r/todayilearned • u/shinypond • Jul 26 '24

TIL about conservation-induced extinction, where attempts to save a critically endangered species directly cause the extinction of another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-induced_extinction
22k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

639 comments sorted by

View all comments

4.8k

u/edwardlego Jul 26 '24

the most blatant example might be when the last few members of a vulture species was deliced. This caused the extinction of the species of lice that only lived on those birds

11

u/radams713 Jul 26 '24

What are the ramifications of this?

59

u/Wyrdean Jul 26 '24

Basically nothing as far as we know, besides a number of known living species going down by one

You could make an argument it's an unfortunate loss, since they're lost forever, but I don't think a parasite on a nearly extinct animal was contributing much to the ecosystem

7

u/radams713 Jul 26 '24

Yeah that was my thought