23 wildlife species are extinct: US government says.

 

The United States government declared 23 kinds of its wildlife species extinct. The wildlife officials have given up their hopes on these 23 species of birds, fish, plants and other animals. Scientists say that their efforts to find these species have failed.

The endangered plants and wildlife can increase in number in recent years as a result of climate change and global warming. More species can go extinct with the added pressure of climate crisis, experts say.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was the best-known species that has been announced extinct by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday. Other species that could be extinct include animals like flat pigtoe, a fresh-water mussel which was found in the south-eastern America. These species were identified only a few times in the wild and disappeared forever even before they got their names.

Anthony Andy Ford, a biologist in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who specializes on fresh water mussels, said that when he come across one of those rare species, he always remembers that he might be the one to see that species for the last time ever.

There are several factors for the extinction of these species, such as water pollution, competition between invasive species, too much human interactions, killing of birds and other animals for things like feathers and private animal collectors. The ultimate cause was always human interaction.

All the 23 species were considered to have a slight chance of survival, in the 1960s when it was added to the list of endangered species. Eleven species were removed from the list due to extinction before 50 years passed after declaring them endangered.

Some 902 species have been declared extinct all around the planet until now. The numbers of actual extinction might go much higher as some species were never formally identifies. Scientists warn that the disappearing rate of different species has increased by 1000 times when compared to the historical times, which pose an existential crisis to the planet.