front and back cover: iron branded Extinction Symbol on white animal skin, 2016

all images and artworks were created between

2012 and 2017, especially for this book and
related exhibitions, by Thanos Zakopoulos &
CTRLZAK Studio.
Paradigms from the Anthropocene
Contemporary extinction
has a biological cause.

One species.
 A 2008 poll conducted
by the American
Museum of Natural
History found that 80%
of biologists believe
that we are in the midst
of an anthropogenic
extinction, known also
as the 6th Extinction.
Numerous scientific
studies - such as a
2014 report published
in Nature and papers
authored by IUCN’s
annual Red List of
Threatened species -
have since reinforced
this conviction. At
present, the rate of
extinction of species
is estimated at 100 to
1,000 times higher than
the “base” or historically
typical rate of extinction
(in terms of the natural
evolution of the planet)
and also the current
rate of extinction is,
therefore, 10 to 100
times higher than any
of the previous mass
extinctions in the history
of Earth.
 The Holocene
(anthropogenic)
extinction is mainly
caused by human
activity. Extinction of
animals, plants and
other organisms caused
by human actions may
go as far back as the late
Pleistocene, over 12,000
years ago. However,
while previous mass
extinctions were due to
natural environmental
causes, research shows
that wherever on Earth
humans have migrated,
other species have
gone extinct. Human
overpopulation, most
prominently in the
past two centuries, is
regarded as one of the
underlying causes of
this Holocene extinction
event to the point
that we can now talk
about the epoch of
Anthropocene.
 The large number
of extinctions span
numerous families of
plants and animals
including mammals,
birds, amphibians,
reptiles and arthropods;
a sizeable fraction
of these extinctions
are occurring in the
rainforests and coral
reefs. In the 20th
Century alone, an
estimated 20,000 to two
million species became
extinct. These numbers
were based on current
discoveries of species,
and the knowledge that
many new species are
still being discovered.
According to the
Species-area theory
and based on upper-
bound estimating, up
to 140,000 species per
year may be the present
rate of extinction.
Humans are responsible
for the main causes and
processes of the sixth
great extinction...

Humans reduce, modify,

degrade or transform
the natural habitat
through deforestation,
agriculture and farming.

Humans have spread

into new lands, bringing
with them disruptive
alien species well
adapted to human
disturbance but
outcompeting native
species as predators and
leaving behind diseases.

As humans have spread

around the world, they
have also brought with
them exotic diseases.

Humans cause pollution

and deterioration of
the environment by
poisoning the waters
and soils that are
habitats for sensitive
species, or by leaching
away needed nutrients.
Global warming and
atmospheric ozone
depletion are the major
threats to life forms
worldwide.

Finally human
overexploitation such
as hunting, fishing,
trapping, collecting
and government
“pest” eradication
programs have caused
the extinction of many
species and seriously
endanger others today.
 In “The Future of Life” (2002), E.O. Wilson of Harvard
calculated that, if the current rate of human disruption of
the biosphere continues, half of Earth’s higher lifeforms
will be extinct by 2100.
Charles Darwin, 1849
Darwin’s Hammer, 2017
 “A fox (Canis fulvipes),
of a kind said to be
peculiar to the island,
and very rare in it,
and which is a new
species, was sitting on
the rocks. He was so
intently absorbed in
watching the work of
the officers, that I was
able, by quietly walking
up behind, to knock
him on the head with
my geological hammer.
This fox, more curious or
more scientific, but less
wise, than the generality
of his brethren, is now
mounted in the museum
of the Zoological
Society.”

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle,

December 6th, 1834
 FALKLAND WOLF
“The only quadruped native to
the island, is a large wolf-like fox,
which is common to both East and
West Falkland. Have no doubt it is a
peculiar species, and confined to this
archipelago; because many sealers,
Gauchos, and Indians, who have visited
these islands, all maintain that no such
animal is found in any part of South
America. Molina, from a similarity in
habits, thought this was the same with
his “culpeu”; but I have seen both, and
they are quite distinct. These wolves
are well known, from Byron’s account
of their tameness and curiosity; which
the sailors, who ran into the water to
avoid them, mistook for fierceness. To
this day their manners remain the same.
They have been observed to enter a
tent, and actually pull some meat from
beneath the head of a sleeping seaman.
The Gauchos, also, have frequently
killed them in the evening, by holding
out a piece of meat in one hand, and
in the other a knife ready to stick them.
As far as I am aware, there is no other
instance in any part of the world, of so
small a mass of broken land, distant
from a continent, possessing so large
a quadruped peculiar to itself. Their
numbers have rapidly decreased; they
are already banished from that half of
the island which lies to the eastward of
the neck of land between St. Salvador
Bay and Berkeley Sound. Within a
very few years after these islands shall
have become regularly settled, in all
probability this fox will be classed
with the dodo, as an animal which has
perished from the face of the earth.
Mr. Lowe, an intelligent person who
has long been acquainted with these
islands, assured me, that all the foxes
from the western island were smaller
and of a redder colour than those from
the eastern. In the four specimens
which were brought to England in the
Beagle there was some variation, but
the difference with respect to the islands
could not be perceived.“

