Extinct, But Brought Back Trivia Quiz

Answer: Yangtze River

Land around the Yangtze River has been converted to rice fields over the years, which has led to severe habitat loss for this animal. The Chinese alligator was once very common in East Asia until humans arrived around 5,000 BC and started settling the land.

In the 1970s, its range had decreased drastically and it was estimated that there were about 1,000 of these creatures in a few small areas in China. In 2015, scientists surveyed the species and found a population estimate of between 136 and 173.

After a captive breeding and re-introduction program, scientists determined that there were about 300 of these alligators in the wild in 2017. Although the Chinese alligator is still threatened, the species numbers were no longer declining by 2018.

Answer: England

The steppe bison is an extinct species of bison that once roamed throughout many areas, including parts of Europe such as Great Britain, Asia, and North America. This animal is thought to have become extinct during the Holocene period. Scientists suggest that it was replaced in Europe by the modern European bison (Bison bonasus). Given its importance in England's past ecosystem, a nature conservancy group known as the Kent Nature Trust is preparing to release the first herd of European bison into woods near Canterbury in Kent in 2022.

The Trust is hoping that the bison will help to bring back Kent's ancient woodland.

Answer: Arabian oryx

The Arabian oryx is well-adapted to living in hot and dry climates. Like camels, they can go long periods without water. However, they were heavily hunted for their meat, hide, and horns until they became extinct in the wild in the 1970s. Captive breeding programs have allowed this animal to be reintroduced into the wild since its extinction.

After being reintroduced in Israel, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, the animals did extremely well. In 2011, there were over 1,200 Arabian oryxes living in the wild, and over 6,000 living in captivity available for reintroduction programs.

These numbers led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to change its status from "endangered" to "vulnerable" at that time.

Answer: 2

The typical black rhino has two horns, but sometimes develops a third horn. It is these horns that are partially responsible for this animal's decline in the wild. They have been hunted for the horns for use in the Middle East and in China where they are used to make decorative items and in traditional medicine. Rhinos also face threats from habitat loss, competing species and civil disturbances such as wars in some African nations where the rhinos have traditionally lived.

The black rhinoceros population was relatively healthy in the 1960s at about 70,000. But, by 2004, scientists estimated that there were only 2,400 of these animals left in the wild. One of the programs that was put in place was translocation where animals were found, sedated, and moved to special wildlife preserves to protect them from poachers. That, coupled with a captive breeding program, has allowed these animals to begin to recover.

Although still considered critically endangered, the black rhino's population was shown to be slowly increasing in 2019, with 5,500 animals estimated to be living in the wild at that time.

Answer: 69

Grey wolves were considered a nuisance by ranchers in the Yellowstone area because the animals were accused of killing cattle. As a result, the wolves were regularly hunted during the 1800s, and into the early 20th century. The last wolf in Yellowstone was killed in 1926.

This led to huge changes to the ecosystem in the park. The main food of wolves in the park had been elk. When the wolves were removed, the population in the elk herds increased dramatically. They, in turn, killed many trees and shrubs.

Historically, these trees and shrubs had been used by beavers in the park. Without their building materials, the beaver numbers dropped drastically. Wolves are a natural predator of coyotes, so with them gone, the coyote population also increased. Coyotes are predators of foxes, so with the increase in coyotes, fox numbers declined. With all of the drastic changes to the ecosystems in Yellowstone, it was decided to reintroduce wolves to the area in 1995. Wolves were translocated from Canada, and some of the changes that were caused by their absence from the park were reversed over the following years. On a side note, wolves that wander outside the boundaries of Yellowstone Park sometimes meet up with ranchers who accuse them of endangering cattle, so the wolves are shot.

Interestingly, more cattle have been killed by dogs since the reintroduction than by wolves.

Answer: Central Asia

Przewalski's horse is a free-ranging horse that traditionally lived on the steppes of Central Asia. However, it went extinct in the wild in the 1960s. At that point, there were fewer than 25 of these horses in zoos around the world. In 1985, a captive breeding program was started with zoos and nature preserves sharing animals to preserve genetic diversity.

In 1992, a group of horses were released in the wild in Mongolia. In 1998, some Przewalski's horses were also released in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an area that was evacuated after the Chernobyl incident that has become a bit of a nature preserve. With the success of the reintroduction programs, the IUCN classified the Przewalski's horse as "critically endangered" in 2008, and moved it to "endangered" in 2011.

It is estimated that, when combined, the wild and captive population numbers were approximately 1,900 in 2020.

Answer: False

The European pine marten (aka pine marten) is a small weasel-like animal that once roamed all over the UK. Its numbers decreased over the 20th century in all but Scotland where it seems to have managed to flourish. The decrease in the other UK countries may have been caused by over-hunting because of its fine fur.

The pine marten was actually considered extinct in England at one point. The decrease in numbers in all but Scotland disrupted the ecosystem because the pine marten's natural prey is the grey squirrel. With the pine marten gone, grey squirrel numbers went up.

This negatively affected the red squirrel that couldn't fight for habitat and food against the larger grey squirrel. Between 2015 and 2017, more than 50 pine martens were successfully translocated from Scotland to their traditional living areas in Wales.

In 2019, eighteen pine martens were translocated to a forest in England. Further moves are planned to try to bring the numbers of these animals back up to traditional levels across the UK.

Answer: Yes

There are two types of the large rodent known as the beaver, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) and the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber). Both were over-hunted for many years because their fur was prized by hat makers. The Eurasian beaver has a historical range that covers much of Europe and Western Asia, but it is now extinct in many areas. Protections in North America have allowed the North American beaver to rebound since the fur trade ended. Beavers are positive additions to most ecosystems because they build dams in rivers that help control flooding.

They can also positively affect fish. One study found that there were more fish in ponds that were created by beaver dams than in stretches of the same river with no beaver dams. Due to the positive effects, reintroduction programs are in place in many areas for the Eurasian beaver.

This includes one program in England where a reintroduced pair produced 15 other families of beavers over a ten year period.

Answer: Invasive species of snakes

The Guam rail lived in the US territory of Guam. It is estimated that about 70,000 of the flightless birds lived on the island up until the early 1960s. At that point, they were overcome by an invasive species of snake called the brown tree snake that had accidentally been moved to Guam after WWII.

The rail population declined very quickly once the brown tree snake arrived. In fact, they were no longer living in the wild by 1987. A captive breeding program was started and, beginning in 1995, scientists have been releasing the birds into the wild on Rota, a small, snake-free island near Guam.

It is hoped that the rail can be returned to Guam, but significant threats still exist there. Besides the snakes, other threats include humans (habitat destruction and hunting), rats, feral cats, wild pigs and monitor lizards.

Answer: Butterfly

The large blue butterfly's numbers decreased drastically in the 20th century. The beautiful butterfly was down to about 100,000 UK adults in the 1950s, but it was declared extinct in Britain in 1979. At first, scientists didn't understand what the problem was.

After checking a number of hypotheses, it was determined that the large blue butterfly depends on a diverse landscape, from flowers that emerge at different times, to other insects that appear at different stages of their lives. They suggested that because it works to remove weeds that bloom at different times, and kill insects that may damage crops, modern farming had disrupted the diverse, cyclical nature of the big blue butterfly's environment so it was unable to sustain itself in the wild. Conservationists took note, and spent five years preparing an area in southwest England with the diverse environment that the big blue butterfly requires.

The butterfly was successfully re-introduced to the area, but it is still listed as "critically endangered" by the IUCN across the rest of Britain.