USA declared 23 species extinct, including the ivory-billed woodpecker

In September 2021, USA’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced 23 species as extinct, including the famous and one of the largest birds called ivory-billed woodpecker. The organization had formerly proposed to conserve endangered species like certain birds (11), mussels (8), fishes (2), plant (1) and fruit bat (1) when scientists from the Endangered Species Act Protections had given up on the idea. The reasons behind their extinction include urbanization, water pollution, competition from invasive species, and mostly due to poaching by humans. Hawaii tops the list as it suffered the loss of almost 902 species in last few years.

The native of Southern USA and Cuba, the ivory-billed woodpecker (hugely popular for its striking appearance) has also unfortunately been confirmed as extinct, the main reason being loss of forests. In fact, scientists have warned that the world is currently undergoing an ‘extinction crisis’ with organisms getting extinct thousand times faster than ever. At the moment, the primary concern of all scientists is the climate change as it affects the other endangered species and push them towards extinction. They are unable to recover due to excessive global warming and other natural disasters like floods, droughts and wildfires rendering in the permanent disappearance of these flora and fauna. However, the Endangered Species Act (1973) is still trying its best to protect the endangered species and have achieved positive results, for example when the number of whooping cranes rose from 16 to around 600. The good news is that, the Swiss organization called The International Union for Conservation of Nature, that keeps track of global extinction is still hopeful that the holy grail of bird watchers, that is the ivory-billed woodpecker (also called Lord God Bird) may still be living in Cuba. To add to this, what’s more promising is that almost 54 species have recovered from the endangered list since 1975.