Instant Genius - How extinction can protect future animals

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Living through a mass extinction means the end of a species’ existence inevitably collides with significant events in our personal lives. But what does that mean for the people working to protect them? And why are these extinctions actually bringing them hope? We spoke to science writer Tom Lathan, author of the new book ‘Lost Wonders’, who explains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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delivering digital precision with analogue warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com. to learn more. This is Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form from BBC Science Focus, and I'm Noah Leach. We're living in a time when species are disappearing at the fastest rate since an asteroid

struck off the dinosaurs. And for a small number of these species, we actually know the exact date, time and place they went extinct. In his new book Lost Wonders, Tom Lathen tells the story of 10 of them, and today he's talking to us about why these dates are so meaningful and why the extinctions actually brought him hope. Tom, your book is about 10 stories. I think there's more than 10 species on there, but 10 stories about species that have gone extinct since the beginning of this century. Why did you choose to present your book in this way? I chose to present the book this way because I really felt like

each of these species deserved its own attention, its own space. Each of the 10 chapters of the book basically talks about a species that's recently gone extinct, so since the year 2000. One of the chapters is actually about two species that share a very similar story, live in the same part of the world, the Atlantic Forest in northeast Brazil, faced the same threats, and it felt right to put them together. But essentially, I wanted each species to have its own space, its own kind of breathing room for people to be able to come to the individual stories of species

in a very focused way. So of these stories, could you maybe pick out one and tell it to us? Yeah, absolutely. So I think a good one to start with is actually the species that kind of kicked this off for me, which is the Christmas Island Pipestrel, which is a tiny little bat, weighed the same as an empty matchbox, size of a prune. It lived only on the Australian territory of Christmas Island. To get unscientific for a moment, this thing was just incredibly cute.

It was covered in short brown fur and it had a little quiff on the top of its head. And in all the pictures I'd ever seen of it, it always wears this very tranquil expression. And one of the scientists that I spoke to about this species, calm is kind of the way she described it. She talked about it sitting in her hand and just kind of relaxing, which is incredible when you think about this wild species. But what happened to the Christmas Island Pippostrom is it used to be an incredibly abundant species on Christmas Island. You would see it every evening. You'd see it in the sky barreling after moths and beetles and other invertebrates. It even hunted invertebrates inside Islanders' homes.

And there are these incredible accounts of Christmas Island Pipestrilles actually tumbling into people's soup bowls as they're eating dinner. So it's a species that was very abundant and widespread. And beginning in the late 80s, it began to decline rapidly. Christmas Island is a place that's had a lot of species, invasive species, introduced and a combination of these, it's not really known exactly which one in particular, but this kind of cocktail of threats essentially led to the extinction, which occurred on the 26th of August 2009. The last time it was heard was at 1129 and precisely 38 seconds

past the minute, which is a kind of incredible fact in and of itself. So when I read about this species and I learned all about it, that date was something that really kind of sprung out to me because it's actually my birthday. And 2009, 26th of August, 2009 was my 23rd birthday. And when I realized that, it was just this incredibly surreal moment where I suddenly felt really connected with this species that had gone extinct. You know, completely, I was completely oblivious to that at the time. But I could recall what I'd done that day, most of the evening. I could recall who I'd been with. I could look back over emails, texts, messages, Facebook, and see put together, a piece together the puzzle of what that day had looked like in my world

at the same time that this species had just vanished. And I found that a really profound and moving experience. And as I looked at more recently extinct species, you know, there are other dates that jumped out to me. And I just kind of was struck with this sense that, you know, extinction is something that we very often think of as something from the past. Most of us will come into contact with the term extinction, the concept extinction as children when we learn about dinosaurs. You know, I'm a 90s kid, so, you know, I had Jurassic Park bedding. I was obsessed with the Natural History Museum. And so most of us kind of, that's how we first learn about extinction. I think that there's something about that first

experience of extinction that's a little bit kind of hardwired. And it's something that we very often think of as being part of the past, but it's happening all around us today. You know, we're, as is often said, we're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. And so, I really felt like a book that told the stories of recently extinct species that had been seen, that had existed, and then become extinct since the year 2000. I felt like that was an important book. So let's unpack what you mean there by a sick mass extinction. Some of us may have heard of that term before. What do you mean?

