The Associated Press and Wilson Wong
Climate change, habitat loss and other human-related factors contributed to the extinction of the 23 species, according to wildlife officials.
The U.S. government is ringing the death knell for 23 species of birds, fish and other wildlife, including the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will officially declare the "Lord God Bird" extinct Wednesday after years of unconfirmed sightings and fruitless searches in the South.
The rare decision to remove more than 20 species from the endangered list forewarns the devastating impact climate change and habitat loss will have on global biodiversity, threatening many other animals and plants with extinction, federal officials said.
The factors behind the disappearances vary — too much development, water pollution, logging, competition from invasive species, birds killed for feathers and animals captured by private collectors. In each case, humans were the ultimate cause. Only 11 species have previously been removed because of extinction in the almost half-century since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law. Wednesday's announcement kicks off a three-month comment period before the species status changes become final.
Around the globe, 902 species have been documented as extinct. The actual number is thought to be much higher, because some are never formally identified, and many scientists warn that the Earth is in an "extinction crisis," with flora and fauna disappearing at 1,000 times the historical rate.
It's possible that one or more of the 23 species in Wednesday's announcement could reappear, several scientists said.
A leading figure in the hunt for the ivory-billed woodpecker said it was premature to call off the effort after millions of dollars have been spent on searches and habitat preservation efforts.
"Little is gained and much is lost" with an extinction declaration, said Cornell University bird biologist John Fitzpatrick, lead author of a 2005 study that claimed that the woodpecker had been rediscovered in eastern Arkansas.
"A bird this iconic and this representative of the major old-growth forests of the Southeast, keeping it on the list of endangered species keeps attention on it, keeps states thinking about managing habitat on the off chance it still exists," he said.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based group that tracks extinctions globally, isn't putting the ivory-billed woodpecker into its extinction column because it's possible the birds still exist in Cuba, said Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the organization's "red list unit."
Hilton-Taylor said there can be unintended but damaging consequences if extinction is declared prematurely. "Suddenly the [conservation] money is no longer there, and then suddenly you do drive it to extinction because you stop investing in it," he said.
Federal officials said the extinctions declaration was driven by a desire to clear a backlog of recommended status changes for species that hadn't been acted upon for years. They said it would free up resources for on-the-ground conservation efforts for species that still have a chance for recovery.