Extinct Animals

Many animal species have gone extinct over the last century due to human hunting and urbanization.  Here are just a few of the species that have gone extinct recently:
1. Passenger Pigeon (1914)

In the 1800s there were about 3.5 billion of these birds in North America, so many that their flocks blackened the skies, but by 1914 they were driven to extinction by excessive hunting for meat and recreation, which started when Europeans immigrated to the Americas.

2. Bubal Hartebeest (1923)

Herds of hundreds of these antelope roamed northern Africa, especially Morocco and Algeria, until the late 1800s, but they were wiped out by hunters.

3. Tasmanian Tiger (1936)

Tasmanian Tigers, also known as the thylacine, were the largest carnivorous marsupials.  The species was at least 4 million years old at the time of its extinction, and indigenous people of Australia first made contact at least by 1000 BC.  By the mid 1600s they were already extinct in Australia, and in the 1900s the Tasmanian government considered them pests and paid people to kill them, causing their extinction.

4. Javan Tiger (1979)

Javan tigers, native to the Indonesian island of Java, went extinct due to poisoning and hunting, fragmentation and deforestation due to post WWII plantations, and poisoning of their prey

5.  Golden Toad (1989)

The golden toad was native to Costa Rica, and went extinct due to climate change.'

6. Zanzibar Leopard (1996)

Deforestation and hunting caused the death of this species from Tanzania, Africa.

7. Pyrenean Ibex (2000)

This ibex was most common in France and Spain, and went extinct due to gradual overhunting in 2000.  Scientists tried to bring the species back to life by creating a clone using tissue samples from the last ibex alive, but the clone died 7 minutes following its birth.

8. Spix's Macaw (2004)

This small blue macaw from Brazil has recently been declared extinct in the wild, though some exist in captivity.  Illegal trapping and trade and habitat destruction contributed to its extinction.

9. Baiji (Yangtze River Dolphin) (2006)

The Baiji made its home in the Yangtze River in China.  Over the last 50 years, the river has become the world's most used waterway.  Fishing, pollution, shipping, hydroelectricity, and noise caused their deaths.  Noise pollution caused them to swim into propellers, fishers used more and more lethal nets, and the riverbed was dredged and filled with concrete.