What's happening? Yeah. So extinction is a normal part of life. It's part of the everyday functioning of life on Earth. periodically species are trimmed or pruned from the tree of life you could say but a mass extinction is a period of time where that's happening much much faster and so at the moment it's estimated that the rate at which species are going extinct is 1,000 times or up to 1,000 times more than you would normally expect if in a kind of business as usual kind of situation

that's a mass extinction. And there had only been five mass extinctions in the history of the Earth, 4.5 billion year history of the Earth, one of which was the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. We're now in the sixth mass extinction. And we're the cause. We're the asteroid this time. Human activity from way back hunting, introduced species, habitat destruction. And, you know, it's become especially bad in the last century.

And you mentioned all of this kind of background extinction that's happening without us even realizing. Is that what you call in the book Dark Extinctions? So, yes, a dark extinction is basically an extinction that occurs without us ever realizing that the species exist in the first place. And as much as we know about life on Earth, there is a lot more that we don't know. There are many, many species that we just have no idea they're even there. And scientists have been able to estimate how many of those species have gone extinct without us knowing about them. And that's what's called a dark extinction. So how did you choose the 10 stories that eventually formed your book?

Basically, I contacted the IUCN, which is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. And this is the global body that basically assesses the wildlife's health. So they declare species extinct, endangered, threatened, etc. I contact. them and asked them for a list of species that had gone extinct since the year 2000, specifically species that had been seen and then gone extinct, because I really wanted to know which of the various extinctions that are reported of our time. And they sent me back this list, and at the time it had 10 entries, I'm sad to say it now has more, but at the time in which I kind of was putting this book together. And it was a difficult decision, actually, because I really

didn't know where to draw the line with that. I mean, the last thing I want to do with this book is present an idea that it's just 10 species that have gone extinct recently. I mean, this is a snapshot of extinction. You know, these are stories where it's known that these species have gone extinct. There are other extinctions, but these are really kind of emblematic of what's going on. These were just the ones that had been recently cited before their extinction, right? Yeah, so basically the ICN has. a listing for when each species was last seen, starting with plectostoma Skiaphylum, which is a minuscule, the size of a sesame seed from Malaysia, that was last seen in 2001.

Going all the way up to the most recent extinction with a catarina pupfish was last seen in 2015. When you were talking before about your birthday and these dates and the background extinction rate that's happening all the time, I'm sure for a lot of people reading your book, those dates will mean something to them. I mean, every day, mean something to someone. So even as these extinctions are happening, it is someone's birthday, it is someone's anniversary, it is maybe has a more sad significance for someone. But all of this comes to weigh on our minds quite heavily. I mean, we don't really want to be thinking about extinctions on our birthdays. I'm sure that it was not the first thing on your mind on your 23rd

birthday. And for a lot of us, you know, we don't know how to help. It is just a huge weight, really. So I was thinking for you, writing a whole book about it and being confronted with those lists must have been a pretty huge thing for you to have to come to terms with. How did you feel writing the book and how did you cope with the tragedy of it? That's an interesting question. Going into this, I actually really did think it would be an enormously depressing activity and I was worried that the book would be almost savagely sad. But the interesting thing is as I started the research, and particularly as I spoke to the scientists and conservationists that were involved, I ended up feeling really hopeful, which might sound really ridiculous.

But it's a book where, you know, in all of these cases, in some way, shape or form, we've crafted these extinctions, our species, you know, whether it's in the distant past, the age of exploration, or if it's more recent. these kinds of facts can really lower your estimations of mankind. But then on the flip side, when you read about the incredible things that people did to try and rescue these species, and these people are still working today. They've learned lessons from their experiences, and they've managed to do incredible things. But just hearing about and hearing from those people really filled me with a sense of hope about humanity that I really wasn't expecting to find. And I really hope that that comes across in the book. But on the note of the activity and just generally the extinction crisis weighing heavily,

I completely understand. And to that, I'd encourage anyone who feels the same way to do what they can to try and get involved with their local wildlife trust. I volunteer myself. And it does help to participate in some way. You mentioned there some of the stories of people working hard to save these species that brought you hope. Could you tell us about maybe one or two of these people?

