Cool Animals I Wish Weren’t Extinct

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Hello everybody,

So this week I had to do a philosophy project about endangered species and whether or not humans should be obligated to protect them blah blah blah but the COOLEST part of it all were the cool animals I learned about that are no longer with us today.

Seriously these animals were bosses in their own right before they met their inevitable end. All of these animals existed in the last 1,000 years ago(sorry no dinosaurs in this post). Let’s get started.

Cool Animal #1: Stellar’s Sea Cow

This animal is like Tito from Rocket Power meets an aquatic environment. It could get as big as  26-30 feet! It’s like what would happen if a whale meets a manatee and they had babies. This thing is basically the bro of the ocean. Explorers used to write that these guys were extremely docile, however, fishermen and pirates basically genocided them to extinction during the 1700’s. Smh. If you want to learn more go here.

Cool Animal #2: The Atlas Bear
This was Africa’s only indigenous bear. It was hunted throughout history for sport and was even used by the Ancient Romans to fight gladiator’s and was also used for other events held at the Coliseum. The last known specimen was hunted and killed in the 1870’s. If you want more info you can find it here.


Cool Animal #3: The North American Lion


The only cool animals left in North America are mooses, wolves, and maybe cougars. North America is  by and large devoid of any cool reptiles or cool mammals like other continents have. Imagine you were minding your own business when all of a sudden a lion bigger than any modern African Lion came out of nowhere. That’s how cool the world would be if these lions were still around. You can find more info here.

Cool Animal #4: The Haast’s Eagle 
This eagle was the largest eagle of all time. It used to terrorize everything in New Zealand. In the picture it’s hunting Moa’s (also extinct), which could get as large as 12 feet tall and weigh over 500 pounds. That’s about 15 times as large as the eagle. That’s how wild these eagles were, they killed 500 pound things, honestly, these eagles would probably hunt humans if they got the chance. To put things in perspective, It’s size and weight indicate a bodily striking force equivalent to a cinder block falling off the height of an 8-foot building. This eagle was such a monster that humans did not directly cause it’s extinction, but rather, humans hunted and killed all of the flightless Moa, the eagles main prey, and therefore indirectly wiped out the Haast’s Eagles around the 1400’s. You can find more info at here.

These animals were champions of the world. Let’s have a moment of silence. *pours one out for the dead homies of the animal kingdom*

-Tim Brown