Eaten to extinction?

Another entry for the eaten to extinction section, this time via an article on National Geographic news.

Worcester's buttonquail, known to science only through decades-old museum specimens, was thought to be extinct. Then in January a TV crew, filming at a market in the Philippines, captured one of the birds on camera. The bird was subsequently sold for food. I hope whoever bought it enjoyed their meal. Of course if there is one bird at the market, there is a chance there are others still alive in the wild, although perhaps not many. So the species may not be extinct after all... but realistically, what is its chance of lasting much longer...?

In the news today

Some sciencey stories that have caught my eye this week:

A paper in Genome Research describes the sequencing of the entire mitochodrial genome of the extinct thylacine or Tasmanian tiger. This probably deserves it's own post: it uses new methods and the results are surprisingly different from the sequences previously available. I'll try to review it in more depth later...

Scientific American reports on the discovery of two species of fly in Namibia which are members of a genus previously only known from the fossil record. This is pretty cool, especially given my personal soft spot for Namibia. Maybe I have unknowingly inhaled one of these flies! I am however a little disappointed that the good folk at Scientific American have described the flies as "living fossils". The term is not helpful. If a fly is alive it isn't a fossil. And where should the line be drawn? Many extant species have close relatives known from the fossil record. Are they all "living fossils"? How much divergence is required before they are no longer classed as "living fossils"? I think terms like this can really confuse people.

ABC news reports on the births of ten Tasmanian Devil pups on an island sanctuary. The pups are the offspring of devils chosen for captive breeding because of their good genetics. They have similar genetic profiles to the famous Cedric, a devil who raised, then dashed, the hopes of researchers by first showing immunity to the devastating Devil Facial Tumour Disease, only to later contract the cancer. Maybe these pups will show greater resilience to the disease?

And finally I can't resist posting a link to this: BBC footage of bears catching dead fish with their feet! Apparently they don't like to get their ears wet :-)

Endangered delicacies

It wasn't perhaps the main intention when setting up this blog, but I am starting to think I will post regular updates on species in danger of extinction as a consequence of human gastronomic tastes. This decision is prompted by an article I encountered today on Biology News Net titled Frogs are being eaten to extinction, which reports on recent research from the University of Adelaide.

Dodos

Given my interest in wildlife conservation, I thought it only right to make my first sciencey post a comment on extinction, or what happens when wildlife conservation fails. One of the best-known extinct species in the popular mind is, of course, the dodo. I won't rehash the story of the dodo here, it has been covered in detail elsewhere. But as a quick summary: the first accounts of dodos came from Portuguese visitors to the then-uninhabited island of Mauritius in 1507. The Dutch colonised the island in 1638. By the end of that century the dodos were gone.

The 2008 IUCN Red List will tell you that the dodo is one of 717 known animal species to have become extinct since their records begin. Some of these extinctions are shamefully recent events, for example the extinction of the baiji dolphin only a few years ago.

Reading about human-mediated extinctions reminds me why I do the work I do. Perhaps it is a futile hope in the society we live in, but I hope that something I do might one day make a difference to some species on the edge. I study Australian wildlife, haunted by the ghosts of the thylacine and the 26 other Australian mammals driven to extinction since 1788 (not to mention the birds, frogs, insects, plants...). As I travel the country I can only feel the gaps left by creatures such as the toolache wallaby, the desert rat-kangaroo or the remarkable gastric-brooding frog. I've seen Tasmanian devils in the wild and I confess the first time it brought a tear to my eye. On my next trip to Tassie I fear I won't see them as easily and if I do it will be bittersweet: since I arrived in Aus nearly ten years ago they have been ravaged by devil facial tumour disease.

Teaching these topics to first year undergrads saddens me. I think some wonder why we even bother. In the face of the weight of history is it futile to hope that there is a place for conservation in this world? I hope so.