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Supposedly extinct kangaroo rat resurfaces after 30 years
The last time anyone saw the San Quintin kangaroo rat was more than 30 years ago, in the arid scrublands of Baja California in Mexico. Mexican authorities declared the small mammal critically endangered, and possibly extinct, in 1994. So biologists couldn't believe their eyes when not one, but four San Quintin kangaroo rats (Dipodomys gravipes) hopped into their survey traps in 2017.
[...] The researchers attribute the kangaroo rat's comeback to a dramatic decrease in farming over the past decade, thanks to drought-related water shortages. Although the researchers are concerned that farmers may eventually make their own comeback, they are optimistic that the San Quintin kangaroo rat will persist, as it has also shown up in a nearby nature reserve. They say it also offers hope for other "extinct" small mammals, which may be findable if only researchers take the time and effort to track them down.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @08:39AM (3 children)
Maybe the article discussed it differently, but the researchers basically stated that farming in the area destroyed the kangaroo rat's natural habitat by making (I assume) heavily arid to desert conditions into moist farmland. Due to drought in the region, which had been de-desertified, it began to return as desert as a result of the lack of water, which made farming in the region economically unsustainable. The result of this is that species believed extinct due to development of the region, which had eliminated their natural habitat and breeding grounds, were recently able to recolonize their former habitats as the returned to the conditions beneficial to their survival.
Not everything has to be x is good, y is bad you know. Sometimes you can just make impartial observations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @01:04PM
You are doing it too. When an environment becomes good for humans it is "destroyed", but when it changes to be good for rats it is "returned".
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:50AM (1 child)
There are millions of acres of parched desert surrounding the relatively small acreage that was farmed. And speaking as an old desert dweller, kangaroo rats are more than happy to inhabit irrigated land. They loved to get stuck in my garden fence.
Here's the real problem: Kangaroo rats are nocturnal. Counting them during the daytime returns a quantity of "extinct".
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @12:44PM
Were they getting stuck in your fence after being declared "extinct"?