Thread: Back from the dead!

Rather a nice situation. New Zealand Storm Petrel News Hauraki Gulf Seabirds New Zealand Pelagic Birdwatchers
The New Zealand Storm Petrel was declared extinct 150 years ago. Cause of death - probably predation by introduced rats. This cute little sea bird spends its life at sea but must visit land to breed. That makes it vulnerable. Rats can enter its little breeding burrows.

About 10 years ago, a bird fancier saw a storm petrel that looked different - it had a black face instead of a white face. After a number of encounters and some good photos, it was recognised as the purportedly extinct Oceanites maorianus.

The main theory as to its survival is that a tiny remnant was able to breed on a chunk of rock somewhere in the sea that had no rats. Now the situation has changed. An enlightened government is killing rats with poisoning programs on island after island. Suddenly the breeding space has multiplied and numbers are rising.

I like this story, and I hope it is but one of many examples of species "back from the dead". Anyone else with an equally optimistic story?

Its always awesome to hear of successes like this and the weta protection programs!

That's great to hear but it doesn't keep me from being depressed about the three species that go extinct every hour. But I have to believe that of that number that go extinct, some of those have to be "natural" extinctions -- i.e. some would have gone extinct with man here or not. Anyone know what this percentage of extinctions is?

Percentages I do not know. In fact, no-one knows. No-one even knows how many species go extinct every year.

If we count only those extinctions we are reasonably sure of (that is : a species that existed a few decades back and cannot be detected today), the rate is 10 to 20 per year. Of course, there are always species that we never knew existed, which may go extinct without us knowing they have gone extinct. Allowing for this, my private estimate of all extinctions is about 100 per year.

Since there are about 10 million species of eucaryote, 100 extinctions per year means it would take 100,000 years at that rate to eliminate all of them. Many biologists estimate an average lifespan of one million years per species, before evolving into something else or disappearing.

If all these figures are correct, today's extinction rate is about 10 times the long term average. But I admit that some of my figures may be out by a big factor. However, ten times is probably as good a guess as you will get anywhere.