Hey Pandas, If You Could Save One Animal From Extinction What Would It Be?

I'll go for Bees.

For completely selfish reasons? Cats. All of them. They do not need us, but when they latch on to someone, it says a lot about that person.

But big picture? All of them.... We're living through a mass extinction, right now. 200 unique plant and animal species are being eradicated from existence, EVERY SINGLE DAY. The wildfires in Australia a couple years ago, cooked 3 billion animals alive, wildfires continue to become more common, oceans are becoming more polluted and acidic. Only 2-3% of the natural worlds ecosystems are considered "intact" today. Warnings about humanities impact on the environment have been constant, for decades, with prediction of the consequences being proven correct time and time again.

For decades we were told we needed to keep Co2 levels below 400ppm....we surpassed that point 11.5 years ago, today we're at 417.2ppm. In late 2020, scientists used the collective history of climate data to build a predictive model of what the environment would look like in 2050. Less than a year and a half later, their models were proven correct...as each prediction was playing out in the real world....30 years sooner than expected.

Every step of the way, humanity is largely apathetic. Sure, more people are "outraged" than ever before. More people are aware and claiming to care.....but nearly everyone is more concerned with placing blame, elsewhere. Anywhere, and everywhere that doesn't include personal responsibility.

Like it or not, everyone is responsible, and no one gets to pretend that their impact is acceptable simply because others are doing worse. We don't get to blame the corporations while we continue to give them our money, we don't get to blame the oil companies when the majority of damage is caused from INDIVIDUALS using their products, and we don't get to blame the governments that we're electing, actively or passively. We don't get to exclusively blame 1% of the population, and expect that it justifies the other 99%.

This is a systemic problem, that requires everyone, EVERYONE to sacrifice instant gratification and convenience for sustainability. Otherwise we're not going to get to choose even 1 species to save.

Everyone needs to accept the fact that, long term, the planet will be fine. It will bounce back as it has done time and time again. But that doesn't mean that anything around today, including humanity will survive.

As bees and dogs have already been mentioned, so I'm going to have to go with elephants.

Everything, no animal is an extra. Even flies are necessary. I have a thing for Snow Leopards and Amur Leopards, but nothing is any more important than anything else.

My second choice would be sharks, they do nothing wrong and if they hurt somebody it's not on the purpose of hunting a human. I'm not very knowledeable about them, but as apex predator they surely have a major role in balancing the oceans.

(First choice would be bees, but they are already covered. And my favouritem foxes, are the most succesful animals with constant habitats on all contienents - no danger of going extinct soon)

Vaquitas. They're a species of mexican porpoise which is critically endangered. They get caught in illegal fishing nets and die. I did a project on them 5 years ago, and they reckoned there were only about 75 left in the wild. Now, they reckon it's around 10. They're hard to breed in captivity because porpoises get very easily distressed. There's almost no hope left for the vaquita, an adorable yet critically endangered creature. And nobody even talks about them, not like they do for land-dwelling mammals or the popular amphibian the axolotl for example

The dodo bird. They deserve a second chance. If introduced to an environment where they knew what a predator was, they may have developed the natural instincts to defend themselves. (And if people knew how to not slaughter a species into extinction...)

The Amur Leopard. Google it.

If we're taking into account the domino effect; Either Bees (obviously) or Phytoplankton. O²

Permanently save all hedgehogs and turtles and tortoises from extinction. And polar bear and arctic foxes, and then penguins. And kiwi birds. And those big green derpy parrots that can’t fly. Oh, and then bring back dodos.

phytoplankton, they produce 2/3 of the worlds oxygen

I'll go with my two favorite animals, snow leopards and owls.

Northern white rhino!

Rhinos! Specifically White Rhinos.

I know this is one that everyone or least most the people I know but spiders. Although we may be afraid of them(I’m not) they are actually very important because they kill mosquitoes which helps reduce the spread of diseases mosquitoes carry.

To be honest, tigers. They're on the brink of extinction and they are such cool animals.

Quokkas, they are so cute!

Blob fish

I would take whatever was left after everyone else has had their pick and be happy to do so.

Red Pandas and Pandas. 🐼