A good example of this is one of the chapters is about a type of Partula snail, which Partchler is a genus of snails that live across the Pacific, particularly concentrated in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. And they have been really hard hit by an introduced species of cannibal snail called the Rosie Wolf snail. There's a pair of geneticists called Brian Clark and Jim Murray, who were at the time working with Partular snails, studied. them as geneticists. They were looking at how different traits were being passed on through the generations of different parts of the snails. And suddenly they realized what was happening around them. And overnight, they essentially switched careers. I mean, they were still scientists,

but they became conservationists. And the laboratories that they were studying part of the snails in became a kind of arc for these species. And it's an incredible story. And they worked in this way for decades and they established a global program that to this day, in fact, if you go to London Zoo today, they have a partial room there and there are other zoos around the world as well, where you can see these species, which many of them are critically endangered. You can see them being nursed back to life and there have been some incredible success stories there. Unfortunately, the species in my book was one of the unfortunate ones. In California, staying compliant means watching the state laws and the city rules.

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and gives it emotional texture. Today, in partnership with French acoustic specialist focal, name audio creates systems that deliver exceptional sound and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. What are some of the biggest lessons that we have learned from past extinctions? Are there any cases where something has sadly left the face of this planet,

but has actually maybe that the act of it becoming extinct has helped us learn about how to save something else? Yes, there are a lot of examples of that. I think whenever there is an extinction, there are lessons that are learned. So just thinking about the stories from the book, there's one species called the Pauley, which was a little brown and gray, what's called a honey creeper, Hawaiian honey creeper. It's an endemic bird to Maui, the island of Maui. That species went extinct in 2004 after a decades-long struggle to save it that was mired with, unfortunately, quite a lot of delay and indecision about what exactly to do, how exactly to save

this species. And part of the problem there was essentially this bird was only discovered in 1973 and it was not doing well. It was pretty much on its last legs. And despite the kind of dire situation it was in, conservationists didn't really know anything about its ecology, what to do. They didn't, you know, this is a tiny bird that sometimes small birds in captivity can respond really badly. So there was a lot of indecision and disagreement about how exactly to proceed that kind of went on quite a long time. And eventually, conservation, Couldn't save it. They managed to capture one, but it sadly died in 2004. Jim Greenbridge, who is one of the people who was involved in the conservation attempts, we spoke about his involvement,

and he really took away the lesson that conservationists need to get stuck in. He said, in his words, we need to get invasive because we're the only thing standing between these species and extinction. That's become a part of his curriculum, as it were. He's a lecturer at the University of Kent, and he teaches his students that. And it's really become something that the next generation of conservationists are learning from every year, which I think is incredible. A huge focus of your book is time, the vast scales of these species coming into being, and they're kind of ancient creations of the conditions that made them, or even them coming into the world so long ago, compared to the briefness.

of their extinction, of course. And it feels like for several of these, once their decline started, from reading the book, it feels like it was a lost cause. Is that true? When these species start to decline, are we able to pull it back, given that the decline happens so much faster than their lifespans and the lifespans of their species? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think nothing is certain in conservation.

You could have the ideal population size for captive breeding, for instance, and a species could just fail to breed for whatever reason, nothing's certain. But at the same time, people have done incredible things with even just one individual of a species. There's a species of Partula Snail, Snail, so related to the snail that's in my book, Partula de Bruska, that came back from just one individual in 1972. by the mid-90s, there were 520. The Mauritius Kestrel was down to a population of four, and by the early 2000s there were 600 of those.

The fact that these recoveries have happened is a testament to the dedication and ingenuity of the people who work with endangered species. As well as time, you described the space that these stories occupy, one example being these micro snails again disappearing in the limestone hills of Malaysia. So why does extinction feel so far away to us? And is that a problem? There's a species of fish from Mexico, a tiny species of fish around three centimeters called the Caterina popfish. It's a species that diverged genetically seven to nine million

years ago, and it lived only in a single lagoon in Nuevalion, Mexico. It's thought to have lived there for five million years as this lake has over time changed shape, gotten bigger and gotten smaller, become this tiny lagoon. And that lagoon was drained in the late 20th century, reportedly to irrigate fields of potatoes for a globally popular brand of crisps. The fish survived in captivity for a couple of decades, but then it went extinct in 2015. I think stories like that are really shocking when you realize it's an extinction that's connected to the global supply chain.