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle,

March 17th, 1833
 QUAGGA

Q is for Quagga
The front half looks like a zebra
but the back half, of the Quagga, looks like a horse,
like an animal that isn’t a zebra.
Hunted for your meat and hide a victim of “Quaggacide”
‘till about 1883
when the last Quagga died in captivity.
They said the khoikhoi named the Quagga, the Quagga
cause it is onomato-poetic
when a Quagga said something to another Quagga:
Quagga, Quagga, Quagga, Quagga, Quagga,
it’s how it said it.
So every time you say the Quagga’s name
it’s like the Quagga speaking from beyond the grave
Bellowing his graceful Quagga call
As if he never even went extinct at all,
Quagga, Quagga, Quagga, Quagga, Quagga
Quagga, Quagga Quagga, Quagga, Quagga
Quagga, Quagga, Quagga, Quagga, Quagga
Quagga, Quagga Quagga, Quagga, Quagga.

Q is for Quagga, song by Randy Laist, 2011

 Fendo, 2016

Bubal Hartebeest
(Alcelaphus Buselaphus Buselaphus)
 Fendo, 2016

Bluebuck
(Hippotragus Leucophaeus)
 THYLACINE
The Van Diemen’s Land Company introduced bounties on the thylacine from as early as 1830, and
between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid £1 per head for dead adult thylacines and
ten shillings for pups. In all they paid out 2,184 bounties, but it is thought that many more thylacines
were killed than were claimed for. The last known Thylacine to be killed in the wild was in 1930 by Wilf
Batty, a farmer from Mawbanna, in the northeast of the state. The animal, believed to have been a
male, had been seen around Batty’s house for several weeks.
 GREAT AUK

There’s only so much you can learn from dead birds and unhatched eggs. No one remembers
what their call sounded like or what colour their eyes were.
Nor will anyone ever know.The only thing that is left, is to understand the tale of their demise.
(With its increasing rarity, specimens of the Great
Auk and its eggs became collectible and highly
prized by rich Europeans, and the loss of a large
number of its eggs to collection contributed to
the demise of the species. Eggers, individuals
who visited the nesting sites of the Great Auk to
collect their eggs, only collected eggs without
embryos growing inside of them and typically
discarded the eggs with embryos).

Great Auk specialist John Wolley interviewed in

the summer of 1858 two of the three men who
killed the last birds, and Islelfsson described the
act as follows:” The rocks were covered with
blackbirds [referring to Guillemots] and there
were the Geirfugles [Great Auks] ... They walked
slowly. Jón Brandsson crept up with his arms
open. The bird that Jón got went into a corner
but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. [I]
caught it close to the edge – a precipice many
fathoms deep. The black birds were flying off. I
took him by the neck and he flapped his wings.
He made no cry. I strangled him.”
 DODO

The Dodo used to walk around,

And take the sun and air.
The sun yet warms his native ground –
The Dodo is not there!

The voice which used to squawk and squeak

Is now for ever dumb –
Yet may you see his bones and beak
All in the Mu-se-um.

Hilaire Belloc,
The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, 1896
 HUIA

“While we were looking at and admiring this little picture of bird-life, a

pair of Huia, without uttering a sound, appeared in a tree overhead, and
as they were caressing each other with their beautiful bills, a charge of
No. 6 brought them both to the ground together. The incident was rather
touching and I felt almost glad that the shot was not mine, although by no
means loth to appropriate 2 fine specimens.”

