Threatened & Extinct Species

Dead as a Dodo

It is a sad fact that, in the last few hundred years man has been responsible for the extinction of a great many bird species – from the notorious but range restricted dodo to the millions of passenger pigeons that once blackened the skies of North America or the thousands of Great Auks eaten by sailors.

The causes vary from the extinction of the St Stephen’s Island Wren whose entire population was destroyed by one cat; the pet of a lighthouse keeper, to the extirpation of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker through habitat destruction. Even more sadly we do not seemed to have learned our lesson and habitat destruction continues along with our wasteful societies causing the climate of the whole world to change. We could cause an extinction event as great as that natural phenomena which wiped out the dinosaurs.

Those of us who care can not only help the efforts of conservationists to preserve the habitats of many endangered species; we can also change the way we live to reduce the pressure on the wild world whether it be population control or better use of scarce resources and more enlightened energy production.

Mere support of good causes is not enough – we all have to make sacrifices or many many more species will disappear and further impoverish our natural world.