[LEPS-L:8002] Re: Monarch extinction

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Tue Nov 28 09:13:00 EST 2000



"Chris J. Durden" wrote:
>   Does anyone have or have a reference to a list of species that have
> become extinct in the last 400 years? A geographic plot of the last known
> colony of each of these species would be instructive. I mean totally gone
> like Passenger Pigeon or Dodo, not almost gone like Ivory Billed Woodpecker.
>   Do we even have a firm list of butterfly species that have become extinct
> in North America, or in Europe? Is this list as small as I expect, or can
> someone substantiate a robust list?
> ............Chris Durden

wellll ... they keep showing up again, don't they. The bugs, anyway. Or
they're subspecies that you can't tell from their nearest relative
without dissection or DNA analysis. 

I think the real problem is habitat destruction, and if only we could
focus on that, we'd do better. The butterflies are indicators, of
course, but the people are not fooled by our invention of snail darters
in trouble, or flower flies or whatever. 
We're willing to worry about *us* in trouble, but we've accustomed the
"great unwashed" to the notion that a plant lost means a cancer cure
lost. It is improbable that any lep will provide a cure for lymphoma. In
fact, I bet you guys aren't even checking for that. ;-) 
As for the mammals, we keep finding them just before they vanish ...
tiny lemurs and such. There are a lot on the brink; actually gone is
another story. And, again, the splitters have muddied the waters. 
Anne Kilmer
Palm Beach County
The butterfly ballot is also an endangered species, and does anybody
care? Not only a subspecies, but a pest.

 
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