The little grebe was an endemic species to Madagascar and almost the whole population lived in the Alaotra lake. It had only small wings so it was probably unable to fly larger distances. Therefore it was in an extra great danger if it's habitat was to be changed. And that really happened. Birdlife International writes that The Alaotra lake was influenced in many ways by us humans. We introduced carnivorous fish species to the lake, we used monofilament gil-nets in the lake, we had deforestated the woods around it, wich made the soil erode into the lake.
As we see, many factors often work together as the reasons for wildlife to get extinct, and we humans often are behind a large part of these. The IUCN have so far recognised a little more than 10 000 birdspecies in a total. Of these 132 are already extinct and many more are considered as critically endangered. One of the species considered to be critically endangered are the Junin Grebe, a close relative to the alaotra grebe. some species are also already extinct in the wild but kept alive in human captivity.
But as the bad news about the Alaotra grebe came today, let us cling to the small hpe that the extinction of this species will be the last extinct bird and the turning point in the work to preserve our invaluable biodiversity.
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