1: Steller's Sea Cow

Land cows eat grass, but these "sea cows" once grazed on kelp in the Bering Sea.
A relative of the smaller, much-beleaguered manatee, the gentle sea cows were over 25 feet long
and may have weighed as much as 10 tons.
By the time German naturalist Georg Steller found and described them in 1741, their population was
already threatened, perhaps due to hunting by indigenous peoples.
Their extermination would quickly continue with the arrival of Alaska-bound European fishermen and
seal hunters. The sea cows were rapidly hunted for food, skins (used to make boats) and oil (for
lamps), and by 1768, less than 30 years after Steller found them, the Steller's sea cow was extinct.

2: The Dinosaurs, all of them

They were gone long before the first human graced the planet, yet they've still managed to capture
the hearts of school kids across the globe, thanks to the toys, cartoons and museums full of
skeletons extolling their prior existence.
And wouldn't it be nice if the dinosaurs all lived together like they do in the movies, playing, fighting
and hunting? Think more The Land Before Time and less Jurassic Park, more plant-eaters and fewer
Velociraptors. The reality is that many of the more famous dinosaur species never even crossed
paths.

Stegosaurus lived way before Triceratops showed up; Tyrannosaurus wasn't feasting on
Apatosaurus (he had been extinct for millions of years by that time); and they were all gone by the
time human beings came around. But never mind that.
They've captured our hearts in a way that no other extinct animals have ... and when it comes down
to it, we should probably just be thankful that we never knew those Velociraptors, right?

3: The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)

Oh, dodo. Poor dodo. The flightless bird, native to the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, was
known to mankind for less than 100 years ... but that's all it took for us to eradicate the species.
It wasn't so much that humans killed the stubby, rotund birds directly, but our decimation of their
habitat and food source did an awful lot to hasten their demise.
And then there are the pigs, dogs and other predators that we introduced to the isolated island,
where they ravaged the birds' nests and generally harassed them.
The last dodo died sometime in the late 17th century. Since then, the bird (a relative of pigeons and
doves) has become a poster child for extinction and a reminder of the havoc we can wreak as
human beings.

Monarch Butterflies Are Getting

Increasing Scarce. Photo: Keenan Adams, USFWS

THE AFRICAN WILD DOG

A Rare Reason For (Cautious) Celebration On The Endangered Species Front.