Join global quest to find top 25 ‘most wanted’ animals – and one plant

ONCE upon a time, a subspecies of giant tortoise lived on Fernandina, the least-explored island in the Galapagos.

In 1906, explorers with the California Academy of Sciences found one male tortoise – and killed it to preserve as a specimen. The next sign came in 1964, when an expedition to the island reported the presence of tortoise scat. An aerial survey in 2009 spotted something resembling a tortoise. But for all practical purposes, this reptile has been lost to the world for 111 years.

Now the quest to find it – and two dozen other “lost species” – is about to be renewed. Global Wildlife Conservation is launching a global search for what it calls the top 25 “most wanted” animals (and one plant). None is officially extinct. But, collectively, they have not been seen in more than 1 500 years.

The list, compiled in consultation with dozens of experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, includes a bat, a bee, a parakeet, a sea horse and a kind of coral. The experts were asked to nominate species that had not been spotted in more than 10 years and had cultural significance. Species already extinct, such as the Tasmanian tiger, were not considered.

Most important, project lead Robin Moore said, was a “glimmer of hope”, for their rediscovery. “We are in an extinction crisis, and people need to feel at least there’s some hope,” said the biologist and director of communications. “Hope is a more powerful motivator than despair.”

From an initial list of 1 200 nominations, the organisation narrowed things down to what Moore called 25 “quirky, charismatic” poster species that, if they still exist, are found in 18 countries. It does not include species for which many people are already looking, Moore said, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird reported to have been seen in Arkansas in 2004 (although that sighting is in doubt).

Moore said the organisation hopes to start expeditions in a few months’ time, after an initial effort to raise $500 000 (R6.6 million). The kind of search will vary, he said.

Scientists might launch a two-week quest in the grasslands and swamps of Burma to look for the pinkheaded duck, which has been “lost” for 68 years. Larger mammals, like the Wondiwoi tree kangaroo of Indonesia, might be best spotted with remote cameras. Talking to locals could be key to finding the scarlet harlequin frog in the cloud forest of Venezuela.

Divers and vessels will be required for the search for Wellington’s solitary coral, which was abundant in some parts of the Galapagos until an El Niño event in the early 1980s.

Moore has first-hand evidence this campaign could work. In 2010, when he was at Conservation International, he and colleagues launched “The Search For Lost Frogs”, which took scientists across the world looking for 10 frogs. Within a year, they located three, and rediscovered 12 others.

Would you like to help? Tips and sighting reports are welcome, Moore said. Here are four species for which to look. The others can be seen at http://lostspecies.org/ though in many cases the only image available is an artist’s rendering. – The Washington Post