Once upon a time...

Since the human being became the most effective and main predator of the animal world, it has collided with a multitude of living species, sharing the battlefield and, at times, destroying the latter. In several cases the uncontrolled slaughter has reached a critical point that makes it illegal to continue, in others it was not done in time to take preventive measures and some species have become extinct permanently. The development of urban centres has destroyed or seriously damaged some natural habitats; the incessant advance of agricultural land at the expense of the native vegetation has done likewise.

Especially in the last century, however, the various types of pollution, air, aquifer, soil, have accelerated exponentially the development of negative effects that, from the environment, have repercussions on living beings.

In this list are reported only some of the subspecies belonging to the class of mammals that in the past shared with us the planet Earth but that currently, for reasons strictly related to human activities, can be admired only through fossil finds, digitized photographs or reconstructions.

Bos taurus primigenius

1. The aurochs was a large bovine animal, originally found in Europe, and in some parts of Asia. It possessed some aspects rarely found in modern cattle, such as the lyre-shaped horns bent forward, a pale stripe along the spine and a sexual dimorphism in the colours of the mantle; was also known for his very aggressive temperament and in ancient cultures killing one was seen as a great act of courage. Modern cattle have become much smaller than their wild ancestors. The native range of the aurochs extended from the British Isles to Africa, the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. From the 13th century AD, its range was restricted to Poland, Lithuania, Moldova, Transylvania and East Prussia. In queste zone il diritto di cacciare i grandi animali fu ristretto solo ai nobili, fino a divenire gradualmente una prerogativa solo delle famiglie reali. Nel 1564, i guardacaccia, secondo le stime reali, erano a conoscenza di solo 38 animali. L'ultimo uro visto vivo, una femmina, morì nel 1627 nella foresta di Jaktorów, in Polonia.In these areas the right to hunt large animals was restricted only to nobles, until gradually becoming a prerogative only of royal families. In 1564, the gamekeepers, according to royal estimates, were aware of only 38 animals. The last live aurochs, a female, died in 1627 in the forest of Jaktorów, Poland.

Hydrodamalis gigas

DRAFTJS_BLOCK_KEY:813af2. Steller’s retina was the largest representative of the ordes among its current close relatives, the dugong and manatee; except for cetaceans, it was probably one of the largest mammals lived in historical times. Between 1743 and 1763, 19 groups of fur hunters, each comprising 20 to 50 men, stayed for the entire winter season on the island of Bering, between Russia and Alaska, while others wintered on the island of Copper. Around the latter, the last species disappeared completely by 1754, while it seems that the last representative of the species was killed in 1768.

Elephas maximus asurus

3. Mosaic of the Syrian elephant attacking a feline. It was the westernmost subspecies of the Asian elephant.The ancient Syrian artisans used the tusks of this animal to produce ivory statuettes. The increasing number of killings to supply the ivory market led this subspecies to its demise at an unspecified date around 900 BC, although some elephants lived in Syria until about 100 BC. AD: These populations may have been extinct during the first century BC, when they ceased to be used (and bred) for war, while they continued to be hunted for ivory and games in Roman circuses.

Canis lupus beothucus

4. Called the white wolf of Terranova, it was a subspecies of the grey wolf that lived on the island of Terranova, off the eastern coast of Canada. In 1842, the government of Newfoundland fixed a bounty on wolves; in 1911 a lone white wolf was shot down: it was the last Canis lupus beothucus, a definition that took the name of the ancient Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland; Europeans had exterminated this indigenous population about a century before the white wolf died out.

Zalophus japonicus

5. Japanese sea lions lived primarily in the Sea of Japan, along the coastal areas of the Korean Peninsula, the larger islands of the Japanese archipelago, the Kuril Islands, and the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Until Japan’s involvement in World War II in 1941, sea lion hunting met with government approval. The records of the Japanese commercial fishermen of the first years of the '900 indicate that at the beginning of the century were killed 3200 sea lions; in 1915 there were only 300 remaining, reduced in the '30s to a few dozen. Commercial hunting of this species ended in the 1940s, when it became virtually extinct.

Ursus arctos nelsoni

6. Commonly called Mexican Grizzly, it was a subspecies of brown bear, as well as one of the largest and heaviest mammals in Mexico. The first Europeans who came into contact with the Mexican grizzly were the conquistadors of the 16th century, when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado made an expedition in search of the Seven Golden Cities. When these animals began to prey on livestock, they were increasingly considered pests by farmers. Until the 1930s, when they had become scarce, they were trapped, killed and poisoned. The original range was reduced to three isolated mountains, Cerro Campano, Santa Clara and Sierra del Nido, in the state of Chihuahua. Since 1960 there were only 30 individuals left. Despite being protected hunting continued unyielding. Since 1964 the Mexican grizzly bear was considered extinct.

