Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with extinction

What are the odds that elephants will become extinct in the next 30 years?

Joe Beese — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:59:08 -0800

What are the odds that elephants will become extinct in the next 30 years? That's my actuarial life expectancy, give or take. I wondered if it was likely that some day of my old age would know the profound embitterment of reading that the last cow had died in captivity, and that these would never walk the earth again.

Dinosaur extinction due to space dust?

OneCrayon — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:40:39 -0800

Could large land animals have died out due to the Earth's gravity increasing over millions of years? Every year around 40,000 tons of mass are added to the earth by way of space dust. Perhaps when the massive dinosaurs walked the earth the earths gravity was in "golden window" that would allow such creatures to exist. Over the hundreds of millions of years they existed, could it be possible that the accumulation of dust and the increased gravity that mass brought with it have grown to the point where such giant beasts simply could no longer grow to the sizes they had in the past?

Or, is 40,000 tons of mass, even if it may have been higher in the early solar system, still insufficient to appreciably raise the mass of the earth to a noticeably higher gravity level?

This is something I've wondered about for years but never read anything that may have posed this question.

There goes the neighborhood

ocherdraco — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:26:02 -0800

Are there any species other than humans whose own success (at procreation, expansion, etc.) has threatened or ruined their habitat? I'm not talking about species whose habitat we've ruined, or that we've hunted to extinction (like the dodo). I'm asking if there are any who've done it to themselves.

(Both plant and animal species count.)

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

Ziggurat — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:59:34 -0800

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.

Oops! I destroyed the world...again.

AlliKat75 — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 15:48:17 -0800

So...let's say that some freak nuclear accident (or, in our current political climate, perhaps a purposeful nuclear attack) wipes out most of the world's population. How many people would have to survive to successfully re-populate the world? (more inside) Taking into account the fact that, at some point, inter-breeding would probably become a problem...how would this be avoided? How can the world be re-populated with a limited stock? Is this eventually not a problem? How does genetics play into this?

is anyone aware of an online (or offline) extinction tracker?

specialk420 — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 09:25:08 -0800

extinction tracker? ... is anyone tracking the daily list of vanishing species from this planet? like some sort of online resource of known exctinctions as they happen?

Who are the species in your neighborhood?

salvia — Mon, 01 May 2006 13:19:32 -0800

What are the most important animals for your region of the country? Impressed by the environmental movement to create the Salmon Nation and the Buffalo Commons, I've (barely) begun making a website about key animal species for different regions of the country.

What are the most important animals where you live? They might be the most popular, the most endangered, the most economically important, or a cornerstone for the ecosystem. Do you know of grassroots groups organizing around those animals? Chambers of Commerce trying to bring back a certain animal? Ecology labs that collect data on these animals or count them?

Any other resources or thoughts on this idea are welcome. Did I miss any major projects to restore regional ecosystems while creating a bioregional identity?

Global Warming

danny boy — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 11:02:32 -0800

I've been reading the ongoing series of articles in the New Yorker about global warming, and quite frankly, I'm freaked out. Further reading on the web only confirms this. So here's my question: is there any good news? Please--no soap boxing. I really am heading into a depression (no joke for me) about the dire warnings, and I just want to know if there's any kind of silver lining here. That may sound naive, but I'm not a scientist, and I'm being overwhelmed by the masssive amount of somewhat contradictory information out there--not so much about "if" this is happening (it surely is), but "how soon" we're all going to die.

Looking for a Neanderthal Comic

salmacis — Mon, 17 May 2004 03:45:40 -0800

Several years ago, I had a photocopy of a cartoon entitled "Why the Neanderthals Became Extinct". There were two Neanderthals, one saying "I don't know, it just seemed easier when we went hunting" and the other one replying "Yes, but Og assures us this will keep us ahead of those Cro-Magnons in the valley". The rest of the cartoon was an insanely complicated hunting plan, with boxes and arrows and stages like "Hunt Readyness Review". I've been looking for a copy of this cartoon for years now. I don't suppose anybody knows what the hell I'm talking about?