Australian Rodent Is First Mammal Made Extinct by Human-Driven Climate Change, Scientists Say

New York Times ^ | June 14, 2016 | By MICHELLE INNIS

[Oldeconomybuyer]

SYDNEY, Australia - Australian researchers say rising sea levels have wiped out a rodent that lived on a tiny outcrop in the Great Barrier Reef, in what they say is the first documented extinction of a mammal species due to human-caused climate change.

The rodent was known to have lived only on Bramble Cay, a minuscule atoll in the northeast Torres Strait, between the Cape York Peninsula in the Australian state of Queensland and the southern shores of Papua New Guinea. The long-tailed, whiskered creature, called the Bramble Cay melomys, was considered the only mammal endemic to the Great Barrier Reef.

"The key factor responsible for the death of the Bramble Cay melomys is almost certainly high tides and surging seawater, which has traveled inland across the island," Luke Lieng, a scientist from the University of Queensland who was an author of a report on the species' apparent disappearance, said by telephone. "The seawater has destroyed the animal's habitat and food source."

"This is the first documented extinction of a mammal because of climate change," he said.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[Steely Tom]

Back in the ‘90s, we were told that hundreds of species were being “driven extinct” every year due to “deforestation.”

[null and void]

Goebbels Gerbils?

[facedown]

lol

[ManHunter]

Rhetorical question: Who’s to blame for the millions of species that went extinct before humans arrived on the scene...?

[ManHunter]

That dude really needs to switch to boxers...

[HomerBohn]

I read this with extreme disgust.

Poor little rat. Poor little America. We need to get the rates in government to become extinct.

[G Larry]

Uh.....ITS A RAT!!

They are NOT “extinct”!!!

“is almost certainly high tides and surging seawater,”

Notice they didn’t say “RISING”, because its NOT.

So, WHAT is the link to the nonexistent global warming?

[DallasGal]

Shouldn’t it have evolved in order to survive in its habitat?

Now we can tackle climate change and evolution in one post :)

[rktman]

Hmmmm. Is that a new title for the faux climate cat-tastrophe? HDCC? In place of AGW?

[albie]

Well if they’d quit crawling into SUV exhaust pipes that would help!

[dead]

I read this article on the train this morning and was literally laughing out loud. Ever single member of this rat species lived together on an eroding, wave-slapped scrap of coral in the midst of the South Pacific! These goofy rats were officially the only animals living exclusively on the Great Barrier Reef, maybe because it's a tiny scrap of eroding coral in the middle of the ocean and mammals tend to drown in such situations.

Goodnight good rat sir. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Rats. I hate rats... and ‘rats, too.

[Da Coyote]

Brought to you by the science illiterate low IQ leftists at the
NYT who actually believe that the earth has never been hotter.

And that we caused it.

And that we are doomed.

[P-Marlowe]

The only way that rat became a “species” is because it’s ancestors (probably sewer rats from Liverpool) were traveling in a boat that crashed into the reef. The rats abandoned the sinking ship and managed to find a home on the reef. They are a human caused species.

[Scrambler Bob]

Rhetorical question: Who’s to blame for the millions of species that went extinct before humans arrived on the scene...?
= = =

Rhetorical answer:

Humans are to blame. The species had the foresight to go extinct, anticipating the arrival of those humans.

Using the same logic as intelligent evolution.

[Scrambler Bob]

Cheap housing available at Washaway Beach, Washington.

[Red Badger]

It's a RAT................

[17th Miss Regt]

Back in the ‘90s, we were told that hundreds of species were being “driven extinct” every year due to “deforestation.”

Some of these climate science liars need to be made extinct through defenestration.

[faucetman]

” the first documented extinction of a mammal species due to human-caused climate change. “

Total BS

There is no such thing as “MAN MADE” global warming, sorry, climate change.

Extinctions are part of life. If man has anything to do with a species extinction, then so be it. Man is part of nature.

I have no problem though with trying to protect threatened species within reason (Bald Eagles). The Delta Smelt, for example, is not one of them. They may be a “specific” species, but we catch them (Smelt that is) by the five gallon buckets full here in NY. They look just like Delta Smelts and while having never eaten a “Delta Smelt”, I’d guess that I would be hard pressed to tell the difference in taste.

EVERYTHING needs to have a cost/benefit type of analysis.

Water for farmers to grow FOOD for humans and the nation.
vs protecting a fish of which there are BILLIONS (maybe Trillions) of it’s kind elsewhere.

There is just no rational reason to decide in favor of the Delta Smelt.