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by openasocket
1722 days ago
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In the case of the ivory-billed woodpecker it was probably extinct in the 80s too. There hasn't been a universally accepted sighting of one since 1944, the few sightings made since then aren't really conclusive. For most of these creatures they only existed in one particularly small region or area. The San Marcos gambusia, for instance, historically only lived in a single 1km stretch of the San Marcos River. Species with that tiny of an area can be driven extinct by a single bad weather event or epidemic. Or because some real estate developer decides they want to build a couple apartments. It doesn't even necessarily have to be something big. It's unfortunate, but sadly something like the San Marcos gambusia would probably have gone extinct within a few centuries, human activity or not, unless it was able to adapt to expand its range. While climate change is definitely something to be concerned about, it is not, currently, the main driver of extinction events like this. The far bigger cause is more direct human activity, like poaching and land development. |
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The funny thing about Hawaii though, is that there are only two or three (extremely isolated) places that remain with any true Hawaiian plant habitat, because Polynesians brought their own plants with them that almost universally outcompeted the native plants.
Birds on islands are some of the quickest animals to specialize and differentiate into new species.
Which makes Hawaii incredibly interesting, from an island biogeography perspective.
Something as simple as the fact that no mosquitos made it to Hawaii until Captain Cook accidently introduced them, means no native fish, frogs, birds, lizards, or anything that specialized in eating them.
Now extrapolate that to wiping out all the native flora and replacing it.
That so much biodiversity remains in Hawaii today ought to actually give us some comfort in nature's ability to quickly adapt to significant change.