Species narrowly escaping extinction, either through conservation or through luck and rediscovery. Some amazing stories-- check out the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect, & Pere David's Deer. Many/most of these species are not out of the woods yet.
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"rediscovered in March 2016 when four adults (two males and two females) were located in Imbabura in two small forest patches in an area heavily modified for agriculture and livestock. These indivi... More
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"last recorded sighting dating to 1988, the species was thought to be extinct until early 2016, when a relict population was discovered in an undisclosed location." (Wikipedia)
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Semaphore frogs. Extinct in the wild. Chytrid fungus invaded their only habitat and the remaining frogs were all taken into custody for captive breeding.
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Extinct in the wild, after construction of the Kihansi Dam destroyed the entirety of its downstream habitat.
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Re-found in 2010, after not being seen since its description in 1876. Endangered due to very small range and lots of human pressure.
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"Until 2019, there was just one captive individual called "Romeo" in Bolivia's Cochabamba Natural History Museum. [...] In January 2019, an expedition to a Bolivian cloud forest led to the discover... More
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Down to 12 individuals in 2004 due to habitat loss, predation by feral dogs and cats, rats eating eggs, and human capture/killing. Now two established reserves with several hundred reintroduced ca... More
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"Once inhabiting all the large islands of the Bahamas, today C. rileyi is confined to six populations in small remote cays of three island groups," about 400-500 animals in total. Each island grou... More
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"endemic to the Île des Pins (Isle of Pines), a small islet off the coast of New Caledonia. First described in 1876, it was presumed to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 1993, and since then seve... More
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3 known living individuals, 2 of which are a male & female in a zoo that people are really hoping will breed.
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Extinct in the wild, with a highly inbred captive population.
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Extinct in the wild as of 1988, thanks again to the invasive venomous Brown Tree Snake. A captive population of a couple hundred exists.
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Down to 10 birds in 1991, due to extreme habitat loss (98%), the usual introduced predators and hunting, and disease brought by domestic pigeons. After extensive captive breeding and reintroductio... More
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21 left in 1987, when they were all taken into captivity for breeding. Cannot be reintroduced to mainland Guam until the tremendous quantity of invasive venomous snakes are removed, but now have e... More
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Down to 4 birds by 1974 mostly due to DDT. Predator control around the wild birds and release of captive-hatched fledglings was so successful that they were de-listed from Criticially Endangered t... More
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Down to 12 birds in 1912 due to introduced rabbits stripping their island of vegetation. Eliminating the rabbits let the ducks recover completely, and two insurance populations are now established... More
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Amazing story-- these birds were reduced to 5 individuals in 1979, of which only one was a fertile female. Thanks to Old Blue the robin, a dedicated conservation team led by Don Merton, cross-speci... More
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Down to 35 individuals in the 1980s due to heavy dog predation and habitat loss, currently over 160. Range very limited: 3 square km (1.1 square miles) within a 32 square km (12 square miles) fenc... More
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Thought extinct in their native Australia before 1900, in 1965 an introduced population in Kawau Island, New Zealand was found, and then in 1967 a surviving population was found in New South Wales.
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Re-found in 2017 after not being seen since 1986, when almost the entirety of their habitat had been converted to agricultural use.
