Extinct Animals Thread

Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
I'm not sure whether this should be either in After or Before 1900 but whatever the case may be, I never heard of PODs dealing with the preservation of OTL extinct animal species and that prompted me to create a thread soley based around the saving of these creatures.

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freodhoric

Sa'id Mohammed said:
I'm not sure whether this should be either in After or Before 1900 but whatever the case may be, I never heard of PODs dealing with the preservation of OTL extinct animal species and that prompted me to create a thread soley based around the saving of these creatures.
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Dale Cozort did several short pieces on people who died or didn't exist OTL. One was a WWI soldier who went on to conserve something like a couple dozen thylacines and managed to get the government to save about a dozen more, barely enough for a viable breeding population. One of the consequences was better understanding of dogs through studying such a similar species. Unfortunately, his site seems to be down.
 

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

I started a thread a while back about saving the thylacine. Unfortunately I fear it was doomed by the time Europeans arrived in Australia, because it was already extinct on the mainland. Eventually the isolated Tasmanian population, as with most island species, would die out due to genetic impurities as a result of a small gene pool.

A similar thing is happening to cheetahs at the moment. They are so prone to inbreeding that breeding at all can contribute to their decline.
 

mowque

Banned
In my TL, I killed off a few species. I can list them,with why they are dead, if you want.
 

The Dude

Banned
The reason Sa'id is interested in extinct animals is that normal animals can't seem to get him...... excited.

Seriously, though, this may be ASB, but if Yellowstone had not erupted thousands of years ago, we might still have elephants and rhinoceros in the Americas.
 

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

Cook said:
Oh for Fuck’s sake!
:eek:
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I didn't even read that at first, but you're absolutely right. What an ignorant thing to say. Thylacines were barely like dogs, bar for a slight resemblance, and even then it's a push if you're a true zoologist (I suspect the people studying them would be true zoologists). Thylacines have less babies, don't hunt in packs and have a totally different anatomy, not to mention they're marsupials.
 

Shawn Endresen

belongs in "before 1900", but I've always wanted to see surviving aurochs. Moa and any of the North American megafauna would be neat, but wildly improbable.
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
tallwingedgoat said:
I don't see why they couldn't save the Java and Bali tigers just by moving them to less populated places like Borneo or New Guinea.
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Well at least as far as New Guinea is concerned they would be outside their historic range. Big Cats never got across the gap from the Indonesian Archipelago to New Guinea. You’d be introducing a very large predator into an environment where none of the species have evolved to cope with it.

Rather like introducing foxes and cats to Australia, or better yet; Cane Toads.
 

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

Shawn Endresen said:
belongs in "before 1900", but I've always wanted to see surviving aurochs. Moa and any of the North American megafauna would be neat, but wildly improbable.
Click to expand...

The Moa were killed off long before anyone cared about conservation. The Maori used to burn brush to drive the Moa into the lowlands where they could kill them. In turn, this caused the massive Haast's eagle to go extinct, which was the biggest bird of prey in the world. Saving the moa would mean stopping the Polynesians from reaching NZ.

Cook said:
Well at least as far as New Guinea is concerned they would be outside their historic range. Big Cats never got across the gap from the Indonesian Archipelago to New Guinea. You’d be introducing a very large predator into an environment where none of the species have evolved to cope with it.

Rather like introducing foxes and cats to Australia, or better yet; Cane Toads.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Introducing something like a tiger into New Guinea would be distastrous for the local fauna. Stoats, something so small, decimated the kiwi population in NZ for a long time, imagine what a tiger could do in New Guinea.

There weren't tigers on Borneo historically either, so that's probably not a good idea either. Anyway, if they're willing to move a population of an endangered big cat, why can't they put the effort into conserving it on its own island?
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
Back to the Thylacine, there are the Mummified remains on one in a cave near Augusta, Western Australia.
 

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

tallwingedgoat said:
Java island has 136 million people. Either move them or the tiger.
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Or, and I'm just spitballing here, I know it's crazy; don't move anyone and just set aside national reserves that are regularly patrolled by government-funded rangers. Wild idea right there.

Obviously poachers would still get through now and then, but it gives the tigers a fighting chance rather than, oh, destroying the ecosystem of another island.
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

In the AHN Universe, the Panda is extinct, but the Great Auk is only critically endangered, as is the Cook (Steller) Sea Cow, and the Bowhead Whale is extinct too.
 
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