It's connected to the products that we might consume day-to-day. Plectostomoskiaphylam is another example of that. That's the sesame seed-sized snail from Malaysia. That species of snail lived only on a single hill that was around about the size of Russell Square, the height of the London Eye. That hill was built 300 million years ago by calcium secreting organisms like brachio pods under the sea.

And tectonic movement shifted it above land, and the sediments on top of it eroded, life flocked to it eventually tens of millions of years ago, a snail arrived and adapted to become Plectostomoskeathlon. And that story that played out over hundreds of millions of years ended in a matter of decades when the limestone hill that this snail lived on was quarried for cement starting in the 1980s. Cement, which is used to make concrete, these are materials that are internationally traded. and it's another one of those moments where you kind of realize how connected we all are with extinction in ways that many of us kind of wouldn't think twice about. But there are hills like this being quarried

all over South East Asia, so it's something that's kind of still going on today. This is a tough question, so I'm really sorry. But how do we choose which species matter the most to save? Yeah, that is a tough question. Okay. So unfortunately, we are choosing. We're choosing simply by the fact that there are certain species that we find really appealing. So we pour our resources and our manpower into preserving species that we like. Whereas, say, for instance, to go back to snails, and there are fewer resources available to protect snails. It's not entirely unsurprising because I don't think snails elicit the same kind of reaction from people. but it's an unfortunate fact that the appeal of species does drive our kind of decisions.

There are different ways of looking at it. I mean, sometimes conservationists are forced to look at species simply in terms of the ecosystem services they provide. You know, they're important to an ecosystem. You have certain species like Galapagos giant tortoises are a good example where they're so-called ecosystem engineers. So just simply by living their lives, eating prickly pear, catatye stomping around their islands, they have such an influence on that ecosystem that without them, there are many, many knock-on effects. So there are certain priorities that conservationists just, they're forced to make priorities. But really, every species is important.

So you talked about invasive species and that being the cause of some of the species extinction in your book. Does that tend to be the main reason that things are going extinct at the Could you give us an idea of the causes, some of the general causes behind these extinctions? Yes. So introduced species are a massive problem, and sometimes a species will have been introduced centuries ago. Other times it could be very, very recently. But essentially, they can take different forms. It could be a species that directly predates on an endangered species, or it could be a species that competes with it. It's just better at the day-to-day acts of gathering food and reproducing or whatever. But introduced species have an enormous effect, as does habitat destruction,

which is a factor in a lot of the stories in this book. Returning to the species in your book and to other species that are already extinct, why can't we bring these species back? Are they really all gone for good? Yes, they are. The reason we know these species are gone is basically the IUCM, allows a grace period before it declares something extinct. So conservationists may write a paper, they may write a report saying this species is gone, we think it's disappeared, we can't find it anywhere,

submit that to the ICN, and the IUCN will allow a grace period of usually several years, whilst there are further efforts to look for the species. And in these instances, the efforts to survey the habitats are incredibly extensive, and there really isn't any doubt. one exception in the book. So the Pinter Island tortoise is a species of Galapagos giant tortoise that went extinct in 2012. The last of the species was a world-famous celebrity tortoise called Lonesome George, counted amongst his fans, King Charles, David Astenborough, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jane Fonda, was really a conservation icon. Quite recently, scientists have discovered a hybrid tortoise on a remote island in the Galapagos, which shares a lot of its DNA with

Pinter Island tortoise. So it's possible that somewhere out there, there is a Pinter Island tortoise still roaming around, possible, but they haven't found it yet. So some of our listeners may have read recently about the company that is hoping to bring back some of the iconic species of the past, the dodo, obviously, the mammoth. And then they recently announced that they'd also like to add the giant bear of prehistoric times and five-foot beavers, interestingly. Obviously, you've been part of efforts to bring back the bison, which is something slightly different because it didn't go extinct. But what do you think about de-extinction? So this being the recreation of a species through their genetics, their genetic material that's been left behind.

