If there were pterodactyls still, would we wipe them out to keep giant poo off our cars?

March 21, 2008 1:59 PM

Has there ever been a case where humans have hunted (or gathered) a species to extinction, purely because that species caused inconvenience or danger to humans...and not mainly for food, sport, etc.
posted by Ziggurat to science & nature (29 comments total)

Not too extinction, but grizzly bears were hunted and killed off in California simply because they were dangerous animals. Same goes for many wolf specifies that used to exist in the area.
posted by ShootTheMoon at 2:02 PM on March 21

Passenger Pigeon
posted by Pangloss at 2:08 PM on March 21

Upon rereading the Wiki article, it says that the Passenger Pigeon was killed for its meat. But I know I've read reports of farmers killing them because the mile wide flocks would devastate crops.
posted by Pangloss at 2:14 PM on March 21

Big cats have been extirpated all over eastern US, due to persecution... not for food.
posted by artdrectr at 2:15 PM on March 21

The Eurasian and Red wolves.
posted by unknowncommand at 2:18 PM on March 21

The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) has almost certainly been hunted to extinction. There have been some (scientifically unverified) reports of living specimens however.
posted by elendil71 at 2:19 PM on March 21

Big cats have been extirpated all over eastern US

Except in Florida, where they are "merely" critically endangered.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 2:19 PM on March 21

Caspian Tiger?

From the above Wikipedia link: "The Russian government have worked heavily to eradicate the Caspian tiger during planning a huge land reclamation programme in the beginning of the 20th century. They considered there was no room for the tiger in their plans and so instructed the Russian army to exterminate all tigers found around the area of the Caspian Sea, a project that was carried out very efficiently."

I suspect if you do a search for "extinct tigers" you'll come up with a few more too.
posted by -harlequin- at 2:20 PM on March 21

Hm, or all wolves probably.
posted by unknowncommand at 2:21 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes are threatened or rare in much of their range- they humane society describes them as functionally extinct in Louisiana. While they are occasionally eaten, it's more likely inconvenience and danger that people are reacting to.
posted by jenkinsEar at 2:22 PM on March 21

On some (oversimplified) level, one could probably argue that the majority of extinct/extirpated species have gotten that way because they caused an inconvenience or danger to humans. In most cases, that inconvenience being the fact that some critical component of their habitat or ecological niche overlapped with something/somewhere that some human needed access to.

At least in the examples I can think of, the cases where a species has been hunted to extinction for food are (relatively) less common.
posted by dan g. at 2:30 PM on March 21

All of the examples so far as far as I can tell were hunted to extinction because they were perceived to be dangerous to humans, not because they were. So I guess that's the inconvenience side of your question more than danger.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:26 PM on March 21

I think you are asking to separate questions: 1: have humans caused the extinction of some species because of some reason other than sport or food? 2: have humans caused the extinction of some species because they were inconvenient or dangerous?

It's not clear to me which question you want answered. Dodo birds were not hunted (much) for sport or food but they weren't inconvenient or dangerous either.
posted by thomas144 at 3:28 PM on March 21

Wolves in the British Islands, I believe.
posted by Class Goat at 3:52 PM on March 21

Thanks for the answers so far, everyone. And Thomas144, in answer to your question, I'm looking for the answer to 2: have humans caused the extinction of some species because they were inconvenient or dangerous...
posted by Ziggurat at 3:55 PM on March 21

Smallpox.
posted by fuzzbean at 4:01 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

To take a contemporary example, I would look at the Northern Pike and Chinese Snakefish that were introduced in the US by sport fishermen and aquarium hobbyists and have entered into lakes and rivers to eat native species. The USGS and EPA have gone to extraordinary lengths to exterminate both in the US.
posted by parmanparman at 4:08 PM on March 21

Oops, I meant Chinese snakehead.
posted by parmanparman at 4:20 PM on March 21

Smallpox.

I said that earlier, but for some reason my comment was deleted. It's a species, yes? It is extinct now (except in laboratories) because it is dangerous to humans; it answers #2 exactly: "Have humans caused the extinction of some species because they were inconvenient or dangerous..."

C'mon, mods.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 4:42 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Just to expand on the smallpox answer. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only species that we have deliberately and consciously destroyed with full understanding of the implications. There are plenty of other viruses that we'd happily do it too also, but smallpox is the first so far.
posted by kisch mokusch at 4:49 PM on March 21

smallpox exists in the lab, therefore not actually extinct.
posted by Rumple at 5:33 PM on March 21

Sorry, should say extinct in the wild, with no plans to ever ever reintroduce it. And hopefully, soon, will be destroyed from the US and Russian labs that have it.

(You know, we kept the last thylacine in captivity, until it died)
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:44 PM on March 21

A ton of species have been killed due to their unfortunate inconvenience to the human race. The history books usually use the phrase, "[Animal] was hunted as a pest." Usually, though, it's not purposeful action, but merely unfortunate side-effect of us not thinking shit through. Here's some emus that were eradicated due to the clearing of fields, for instance.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:00 PM on March 21

So, with wolves, does that count, given that (a small) part of the reason was that they ate livestock?
posted by salvia at 7:01 PM on March 21

(US) Eastern cougar. (Probably extinct, some rumors that a couple are still around up in the northeastern mountains).
posted by salvia at 7:08 PM on March 21

The American bison (a.k.a the buffalo) was hunted to near extinction in the 19th century for a combination of reasons. While the animal was hunted early that century for its skins, the government paid hunters to kill the bison indiscriminately as a way of depriving indians of their primary food source. In addition, as railroads expanded west, bison herds would often delay or derail trains, so the railroads paid people to kill them to keep them off the tracks.

Once number in the hundreds of millions, there are now about 300,000 left, most of which are raised as cattle for food. During the peak hunting years, they were killing between 80,000 and 100,000 bison per day.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:49 PM on March 21

Huia - Heteralocha acutirostris

The huia was probably the greatest loss to New Zealand's unique avifauna. It became extinct in 1907 after extensive hunting for collections and its tail feathers, which were in great demand due to an international fashion of wearing them in hats.

posted by Miko at 10:24 PM on March 21

Huia link
posted by Miko at 10:25 PM on March 21

Not extinct globally, and is mostly a danger to our food, not us, but how about screw-worm? The California Condor gets another very nearly vote, though much of that loss was from ecological factors, some was ranchers thinking it killed cattle. I'd mostly vote for large predators like wolves and bear, though.
posted by agentofselection at 2:15 AM on March 22