20 Animals That Are Now EXTINCT Because of Humans

Top-20-Animals-That-Are-Now-Extinct-Because-of-Humans

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the species that were eradicated by human activity.

#20: Fuegian Dog
People have domesticated several animals, dogs included. While most today descended from wolves, there are others that were believed to have come from other species. The Fuegian dog, once believed to have been bred from foxes, lived alongside Indigenous populations. While they did live with humans, they didn’t display typical characteristics normally found in pets, such as strict loyalty to their owners. Unfortunately, they didn’t get the chance to evolve more loving behavioral traits. They were targeted by European settlers during the genocide of the Selk’nam people, due to their victims utilizing them for hunting and warmth. By 1919, they had been wiped out – bringing an end to a breed that could have survived into the modern era.

#19: Toolache Wallaby
Marsupials are common in Australia, from kangaroos to koalas. At one point, there was one more, known as the Toolache wallaby. They were nocturnal creatures known for their soft fur – which ultimately became their most desirable trait. The arrival of European colonizers down under was the beginning of the end for this adorable creature. The clearing of swamps led to their primary food source being wiped out. Settlers then brought over red foxes, giving them a new predator to evade. The final component was humans hunting them for fur and for fun. Even attempts at conserving them led to ten of the final fourteen being killed accidentally. The various factors resulted in them being eradicated by the end of the 1930s.

#18: Carolina Parakeet
It may be hard to believe, but at one point, there were native parrots in the U.S. One of three species, the Carolina parakeet, used to exist in large numbers – but mass deforestation in the name of expanding the United States led to their habitats being destroyed. They were also targeted by the fashion industry for their brightly colored feathers. The darkest aspect is that people learned about the parakeet’s tendency to flock around deceased birds and used it to their advantage. They used fallen parakeets as a way to attract larger groups before slaughtering them. The final blow was a mysterious poultry disease, bringing about their end just before humans could finish the job.

#17: Guadalupe Caracara
While nature can be incredibly violent – particularly the hunting process – it’s still a normal part of the natural world. Humans entering the equation can alter that. The Guadalupe caracara soon earned a reputation for its extreme tactics. They were described by many as evil, mostly for the ways they hunted newborn goats for food. As farming became more prevalent, the birds found themselves on the other end of a targeted campaign. Their effect on livestock was heavily exaggerated, but fear of what they could do was enough for them to be systematically killed. During this period, goats took over, destroying habitats and causing more species to die out – with the issue becoming even worse once the caracara was declared extinct in the early 20th century.

#16: Zanzibar Leopard
The reasons for a species’ extinction can be hard to defend or even understand – especially when they’re based in mythology. The Zanzibar leopard was once a thriving species in Tanzania, and served as one island’s main apex predator. Its eventual association with witchcraft led to locals believing the felines were being sent to hurt them. The Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 exacerbated the sentiment, leading to the widespread killings of the large cats. By the 1990s, they were believed to be gone. While some hopeful scientists have claimed to spot them since then – including one in 2018 – their findings haven’t been confirmed. Their continued existence would be an incredible discovery, but as of right now, the signs unfortunately point to them being extinct.

#15: Moa
The demise of one species isn’t always an isolated event. It can have a lasting ripple effect on the environment around them. The eradication of the moa in New Zealand is the best example. It had been isolated for millions of years, leaving the giant birds with only one natural predator – the Haast’s eagle. When Polynesians eventually arrived on the island around 1300, they saw the moa as a perfect food source. Because the birds had not encountered humans before, they made for easy targets. By 1445, they had all been hunted – and since they were the Haast’s eagles’ main prey, those died out soon after as well. Both avians serve as proof that forced extinction can permanently impact entire ecosystems.