Okay, there's a nine-year-old boy in me that's obsessed with Jurassic Park, but it's so excited about this. It's really fascinating. and I think that the potential the technology has is really exciting. Before I continue, I will preface this by saying I'm not a geneticist, but I think that the term de-extinction is a bit of a misnomer. When we're talking about something like the mammoth, what they're doing there is they are, they're using gene editing techniques to essentially resurrect traits of the mammoth

and splice them into the DNA of Asian elephants. That's my understanding. I'm not geneticist. But in my opinion, that's something different. That's not a mammoth. It may have the traits, so the traits that they want to infuse in this elephant, which they do call, I think the term they use, similar to this anyway, I think the term they use is something like a cold-resistant elephant.

Obviously, in the marketing, they describe it as the de-extinction of the mammoth, but actually they're creating a kind of hybrid animal there, that will, if they're successful, have very useful traits, cold resistance, shaggy fur, But is it a mammoth? I think it depends how you look at it. And as much as it's a very, very exciting story, I'm very wary of stories like this. Because even Beth Shapiro, who literally wrote the book on D-extinction and is the scientific advisor for this company that's planning to bring back the mammoth, even she says, this doesn't solve the extinction crisis. You know, because a species is so much more than its DNA. A species is its behavior. A species is the particularities of the environment that

lived in its gut microbiome, things that we can't piece together from its genetic code in these these kind of recreations. So there's a study that was done on parts of the snails quite a while ago where scientists observed courtship dances, where the snails would take turns, jumping, you know, crawling onto each other's shells and slithering around in a kind of figure of eight pattern or some other kind of pattern on the back of another snail before mating. And it was specific, they had specific courtship dances in each species. So it varied between species. And that's never been observed in captivity.

So that suggests that that's a behavior that was lost. That's for whatever reason. How do you teach a mammoth to be a mammoth? And the other thing that really kind of gives me pause about this kind of thing is, even though it's really exciting technology, and I'm more excited about how the technology can be used for endangered species, rather than bringing back an extinct species or, you know, quote unquote bringing back. Even though it's very exciting in terms of how gene editing could be able to help certain species adapt to things like a warmer climate, that's incredible. My biggest fear about the extinction is that it might be perceived as a silver bullet. it's a little bit like carbon capture in my mind where there are certain people who perhaps dismiss

the dangers of climate change by thinking, oh, we're going to develop this incredible technology that's going to sequester all the carbon out of the atmosphere. We don't need to cut emissions or we don't need to be as aggressive with solving the climate crisis because we're going to have this technology. In my mind, it feels like the equivalent for the biodiversity crisis. So Tom, I know that you're aware of tons of species in the world extinct and still with us. What species is currently endangered that you'd like to not see in the sequel to your book? Okay, well, I'm going to loop back around to Partula of Snails because there is some really encouraging news about these snails. So Justin Golak, how I mentioned earlier, who saved the last Partial of the Bruska, he's been leading the reintroduction.

efforts in French Polynesia, where they're taking captive bred snails that have spent 20 years in captivity sometimes, and they're reintroducing them into the wild. And in the book, I write about how, at the time when we spoke earlier this year, actually, the one thing they were waiting for, because when they release these snails, they paint a tiny little dot of luminous paint onto the shell so that they can identify them, track them. Next time they come back, they can see if those snails are still alive. And he told me earlier this year, the one thing they were looking for and waiting for was to see one of these snails without the dot on its shell, which means they've successfully bred in the wild. And very, very recently, I found out that he's just been to French Polynesian.

He saw a snail without a dot, and that's incredibly exciting. The reintroduction effort is absolutely incredible. It's really interesting, really inspiring to learn about what people are doing for parts of the snails. and it's a real success story, or at least it looks like the beginning of a real success story. Obviously, it's complicated, but I've got my fingers crossed for the part of the snails, and I hope everyone listening will do the same. That was Tom Lathen, author of the new book Lost Wonders, 10 Tales of Extinction from the 21st Century. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus.

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