Remembering Lost Animals
Remembering Lost Animals
Extinct creatures recalled with poetic eulogies | Ghostly voice of the extinct O'o bird
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THE VOTIVE CANDLES WERE BEING LIT ONE BY ONE in memory of twenty-three creatures who were recently declared extinct. I was on a Zoom call with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) this week and they were doing eulogies in honor of extinct animals. On the calendar, Nov. 30 is Remembrance Day for Lost Species.
Kieran Suckling, a founder and executive director of CBD, said the normal background extinction rate was about one extinction in 700 years. Today’s rate? It’s unknown but estimated to be a dozen to 100 extinctions each day, putting us in the sixth mass extinction event known to the world.
Previous extinction events were caused by natural phenomena, such as an asteroid hitting the earth 65 million years ago and wiping out the dinosaurs. The chief culprits driving extinction today are all human-caused: habitat loss, rapid climate changes, competition and predation from introduced invasive species, and toxic pollutants.
To wrap my mind around this astonishing loss, and why it’s so little covered or acknowledged, I picked up some books on the subject. The Sixth Extinction, an Unnatural History is a recent NY Times Bestseller book by Elizabeth Kolbert. For those who relish a true adventure story, Kolbert traveled around the globe visiting fossil sites as well as places where people are still looking for a missing mammal, fish, or bird. In countless conversations, through treks into remote bat-filled caves, and dives into surging seas, she uncovered the passion and the grief associated with these searches and losses.
For some scientists and naturalists, the quest to find the last members of a species and protect them is a lifetime’s work. Too few are working on this quest, however.
Another book on the subject is Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals, by Daniel Hudon, published by Pen and Anvil Press. Hudon comes at this topic from a poet’s view. His lyrical short essays glow—telling a story, evoking a feeling, or offering an if-you-were-there moment. I contacted him to ask what motivated him to write about the 100 extinctions he covered.
I wrote the book because I felt that people didn’t know about these animals and also to let people know that extinction isn’t just something from the fossil record, it was something that was happening today. Though there are some very good coffee table books about extinction (A Gap in Nature, The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished Species), I wanted to choose a more poetic and lyrical style to try to honor them in a smaller, accessible format.
Daniel Hudon
Hudon also told me he visited Monteverde, Costa Rica, about 10 years ago, where he heard the tale of the recently extinct Costa Rican Golden Toad (insilious periglenes), whose story “haunted” him. The “Neon Day-glo orange males, eyes like round black jewels” were summoned by the fleeting pools of the spring rains every year, but the combination of a changing drier climate and the chytrid fungus was their demise.
After that trip, Hudon became interested in researching extinct animals. Here is his essay on the Great auk.
He has granted permission to quote from his book for Mother E readers. Here are a few passages from Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals. He draws from historical accounts and then imagines what it would have been like to be there when that species was still alive. This trip back in time celebrates their life.
The Sound of the Chatham Island Bellbird
Anthornis melanocephalus
Before the sky turned pink and my eyes would blink open, they, the mako-makos, gave a distinct and melodious singing, a tincture for the balm of dawn. First one or two would ring, like tunable silver bells or ice clinking in fine crystal, then others would tink and tinkle, one by one, and link the din in a rolling melody that filled the valley. In the widening rink of light, in sink with the rising sun was once this drink of wild music.
***
On Captain Cook’s voyage to Tahiti in 1770 to observe the transit of Venus, his naturalist Joseph Banks made these observations about the mako-mako or Chatham Island bellbird:
‘I was awakened by the singing of birds ashore from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile. Their numbers were certainly very great. They seemed to strain their throats with emulation and make perhaps the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating silver bells, but with the most tunable silver sound imaginable to which may be the distance was no small addition.’
***
Last sighted in 1906, the Chatham Island bellbird was driven to extinction by introduced cats and rats and forest destruction, as well as the activity of museum collectors.
Daniel Hudon, Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals
Here is the song of the O’o bird (Moho braccatus) of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. It was last seen in 1987. It was reputed to be the “finest singer” of the region. Its ghostly voice echoes down through time. Video from Daniel Hudon.
And on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Hudon writes of its many tree snails that have gone extinct.
The Oahu Tree Snails
Achatinella spp.
“Once you could shake an ohi’a lehua tree in the mountains of Hawaii and dozens of kahuli would come raining down. These “jewels of the forest”—tree snails— each had a colorful swirled shell as unique as a snowflake. They were striped and banded, brilliant red and smoky brown, metallic blue and electric yellow. Each one was like a craftsman’s conical trinket polished to perfection.
But great beauty comes at a high price. They were collected by the thousands by Europeans. Hawaiians still pass down beautiful kahuli shell lei heirlooms. “Shell fever” decimated the numbers of snails. Later, the introduction of rats and the voracious wolf snail, together with rampant habitat destruction wiped out all but seven or eight of the original forty-two species of tree snails.”
Daniel Hudon, author, Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals
It may not seem important that a colorful snail or a musical bird disappears from the earth, but each extinction is a loss for all the life forms who depend upon that bird or that snail in the interconnected canopy of life. It affects us too.
As various life forms disappear, they diminish the services provided by nature, such as pollination, seed dispersal, insect control, and nutrient cycling. This loss of species is weakening the web of life, and if it continues it could tear huge gaps in its fabric, leading to irreversible changes in the earth’s ecosystem.
Lester R. Brown, author, Plan B, 3.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization
What can we do to help the estimated million species at risk now? Here are a few ideas. You may have more.
Learn what species are struggling in your neighborhood and support a group or organization helping them. Where I live in Northern California on the coast, a partial list of threatened or endangered species includes the Blue Whale, Point Arena Mountain Beaver, Northern Spotted Owl, Coho Salmon, Northern Steelhead, Red-Legged Frog, and likely some native plants. Organizations like Friends of the Gualala River are working with the Center for Biological Diversity to protect those species living around the Gualala River. Check with local Sierra Club or land trusts to see who is helping in your area.
Habitat loss is a big driver of extinction. Think twice before cutting down large shrubs and trees. They are somebody’s home. Landscape with plants that local pollinators need. Your local nursery can help you identify them.
Toxic pollution also causes extinctions. Avoid the use of toxic products and seek environmentally-friendly deterrents.
Climate change is a less understood extinction maker as its effects vary. Anything to push back on climate change will be helpful to all life forms, including us.
Invasive species can dominate and outcompete native species. Don’t let invasive plant species get a foothold in your community if possible.
The Xerces Blue (Glaucopsyche xerces)
Amidst the scrub that grew on the dunes, like a momentary indecision of the plunging winds, flew the Xerces blue butterfly, a drunken king of motion unburdened by the world of desire…
Now the wind buffets the houses…and the Xerces blue, last seen near a pauper’s cemetery, sleeps somewhere in the drowsy arms of stillness.
Daniel Hudon, Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals
The extinction of a million species is not inevitable. We have the capability to influence our world in a positive way. It turns out that saving other species, whether small and precious or large in the landscape, will also help save us.
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