#14: Baiji
While there’s some hope that this aquatic creature is still out there, things unfortunately aren't looking good. Baiji, also known as the Chinese river dolphin, are considered to be the first dolphin to be eradicated through human interference. They used to be enmeshed with the culture, even being seen as a symbol of peace. In the 1950s, the population was in the thousands – but widespread hunting and industrialization caused many to die out. Other factors like electric fishing caused their numbers to plummet. While some conservation efforts were made, a 2006 survey revealed that there were no wild baiji to be found. There have been supposed sightings as recently as 2024 – but with no confirmation, they're still considered functionally extinct.

#13: Sea Mink
The fur trade is a truly insidious business that has resulted in the destruction of several different populations. The sea mink was one of its earliest victims, being targeted because of their large size. Not much is known about the creature due to how quickly they were annihilated. Many humans were incessant in their desire to obtain the mink’s pelts. Even if one managed to escape into a small hole, hunters would simply dig it out, shoot it, or use smoke to suffocate it. It's even theorized that they became nocturnal by force after being tracked so often in the daylight. They were killed off so quickly that they weren't even classified as an official species until 1903 – after they had already vanished.

#12: Aurochs
Before their extinction, these ancient herbivores were among the largest in the world. Aurochs, considered to be the main ancestor to modern cattle, have been documented since the Paleolithic era. That still couldn't save them from their eventual demise. Indian aurochs were first, dying out during the Indus River Civilisation due to habitat loss and forced interbreeding, while African ones lasted until the Roman Empire. The final of the three, the Eurasian aurochs, met its end after a period of deforestation from the 9th to 12th centuries, with the last herd making their final home in Poland. From there, the writing was on the wall. In 1627 the final cow died – officially bringing an end to the long-lasting species.

#11: Passenger Pigeon
This was one of the most heavily encouraged cases of animal persecution in recent history. Passenger pigeons were once extremely common throughout the United States, with a population of 3 to 5 billion. They coexisted alongside Indigenous Americans for thousands of years – but the arrival of European settlers changed everything. They believed that the birds were bad luck and would bring misfortune, and started killing them for food and feathers. Their numbers dwindled quickly, especially during a five-month period in which 50,000 were killed a day. The realization that they were close to disappearing led to several bills being introduced to protect them, but it was too late. By the 20th century, they had been eradicated – leaving the once bustling skies eerily empty.

#10: Quagga
The quagga was a uniquely patterned subspecies of zebra. With the front half looking like a zebra, and the back half looking like a horse, the quagga was a prized attraction for natives on the African plains, who hunted the quagga for its skin and sometimes for meat. When Dutch settlers colonized the area, the quagga was considered more a pest than a prize, and it was hunted to reduce grazing competition with their own livestock. The quagga, once roaming in herds of hundreds, was decimated by the 1850s, and by 1878 the last wild quagga died. The last captive specimen died in the Natura Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam in 1883.

#9: Javan Tiger
Three tiger subspecies became extinct within the last eighty years, and the Javan tiger is among them. Formerly found in Java – the most populated island in Indonesia – the tiger was widespread on the island at the turn of the 20th century until a human population explosion resulted in loss of habitat that caused a massive decline. In the 1930s, almost a quarter of Java was forest, but by the mid ‘70s, forests accounted for less than ten percent of the island. Mass killings by hunters and soldiers further whittled the population down, and by 1980 only a handful of tigers remained. The last known Javan tiger was killed in 1984.

#8: Falklands Islands Wolf
Without any predators to instill cautiousness, the small fox-like wolves were sitting ducks for the first human settlers on the island. The only land mammal native to the Falkland Islands, the wolves had no natural fear of humans and nowhere to hide if they did. With little resistance, the wolves were hunted indiscriminately for everything from fur, livestock safety, and just plain fun. By the time Charles Darwin arrived on the island in 1833, he noted the rarity of the wolves and predicted their demise within a few years. Sure enough, in 1876 the Falkland Islands wolf was extinct.

