On the death of species

This week, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed taking 23 animals and plants off the endangered-species list — because none can be found in the wild. What this tells us about climate change, and things to come.

Read more: The ivory-billed woodpecker is officially extinct, along with 22 other species of plants and animals. “Just having to write those words was quite difficult,” Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Amy Trahan told climate reporter Dino Grandoni, choking up. “It took me a while.” The woodpecker was known as the “Lord God Bird” because it was supposedly so beautiful that anyone who saw it would blurt out the Lord’s name. Grandoni said that some scientists think the Endangered Species Act came too late to save a lot of animals. But maybe not all hope is lost. “My inbox today, after publishing the story online, is full of photos from amateur photographers in their backyards of woodpeckers, asking me if this is the bird that people are saying has gone extinct,” Grandoni said. “This might spur some interest in people going on and understanding the birds and other animals that are still with us.”