Undescribed Juvenile Plumages of the Laysan Rail Or Crake (Zapornia palmeri: Frohawk, 1892) and A Detailed Chronology of Its Extinction

Predicting the Potential Distribution of Non-Native Mammalian Species Sold in the South African Pet Trade

“…European rabbits and eastern gray squirrels are also regarded among the most destructive mammalian species. For example, European rabbit competes with domestic animals for pasture, and they are also responsible for impacting native species through habitat destruction [114][115][116]. The eastern gray squirrel negatively affects forestry production, causing millions of dollars in damages and repairs [117,118].…”

“…They are traded in most provinces, and most of their selling localities were within their projected distributions. There is little information on the impacts associated with these three rodent species; the only available literature is on the role of Guinea pigs in the extinction of Laysan rail (Zapornia palmeri) in Hawaii through habitat destruction [116]. Another commonly traded species, African pygmy hedgehog, was not predicted to have a large distribution in South Africa.…”

Red Spot on the European Green Map: Will the Extra Catastrophic Phenomenon Take the Polish Poaching-Pressured Ospreys to the Brink of Extinction?

“…In this case, the extra mortality of adults and chicks due to unusual predation could affect the local Polish population and increase population decline, especially when more adults have lower LRS (due to poaching and extra predation), which must influence the very low population numbers. Throughout history, exceptional catastrophic phenomena were the direct cause of the species extinction even if the original cause bringing the species to the brink of extinction was different [ 6 , 7 ]. The extra mortality, especially of adults (high drop in LRS), but also of chicks in Poland could represent an instance of this type of catastrophe for the country’s population.…”

“…The survival of the threatened and very small population is at a greater risk as their eventual extinction may be directly attributed to a unique previously unobserved or previously not significant factor. This extra factor could be the direct cause of the extinction of the entire species, including local subpopulations [ 6 , 7 ]. What if such a factor occurred in the threatened Polish Osprey population?…”

Assessing the potential impacts of non-native small mammals in the South African pet trade

“…The environmental impacts of these three species with high scores were related to their impacts on other animals (predation) and competition, because they have caused the extinction of native species or generally compete with several species of high conservation concern. For example, the extinction of the Laysan crake Porzana palmeri in Hawaii has been linked to the introduction of Guinea pigs and European rabbits, and in Australia, rabbits outcompete the vulnerable rufous hare-wallaby Lagorchestes hirsutus for food and space (Lees and Bell 2008;Hume 2017). The house mouse and the Norwegian rat are associated with the reduction of native species and are also responsible for the extinction of several bird, insect and reptile species on different islands (Atkinson 1985;Marris 2000;Cuthbert and Hilton 2004;Zeppelini et al 2007;Jones et al 2008;Dagleish et al 2017).…”