Dolphins, Wolverines and Lemurs

With one species celebrating successful reintroduction, another likely to face extinct and a third moving back into its old neighborhood it’s hard to know how to feel.

Captive reared black and white ruffed lemurs have been living and breeding in the wild for ten years now on Madagascar. Habitat is being restored for them. A wolverine has been positively identified in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, the first of what was believed to have been an extirpated species. And, sadly, the Maui or Hector’s Dolphin appears to be disappearing from the planet.

This is the world of endangered species work. Small victories, some surprises and too many species living on the edge of existence. In the summer of 2007, the Chinese Baiji was declared functionally extinct. Everyday other species suffer from extinction, some without us ever knowing they existed. The Hector’s or Maui’s Dolphin is likely to be next, at least in the wild. Unlike the Baiji, which never bred in captivity, the Maui dolphin does breed in captivity but whether those animals would ever be able to survive in the wild is subject to question.

The wolverine in California is the surprise. A good surprise, in that the species had been thought to be extirpated from the area. As more land in the mountains of California is being left alone, the door is being opened for the return of some native predator species.

And then the straightforward good news- the success of the lemur reintroduction program. Reintroductions are going to be an increasingly important part of endangered species recovery programs as animals bred in captivity are used to repopulate areas where they have been hunted, poached or driven out by human activity.

I’d like to think we are getting closer to the ‘more good days than bad’ state in endangered species conservation but I’m just not sure that’s true yet.