What do you feel in life for a topic today? We can go a little sad. Let's go a little sad. Oh, no, you're feeling a little sad I'm not feeling a little sad. I'm feeling like here and something Those are two distinctly different things. I don't have feeling sad I have feel bad in which I think I just loaded one up here. Let's take a look. Oh good. Are you sure this is bad?
Okay, I'm gonna do a share of two So the first one is gonna be from the Smithsonian magazine July 23rd 2021 see on a topic of something that we just updated for who knows how many episodes away it was 2021 two years ago. Anyhow, that's three years ago Chelsea Alex Fox says no, he titles this article
This butterfly is the first US insect to be wiped out by humans. Oh, it's 2024. Oh, that is sad Yeah, you brought us here Taylor genetic test using museum specimens suggest that the Exerces blue was a distinct species and that it disappeared in 1941 So maybe that could make you feel a bit better because it wasn't us humans Okay, also it really sounds like they really had to cut like
Minooshas to get down to the fact that it's its own species. What the butterfly? Yeah, no, it seemed like they really were like Torn on whether or not some species so they had to like The exerces blue butterfly has the dubious distinction of being the first insect species in the United States to have been driven off the existential cliff of extinction by humans last one having been collected at San Francisco's Lobos Creek in
1941 us them 100 years after the species was first described by biologists There's no question that human activity specifically decades of livestock grazing and urban development that denuded and bulldozed the dunes caused the exerces blue to vanish But in the years after its disappearance a debate emerged concerning whether this June butterfly was a distinct species or just an
Isolated population of the wide-ranging silvery blue butterfly. Well, this took a turn. Yeah, that's what I thought it was gonna do Take a turn. Yeah to the point that maybe it's not actually a species. Maybe it's just that it was you did call that Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like saying to was went extinct when you can't have Chihuahua's go extinct because that would mean dogs went extinct Because they're not their own distinct species. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah, I get it. Yeah
Yeah, like a part of dogs. Yes, because weirdly if we only had a Newfoundlander or a great Dane and a to Wawa left They could breed to produce dogs again like one of each left. Yeah, well, I guess technically if you only have one of each left No, but um, yeah, sure. Okay, anyhow now a group of researchers says they've settled the debate using genetic techniques and a 93 year old museum specimen Confirming once and for all that the exerces blue was its own distinct species
Reports like Jake Bueller for science news dead. I guess I don't know said's not in there But it doesn't make sense otherwise the research published this week in the journal Biology letters also confirms that the exerces was indeed the first insect that Americans erased from the planet despite the permanence of Extinction the team was able to collect a tissue sample for their genetic analysis from a pinned specimen in the drawers of the natural history
Collections maintained by the Field Museum in Chicago specifically They removed a tiny pinch of abdomen from the exerces blue that was captured in 1928 according to a statement it goes to show how critically important it is not only to collect specimens But to safeguard the man does this seem boring to you a little bit Maybe that's why we're sad The director and curator of the Cornell University insect collection tells Sabrina Imbler of the New York Times
We can't imagine the ways they will be used 100 years from now I'm assuming they're talking about the specimens after sequencing the museum specimen DNA. Okay, we get the point We extincted a butterfly, but maybe we didn't maybe we didn't but at any event I think we can all agree that our destruction of ecosystems is a bad thing overall. Oh, it is and you know what?
I was gonna read this other article to you, but it's behind a paywall So I'm just gonna read you the title copy the address and then go to the address 12ft.io. So this one's from the Times and it is titled salmon declared endangered species for the first time and this is by Jeremy Watson Saturday December 6 2023 Oh, this one's fairly recent for me 6 p.m. And then it says the Sunday time I'm not sure we need to know the time when it's over a year old. Yeah, we do
Okay, you put it there must be important. It's important to the salmon. Okay So this one says without intervention the survival of wild Atlantic salmon is at risk Experts say wild Atlantic salmon the king of fish in Scotland's rivers has been declared an endangered species for the first time by an International conservation body British populations have plummeted by up to half between 2006 and 2020
accelerating a trend that has found three generations according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN in Scotland where more than a hundred and seventy rivers once boasted healthy populations Numbers declined by 58% with climate change affecting salmon at all stages of their migratory life cycle populations in the smaller number of salmon rivers in England and Wales also suffered steep declines the IUCN have identified a number of key pressures
Faced by Atlantic salmon including climate change poor water quality dams and barriers Exploitation at sea and invasive non-native BC such as Pacific pink salmon. I would also at probably out in there I'm just going out on a limb, but probably our fishing of salmon is probably a huge threat to it as well and
Would it's not only that Chelsea? We've talked many a time about well, sorry by many a time I think I mean once about Vehicles impact on salmon if you don't for if you can't remember there's something in tires That is absolutely catastrophic for salmon that it wouldn't get some to rivers So let's just say the human threat as well is probably a huge one as why they're also And we kind of just have to assume that like plastic is probably doing something to them
We we don't care enough to actually study it in anything because that would be bad for the economy But odds are salmon's probably impacted by plastic in some way. Yeah, so we get the feel of this article I think we can post the link in the notes It's behind a paywall. So we already told you how to get behind the paywall if we didn't edit that out. So Butterfly we
Extincted it probably that's certain one but more butterflies exist. So we're confused on that one Might I just say I'm a little sad because you know when you go down a YouTube hole It's literally just you see an exciting title and you click on it and the videos just keep playing Yeah, I did that with like medieval cooking. Hey, I've looked it There's this guy that like cooks medieval cooking who has the hat. Does he have a hat? I Really liked him
He was cooking like what the Kings would eat at the Coliseum when they do their tiger face. Okay That's pretty cool. You find all these like super old recipes and makes them Yeah, there's a few of those guys this one was specifically looking like a peasants dinner and like it actually looked delicious It was like Kirby peas and Salmon because any hasn't could go down to the river and just get a salmon because they were plant-a-fine
That sounds really nice. Yeah, it's kind of sad to see that like in our future apocalyptic age Those peasants are gonna be eating as oh, sorry, and it was multi-grain bread That was the other thing too because the white bread was just for the upper class Really? Who wants that shit anyway?
Yeah, it's funny with the upper-class reserved for themselves yet like the slaves ate lobster and the peasants eat Yeah, well to be fair they were they were entirely coated in lead at the time so they weren't thinking right In any event, I don't know how to say it So just like take your 48 hours do your thing come back here Maybe probably don't ingest any lead-end or plastic. I know you can't avoid either But just don't intentionally intake either. So good luck. Bye. I'm in the clear. I think I