The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has declared 23 species extinct – 11 birds, one bat, two fish, one plant and eight mussels – while also recommending that they be removed as endangered. BBC. The decision was made on the basis of a rigorous scientific review.
Each of the 23 species represents a significant loss to our nation’s natural heritage and biodiversity, and serves as a reminder that extinction is the result of man-made environmental change.
said Bridget Fahey, who oversees the classification of species at the FWS.
The species was classified as critically endangered even in the 1960s, and none are now found in the United States.
One of the most famous of these is the woodpecker, once the largest woodpecker in America, the last specimen of which was seen in Louisiana in 1944 – then added to the endangered species list in 1967, while the Bachman caterpillar was one of the species Endangered. The rarest songbird in North America, it became endangered in 1967.
The According to FWS The Endangered Species Act, which went into effect in 1973, was passed too late but at the same time succeeded in preventing the extinction of more than 99 percent of species whose protection is now needed more than ever.
