Tuesday, October 17, 2023, the EPA removed 21 species from the
Endangered Species List because they are now extinct.
The stated purpose of the list is to help conserve the species that are on it,
to bring attention to the fact of their endangered existence. Somehow calm
this announcement of clerical reorganization isn’t enough; there should be
more wailing and gnashing of teeth over these losses, these holes in our
collective natural world. We have ALL lost these animals.
The bird pictured above is the Bachman’s warbler, a bird found primarily in
swamps and in forested floodplains along rivers and streams. Their diet
consisted mainly of insects, many of whom have also vanished from our
state.
This is a list of the species who are no more. Read it and weep.
Little Mariana fruit bat (mammal – Guam)
Bachman’s warbler (bird – Florida, South Carolina)
Bridled white-eye (bird – Florida)
Kauai akialoa (bird – Hawaii)
Kauai nukupuu (bird – Hawaii)
Kauaʻi ʻōʻō (bird – Hawaii)
Large Kauai thrush (bird – Hawaii)
Maui ākepa (bird – Hawaii)
Maui nukupuʻu (bird – Hawaii)
Molokai creeper (bird – Hawaii)
Po`ouli (bird – Hawaii)
San Marcos gambusia (fish – Texas)
Scioto madtom (fish – Ohio)
Flat pigtoe (mussel – Alabama, Mississippi)
Southern acornshell (mussel – Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee)
Stirrupshell (mussel – Alabama, Mississippi)
Upland combshell (mussel – Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee)
Green-blossom pearly mussel (Tennessee, Virginia)
Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel (8 states)
Turgid-blossom pearly mussel (Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee)
Yellow-blossom pearly mussel (Alabama, Tennessee)
~Karen Smith