Panthera leo leo

7. The Atlas lion or Berber lion is a subspecies of common lion, native to North Africa. It was the largest subspecies after the cave lion and the American one. The last known wild specimen was shot in 1942 in Morocco. In Antoco Egitto the lion was considered a sacred animal and this avoided hunting (only the pharaoh, considered a god, could hunt the lions). However, with the extension of the Egyptian civilization along the course of the Nile, the lions retreated. Throughout the Roman period, the North African lion was imported in thousands of specimens per year and used extensively in circus fights. Subsequently, Arab expansion in North Africa led to an acceleration of the decline of the lion. With the introduction of firearms, the Berber lion - now greatly reduced, became extinct in the eighteenth century in Libya, and in the middle of the nineteenth century in Nubia and Tassili. In 1891 he disappeared from Tunisia and in 1893 from Algeria. Now present only in reduced areas of Morocco, some specimens were confined in the zoological gardens in order to avoid an extinction that was already imminent.

Panthera tigris sondaica

8. The Java tiger is a species of tiger that lived on the Indonesian island of Java. Around 1850, these animals were still so numerous that they were considered a scourge by the men living in rural areas. By 1940, however, the tigers had retreated to the mountains and the most remote forests. In fact, the annual production of rice was not enough to meet the food needs of a growing population, so, over 15 years, an area of land equal to 150% of that already cultivated, was deforested to make room for crops. In 1938, the forests covered 23% of the island. By 1975 only 8% of the forests had remained intact; meanwhile, the human population had reached 85 million. In this land now dominated by man, the disappearance of tiger was intensified by various circumstances and events: during the 1960s, in some reserves and forests, the number of sambars from the mane, the most important prey of the tiger, decreased greatly due to disease; during the period of civil unrest, after 1965, various armed groups retreated to the reserves, where they killed the few remaining tigers.

Pteropus subniger

9. The small flying fox of the Mascarene was a bat lived in historical times on the islands of Réunion and Mauritius. It took refuge among the foliage of the trees and sometimes also in the caves in groups up to 400 individuals. It was a strictly nocturnal species. The last observation of a live specimen dates back to 1862. Its disappearance is probably due to the loss of its habitat and to the hunting.

Hadropithecus stenognathus

10. It is an extinct species of lemurs lived in Madagascar until about 1000 years ago. It is the only species of the genus Hadropithecus. They had terrestrial life habits and were probably very similar to baboons due to a phenomenon of evolutionary convergence. The subfossils of these animals have been found somewhat throughout Madagascar: it is believed that the decline of the species began with the arrival of man on the island, which devastating the habitat with fires, By introducing competing herbivores for food and actively hunting these large, meek herbivores, it led to its extermination.

Macropus greyi

11. The wallaby toolache is an extinct species of wallaby that was once found in the southwestern regions of South Australia and southwestern Victoria. Many considered him the most elegant, graceful, and fast kangaroo that ever existed. This wallaby was hunted for the skins or for pure fun; it also suffered the consequences of the effects brought to its habitat by the herding. Relatively common until 1910, it was already very rare in 1923, when only a handful of 14 remained. The last specimen we know of was captured in 1943. The main reasons that led to the extinction of this marsupial were the hunting, the introduction of the foxes and the deforestation.

Bison bonasus caucasicus

12. The Caucasian bison was a subspecies of European bison that was formerly found in the Caucasus Range in Eastern Europe. In the 17th century, it still populated a large area of the Western Caucasus. Later, by the late 19th century, when human settlements in the mountains had become more numerous, its range had shrunk to about one-tenth of the original range. In the 1860s, the population was still about 2,000, reduced to 500-600 in 1917 and only 50 in 1921. Local poachers, however, continued their work and in 1927 the last three were shot down.

Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica

13. The Pyrenean ibex was the nominal subspecies of the Iberian ibex. At one time, its range extended from the French and Spanish Pyrenees to the Basque Country, Navarre and northern Catalonia. Depending on the season, the ibex migrated. In the spring period they climbed the highest peaks, where they then mated with the females. Until the fourteenth century, the population of Ibex of the Pyrenees was quite abundant, amounted to about 50,000 specimens. The ruthless hunting and the competition with domestic species of goat, drastically reduced the range and the population of the ibex, up to reduce it to few hundreds of specimens. Between the fourteenth and twentieth centuries, their number fell to less than 100 individuals. On January 6, 2000, the last ibex of the Pyrenees alive, a female named Celia, was found dead with her neck broken after being crushed by a tree, thus decreeing the extinction of the species.

Equus quagga quagga

14. The quagga is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra, which once lived in South Africa. It was distinguished from all other zebras because it had the characteristic black stripes only on the front of the body. It is reported that the quaggas were lively and nervous animals, especially the stallions. In the thirties of the nineteenth century the quaggas were used as shooting animals for carriages in London, probably the males were first castrated to mitigate their character. The peasants used them as guard animals for cattle, as they attacked intruders. Being an animal easy to hunt, the quagga has been predated by the first Dutch colonists and then by the Afrikaners, both for the meat and for the skins, the latter destined both for the local use and for the export. The quagga was at risk of extinction due to its limited geographical distribution and the fact that it was competing for grazing with the cattle of the settlers. By the 1850s, the quagga had disappeared from almost its entire habitat: the last wild population, in the Free State of Orange, was eradicated within the next twenty years, and the last wild specimen was probably killed in 1878.

It is estimated that in the last 200 years more than 500 species of animals or plants have disappeared because of man.

According to the IUCN (World Union for Conservation of Nature) many populations of some animal species have decreased by 80% in the last 3 generations.

- source from the web.