Measuring extinction, species by species

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4A501920081106

OSLO (Reuters) - The Yangtze River dolphin, the Christmas Island shrew and the Venezuelan skunk frog are all victims in an alarming flood of extinctions, but how do scientists decide when such "possibly extinct" creatures no longer exist?

The United Nations says the world faces the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, with man-made threats such as rising populations, felling of forests, hunting, pollution and climate change.

Yet proving that any individual species has gone the way of the dodo necessarily demands long, fruitless searching.

"If there's one thing in my career I'd like to be proved wrong about, it's the baiji," said Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London, using another name for the Yangtze River dolphin.

<more>

[Barrett808]

1. Calling Guardian, white courtesy telephone.

Nothing to worry about, eh?

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Wake and follow directions or shut up!

:hitler:

As long as lolcats don't become an endangered species, I guess ...

--p!

[stuntcat]

2. it's the saddest thing I'll ever know

I'm waiting for some religious groups to start standing up for species. I've been waiting a while.


"What is the nature of a species that knowingly and without good reason exterminates another?"
George Small

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though it's first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breaths no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again."
William Beebe