#7: Steller’s Sea Cow
As the largest kind of Sirenia in history, the Steller’s sea cow was a conspicuous staple of North Pacific marine life. Discovered by zoologist Georg Wilhelm Steller in 1741, the sea cow was not known for its speed, so as a result, its slowness meant it was easily hunted by European sailors for its meat, skin, fat, and oil. The sea cow had already been hunted centuries prior by Indigenous peoples, meaning that only a single small population remained around the Commander Islands. By 1768, the population was entirely destroyed, and no verified sightings of the sea cow appeared after. Thus, within 27 years of Europeans first laying eyes on it, the Steller’s sea cow was officially extinct.

#6: Atlas Bear
Used in gladiator events in Roman times, the atlas bear was a large, formidable carnivore and the only bear endemic to modern Africa. The Roman Empire was largely responsible for the bear’s decline, as thousands were captured and ritualistically killed in baiting and fighting competitions. Following the fall of the empire and the advent of firearms, the bears were over-hunted and driven to small fragmented populations in the Atlas Mountains. They became a rare and sought-after item for collectors, with many being captured for zoos and fairs, which further atrophied the population. The bears fell to human greed, and the last individual was killed in 1870.

#5: Great Auk
The great auk was a medium-sized flightless bird resembling a penguin. It occupied the entire expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean, living in the coastal waters from the northeastern U.S. to northern Spain. Being a plump, sedentary animal, which bred on commonly navigated islands, the great auk was a practical and plentiful food source for Native American cultures and North Atlantic travelers. However, the consumption of the auks as well as the hunting of the bird for its down feathers outnumbered its reproduction rates, and soon there was an existential emergency. Naturalists tried but failed to save the species, and the last confirmed specimens were shot in 1844. It was declared extinct in 1852.

#4: Thylacine
Also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, the thylacine is a now-mythic creature that was once very much real. As a large carnivorous marsupial, the thylacine was Australia’s top predator for thousands of years before becoming extinct on the mainland, possibly due to competition with humans and dingoes. The tiger thrived on Tasmania, however, until Europeans settled the island and declared the rather harmless marsupial a pest. Bounty programs were set in place that destroyed thousands of thylacines, and by 1930 they were extinct in the wild – though there have been thousands of unconfirmed reports in the years since, including several convincing videos. The last known thylacine died in the Hobart zoo in 1936.

#3: Caribbean Monk Seal
Named for the folds on its head that resembled a monk’s hood, the Caribbean monk seal was extremely common in the West Indies during the 17th century. The seal’s blubber offered a sizable oil yield for use in lamps and machinery, so explorers and settlers killed the docile pinnipeds by the hundreds. Commercial fishing further ravaged the population by destroying their food supply, and by the early 1900s sightings were very rare. The last confirmed killing of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1939, and the last verified sighting was in 1952.

#2: Western Black Rhinoceros
Traditional Chinese medicine has not been kind to rhinos of any kind, and the Western black rhinoceros is the latest casualty. Hunted for the supposed medicinal value of its horn, the western subspecies of black rhino was poached to oblivion during the 20th century. Though preservation actions were taken in the 1930s, the rhino population went into a steep decline shortly thereafter, dropping to only a few hundred in the 1980s, to only ten individuals in 2000, to only five the next year. The last reported sighting occurred in 2006, and in 2011 the rhino was declared extinct, making it the first rhino species to go extinct in modern times, though it is likely that the Sumatran and Javan rhinos are soon to follow.

#1: Dodo
There’s no early modern extinct animal more recognizable than the dodo. A fat, large-beaked, flightless bird that inhabited the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, the dodo lived in blissful harmony until Dutch settlers arrived on the island and fleeced the dodo of its existence. Having no natural predators on an island where they reigned supreme, the dodo was unequipped to deal with the humans and animals introduced by them, like pigs and macaques, that infested the island. From their discovery, it took only 64 years for dodos to be completely wiped out, with the birds considered officially extinct by 1662. But they still live on in media as nature’s punching bags.

Which extinct species would you love to see brought back to life? Let us know in the comments below.