Every year our planet suffers more and more from the human population. Water, forests, air - all this has already been poisoned by man. Animals disappear along with the forests. Today we decided to show you who could inhabit our planet to this day, if it were not for the neglect of man …
Tarpan
Tarpans are fast and extremely hardy, energetic animals, very angry and wild, not tamed in adulthood.
In the 13th - 14th centuries, they were the object of intense hunting. In some cases, they were caught and rounded, the Lithuanian princes caught tarpans in Belovezhskaya Pushcha to repair the horse train and supply the army with meat. The last wild tarpan was killed in 1814 on the territory of the modern Kaliningrad region.
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Dodo, or Mauritian dodo
Dodo lived in Mauritius for several centuries, completely without fear of her natural enemies, which simply did not exist on the island. That is why the bird was flightless - it simply had no one to hide from.
The bird was first seen in 1598 by Dutch sailors, and literally 100 years later it was completely exterminated - both the travelers themselves and the animals that were brought to Mauritius by the colonists tried. Still, think for yourself how attractive a dinner of a 20-kg bird was for sailors, the closest relatives of which are modern pigeons.
Sea cow
Steller's cow lived off the coast of the Commander Islands and had not only low mobility, enormous size and a complete lack of fear of humans, but also delicious meat. The latter was the reason that less than 30 years after its discovery, the sea cow was completely exterminated.
Passenger pigeon
The decrease in the number of pigeons took place at a more or less gradual pace somewhere until 1870, after which in less than 20 years their number decreased simply catastrophically and the last pigeon in the wild was seen in 1900.
In captivity, itinerant pigeons survived until 1914, when the last bird named Martha died at the Cincinnati Zoo.
North African cow antelope
The hunt for them was so active that in the last few decades of their existence, cow antelopes were found only in truly inaccessible places in several African states, until they completely died out by the middle of the last century.
Javanese tiger
Back in the 19th century, the Javanese tiger was found throughout the island of Java and regularly annoyed its inhabitants. Maybe this was one of the reasons for the active hunt for him, or maybe something else, but the fact remains: by 1950, only 20-25 individuals remained alive on the island.
Moreover, half of these tigers lived on the territory of a specially created reserve. But even this was not enough to save the population, and by 1970 their number was reduced to seven individuals. The exact time of the extinction of the Javanese tigers remains unknown, but most likely it happened in the mid-1970s.
From time to time, there are reports that a Javanese tiger or even a mother with several cubs has been seen again in Java, but there is no documentary evidence that the tigers really survived in nature.
Zanzibar leopard
The campaign to exterminate animals began in the second half of the 1960s, and after some 30 years, Zanzibar leopards are almost gone in the wild. Scientists began to sound the alarm in the early 90s of the last century, but after a few years the conservation program was curtailed as unpromising.
Pyrenean ibex
One of the four known species of the Spanish wild goat, which, unlike the others, is not lucky to survive to this day. The last known representative of this species died a completely ridiculous death - he was crushed by a fallen tree.
Scientists managed to take samples of its DNA, and they made an attempt to create a clone of the ibex, but, unfortunately, the cloned cub died shortly after birth due to various birth defects.
Western black rhino
This black rhino subspecies was declared extinct just a couple of years ago. He became a victim of regular hunting in his territory, in Cameroon. The rhino horns, used in Chinese medicine to treat numerous diseases, were considered the most valuable for poachers.
Tasmanian wolf
The Tasmanian or marsupial wolf, also known as thylacin, lived in mainland Australia and the island of New Guinea. For the first time, its habitat underwent a change after dingo dogs were transported to New Guinea. The latter drove the marsupial wolf out of its usual habitat, and in our time it "moved" to live on the island of Tasmania.
It is believed that the last marsupial wolf was killed on May 13, 1930, and in 1936, in one of the zoos in Australia, the last marsupial wolf kept in captivity died of old age.
Woolly mammoth
It is believed that this type of mammoth first appeared in Siberia about 300-250 thousand years ago and gradually spread to Europe and North America. The dimensions of the mammoths were not so huge as most people who are not too familiar with the history of people think: they were only slightly larger than modern elephants.
Mammoths lived in groups led by an older female, and constantly moved from place to place, since an adult mammoth needed about 180 kilograms of food daily. Which - and this is obvious - does not imply trampling in one place.
The completely woolly mammoth disappeared about 10 thousand years ago. And although there are many theories why they became extinct (loss of genetic diversity, climate change, an outbreak of an epidemic, etc.), modern research is increasingly inclined to believe that the final blow to this type of mammoth was inflicted by a human hand.
Moa
Extinct giant birds of the order of monoforms. Lived in New Zealand. They did not have wings (or even their rudiments). There are 15 known species, all extinct: the largest of them, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached a height of about 3.6 m and weighed about 250 kg. By way of feeding - herbivores (they ate leaves, shoots, fruits). It is believed that the moa became extinct around 1500, destroyed by the Maori aborigines. According to unconfirmed evidence, some representatives of the species Megalapteryx didinus were still found in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Secret Tails
Order (Tinamiformes Huxley, 1872) and family (Tinamidae GR Gray, 1840) ratites living in South and Central America. Despite their similarity to chickens, the closest relatives of hidden tails are the ostrich.
Wingless auk
This large bird was exterminated in the middle of the 19th century. Due to the weak development of the wings, she could not fly, walked on land with difficulty, but she swam and dived superbly. Back in the 16th century, Icelanders fished for the eggs of flightless auks with whole boats, but in 1844 the last two birds were killed, and since then there have been no reports of these birds.
Caroline parrot
An extinct bird of the parrot family. The only species of the genus. Body length 32 cm, wings - 19 cm, wingspan - 55 cm, tail length 15 cm. The main color of plumage is dark grassy green. The front of the head and sides are orange-red. The incessant pursuit of individuals was explained by the harm caused by these parrots to fields and fruit trees. The last two individuals remain at the Cincinnati Zoo. Their names were Lady Jane and Incas. Unfortunately, Lady Jane died in the summer of 1917, followed by Incas in February 1918. Wild birds were last seen in 1926 in Florida, in the vicinity of Lake Okeechobee, and rumors of sightings of Caroline parrots spread in Florida, Alabama, Georgia until 1938. How accurate this information is is unknown.