Sir Walter Buller, New Zealand’s well-known 19th-century ornithologist,

encapsulating what one source describes as the “ambiguous” 19th-century
attitudes towards the declining New Zealand avifauna.
 PASSENGER PIGEON

In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were
captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used
as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as “trap-shooting”, the
controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also
consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down
as many birds as possible in a passing flock.The pigeon was considered
so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one
competition.
 MOA

No moa, no moa
In old Ao-tea-roa.
Can’t get ‘em.
They’ve et ‘em;
They’ve gone and there aint no moa!

popular New Zealand song

 STELLER’S SEACOW

By 1768, 27 years after it had been discovered by

Europeans, Steller’s sea cow was extinct.
Discovered 1741 Extinct 1768
The Perfect Knife, 2014
Selected Bibliography & Suggested Reading:

BOOKS

Biello David, “The Unnatural World. The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age”, Scribner, 2016

Cheke A. S. “An ecological history of the Mascarene Islands, with particular reference to extinctions and
introductions of land vertebrates”. In Diamond, A. W. Studies of Mascarene Island Birds. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987

Darwin Charles “Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S Beagle”, Paul H. Barrett and R. B. Freeman New York, New York
University Press, 1987

Darwin Charles, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured
Races in the Struggle for Life”, London, JOHN MURRAY, 1859 (first edition)

Ellis Richard, “I cari estinti; vita e morte delle specie animali”, Longanesi, 2004

Flannery Tim and Schouten Peter, “A gap in Nature. Discovering the World’s Extinct Animals”, Australia,
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001

Gaskell Geremy, “Who killed the Great Auk?” Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011

Kolbert Elizabeth, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”, Great Britain, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014

Lawton John H. and M. May Robert, “Extinction Rates”, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995

Martucci Vittorio,“Il martello di Darwin; vicende di mammiferi fra estinzioni e scoperte”, Muzzio, 1999

Millett David, “Anthropocene. The age of man”, USA, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

Sir Richard Owen and Rodriguez, “Memoirs on the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand, with an Appendix
on those of England, Australia, Newfoundland”, Mauritius, 1879 (first edition)

Paddle Robert, “The Last Tasmanian Tiger: the History and Extinction of the Thylacine.” Cambridge University
Press, 2000

Schorger, A.W, “The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction.” University of Wisconsin Press,
Madison, WI, by Blackburn Press, 1955

Wilson D.E. e D.M. Reeder, “Hydrodamalis gigas, in Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and
Geographic Reference”, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005

ARTICLES

Ceballos et al. Sci, Research article “Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth
mass extinction”, 19 June 2015. Adv, 2015

Cooper, A.; Mena, F.; Austin, J. J.; Soubrier, J.; Prevosti, F.; Prates, L.; Trejo, V. “The origin of the enigmatic
Falkland Islands wolf”, Nature Communications, 2013

Drury Charles, “The Passenger Pigeon”, Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, 1910

Hance Jeremy, “How humans are driving the sixth mass extinction”, The Guardian, Oct 2015

Higuchi R., B. Bowman, M. Freiberger, O. A. Ryder e A. C. Wilson, “DNA sequences from the quagga, an
extinct member of the horse family”, Nature, vol. 312, 1984

Hillary, Mayell. “Extinct Dodo Related to Pigeons, DNA Shows.” National Geographic. N.p., 28 Feb. 2002
Lawton, J. H.; May, R. M. (1995). “Extinction Rates”. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Oxford: Oxford University
Press
Leonhard H. Stejneger, “How the Great Northern Sea-Cow (Rytina) Became Exterminated”, The American
Naturalist vol.21 No. 12, 1887

Milberg Peter and Tommy Tyrberg, Native birds and noble savages - a review of man-caused prehistoric
extinctions of island birds, ECOGRAPHY 16: 229-250, Copenhagen 1993

Owen D, “Thylacine, The tragic tale of the Tasmanian tiger”, Melbourne, 2003

Perry George L.W.; Wheeler, Andrew B.; Wood, Jamie R.; Wilmshurst, Janet M. “A high-precision chronology
for the rapid extinction of New Zealand moa (Aves, Dinornithiformes)”, Quaternary Science Reviews,2014

Pimm, Stuart L.; Russell, Gareth J.; Gittleman, John L.; Brooks, Thomas M. “The Future of Biodiversity”
Science, 1995

Szabo Michael, “Huia; The sacred Bird”, New Zealand Geographic, 1993

Zalasiewicz Jan, “Graptolites in British Stratigraphy”, Geological Magazine 146, 2009

LINKS

https://www.amazonbiodiversitycenter.org

http://www.anthropocene.info

http://www.artimalia.org

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org

http://darwinlibrary.amnh.org

http://www.edgeofexistence.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

http://www.extinctionsymbol.info

http://www.globalcoralbleaching.org

http://www.iucnredlist.org

http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct
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