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stubeeef

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 10, 2004
2,715
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How one is cured from the desease of extinction I'm not sure, but heard this on NPR this morning and here is the article.

Link
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ivory-billed woodpecker, long feared extinct, has been rediscovered in a remote part of Arkansas some 60 years after the last confirmed U.S. sighting, bird experts said on Thursday.

Pretty neat, the word HOPE comes to mind.
 
They should've killed it, now they are going to have to change all the books. Imagine how much trees killing just one bird (probably 2 or 3 ;)) would save.

Nature! Houra!
 
Well, coelocanths were once thought to be extinct, as well... turns out they'd just been hiding behind the living room couch for millions of years. (Seriously, they were known only from fossils and were THOUGHT to be extinct, until one was caught by a fisherman back in 1920 or so.)

Things like small birds and undersea creatures could easily be thought to be extinct, since they're hard to spot or track. With big creatures like polar bears, it would be a lot easier to confirm extinction.
 
My grandmother has a NICE recipe. She said the last time she made it was 1931. It only uses wing-meat, and the recipe called for 200 of those very woodpeckers! She's looking forward to her trip their this summer.
 
cool, i could only wish more cases were like this, but sadly thats not the truth behind it all
 
PlaceofDis said:
cool, i could only wish more cases were like this, but sadly thats not the truth behind it all


Here's hoping they "find" some Tasmanian tigers (thylacine) next.
 
clayj said:
Well, coelocanths were once thought to be extinct, as well... turns out they'd just been hiding behind the living room couch for millions of years. (Seriously, they were known only from fossils and were THOUGHT to be extinct, until one was caught by a fisherman back in 1920 or so.)


Well, they were thought to be extinct by white western scientists. They never bothered to ask the natives of the Comoros Islands where it was found, or investigate. They'd known about it forever. It wasn't until a white scientist from South Africa came across one at a fish market that anyone payed any attention (the fish had got caught in an ocean current and ended up down by South Africa, the Comoros are much further up the african coast).

I realize that the scientists would ahve had no reason to ask about the ceolocanth before "science" discovered it, but there were plenty of people who knew it existed. The lesson there is that you shouldn't rely on outside observers for science. Sometimes you need to get answers from people who deal with what you're studying every day.
 
This is good new. The bird must be very viable since they are still alive and well. Woodpeckers are a real neat bird.
 
Unfortunately, even though this one managed to survive, there are so many others that don't. It pretty cool that it did, though.

And then there's all that talk about taking viable cells from frozen Mammoths and bringing them back.

Someone should start a web site to track all this.... www.savethedodo.com :D

D
 
Double billing! Yes! My prayers go out to all the endangered species. We need more wildlife sanctuaries all around the industrialized nations.
 
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