance.


It is your responsibility to take basic efforts to NOT expose your ignorance to the whole Web by making ignorant posts.


A simple Google search reveals all sorts of Polar Bear stories.



Only republicans expect others to do research for them.

[fla nocount]

29. Google marches independently of Lieberman, McCain and

AIPAC, so Google is obviously not a good source of information. As for your manners, here we have a
poster with hardly 50 entries and you're calling it names like Republican; what kind of welcome is that?

Seriously, this one is the type that can go into hilariously flaming rages if you can keep it engaged.
Please be gentle and hope that we can have some fun before some twit wanders over from GDP and gets it tombstoned.

[slampoet]

31. Negative?

You are the one saying Google is no good and not offering solutions or alternatives.


i was advising basic rules on knowledge. Don't ask someone to do something for you when you can do it yourself easier than you can even type the words to ask for help, let alone the extra trouble of the other person researching for you.



As for your negativity, give a soulution like I did.

[fla nocount]

32. Sarcasm my friend

was directed at the poster, not you. I'm a Googeling fool that baits trolls. We had one there for a bit but we let him slip away.

[slampoet]

33. Don't do visual jokes on the radio.

Don't do sarcasm in text.

[mrs_p]

11. as a wildlife biologist

this truly saddens me...

[Frisbee]

12. "only seal to vanish due to human causes"

But sadly, probably not for long. I think we may be closer to a massive collapse of the ecosystem that most people are willing to admit. It will start with the oceans, but won't stay there for long.

[ben_meyers]

16. The last confirmed sighting was in 1952

Eisenhower/Nixon elected President/VP. Coincidence? I think not!

[ohio2007]

26. Washington may be to blame for other extinctions

Other species of marine mammals that have gone extinct in modern times include the Atlantic gray whale (1700s or 1800s) and stellar sea cow (late 1700s), presumably due to overhunting by whalers, the fisheries service stated.






nice going George

[Psephos]

28. Luv that pic of George ;-)

Both your posts in this thread are smart, btw.

If we don't dissipate our attention on problems we don't have anything to do with, we can instead focus it on things where we actually can make a difference.

[pitohui]

17. it has been extinct longer than my lifetime

very sad, i was wondering why i'd never heard of it or seen a seal in the caribbean, then i saw it was last seen in 1952

very sad

when will bachman's warbler be declared extinct? it's dead, jim -- AMAZING how long it takes to hop on things like this, there are no doubt many extinct species we just haven't gotten around to confirming they're extinct

[Whoa_Nelly]

18. Look now so you know what we have lost

:cry:



Caribbean Monk Seal adult portrait mounted skin specimen
high resolution capture taken at Harvard, Massachusets, USA.
http://www.stockpix.com/stock/animals/extinct/10376.htm

[Psephos]

21. Yikes, my grandma's got more fur on her upper lip than that ol' antique does

Her dentures are better, too.

;)

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

22. Congratulations to the human race.

One less victim of our mindless, senseless, bloody rampage is left in the world.

Well done. We're rapidly closing in on our goal of the utter destruction of our planet and all lifeforms residing thereupon.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[ohio2007]

25. The last confirmed sighting was in 1952

Who hunted the monk into extinction ?

[lonestarnot]

27. Next.

[The Stranger]

30. I love all of the naive responses, "if we don't do something quick . . ."

Wake up. We are so completely fucked, and it is all our own doing.

Turn on the idiot box and watch Sean Hannity condescendingly denounce scientists who long ago gave us dire warnings about global warming. We're on an express elevator to Hell.

It's all over but the crying.