Eastern U.S. cougar declared extinct 80 years after last sighting
By Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler
23 January 2018
(Reuters) – Eastern cougars that once prowled North America from Michigan to South Carolina were officially declared extinct and removed from the U.S. endangered species list on Monday, eight decades after the last confirmed sighting of the wild feline predator.
The large cats, also known as mountain lions, pumas, or panthers, historically roamed every state east of the Mississippi River but by 1900 had all but vanished due to systematic hunting and trapping, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The agency opened an extensive review in 2011 into the status of the eastern cougar, a genetic cousin of the mountain lions that still inhabit much of the Western United States and of a small, imperiled population of Florida panthers found only in the Everglades.In 2015, federal wildlife biologists concluded that pumas elsewhere in the Eastern United States were beyond recovery, and thus no longer warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act. The plan to de-list them became final on Monday. [more]
Eastern U.S. cougar declared extinct 80 years after last sighting
If you look at a satellite picture of the Eastern United States (night time image), you'll see the massive population buildup of this entire region.
Nobody wants to talk about the overpopulation / too many people problem, but it's not getting any better or going away. The draw upon natural resources, habitat and species extinction caused by the "human problem" means that virtually every species on the planet is ultimately at risk (except cockroaches, rats and other species that can survive in our cities and eat our refuse).
This appears to be the untouchable trajectory of the planet – to eliminate, dominate, subjugate and drive into extinction every other species as we devour our way down the food chain.
All those exotic cooking shows? Just more evidence of how too many humans are preying upon too few resources and now having to resort to eating strange new "foods" (that we'd never touch in the past). Relabeling trash fish with new, tasty sounding titles in another technique we're now using – because most of the normal table fish are now gone. Same problem – too many humans.
This should be the topic globally, but because of our stubborn stupidity to assess the facts and evidence and abandon stupidstitions – we can't talk about this, let alone do anything about it. So species extinctions are going to continue – faster and faster as the rising tide of humanity overwhelms the entire planet.
This article is about the phosphorous "loading" that is overwhelming the freshwater on the Earth – https://phys.org/news/2018-01-phosphorus-pollution-dangerous-worldwide.html
"The authors found phosphorus load exceeded the assimilation capacity of freshwater bodies in 38 percent of Earth's land surface, an area housing 90 percent of the global human population."
But what it doesn't adequately mention is the real problem that is at the root of this issue – massive levels of human overpopulation in virtually all countries.
Until the "people problem" because paramount – there is very little that is going to work to solve all the other issues caused by people.
It isn't a planet / Earth / environment or even species problem that exists – it's always been a people problem .
In nearly all cases of human or environmental or species problems throughout history – it's always been caused by people, and most of these issues are related to over-population for those areas.
This is now a worldwide issue as civilization continues it relentless "advancement", displacing all other life forms (even microbes in many cases).
This man did a very good job explaining the overpopulation problem also:
"Harquebus / February 27, 2016. There is no such thing as clean and green technology. Renewable energy collectors do not return the energy used to manufacture and construct them. Those that claim otherwise do not factor "all" the energy required, education, manufacture and maintenance of infrastructure, maintaining a workforce etc., or use flawed data. The only solution to reducing pollution and preserving the natural environment is population reduction. Unless the overpopulation problem is solved, we ain't gonna make it. Growth, both economic and population, is the cancer that is killing us."
The earth needs a large network of birth control clinics set-up in every country of the world. It is probably too late though and these clinics will never be established. Ideally, birth control systems should have been started when modern medicine was developing, but people did not realise the net effect of medicines designed to prolong life and reduce the death rate. Margaret Sanger was one of the first persons to recognise the problem and i agree with most of what she said.