I've brought this topic up before when the scientists here discuss the     
   confidence in their beliefs and convictions.  I continue to wonder how    
   much political correctness is continually getting pushed into mainstream    
   "science" today.  I believe more than most are willing to admit...   
      
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   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1315964/One-extinct-   
   animals-turn-again.html   
      
      
   Back from the dead: One third of 'extinct' animals turn up again   
   By David Derbyshire Environment Editor   
      
   Conservationists are overestimating the number of species that have been    
   driven to extinction, scientists have said.   
      
   A study has found that a third of all mammal species declared extinct in    
   the past few centuries have turned up alive and well.   
      
   Some of the more reclusive creatures managed to hide from sight for 80    
   years only to reappear within four years of being officially named    
   extinct in the wild.   
      
   The shy okapi – which resembles a cross between a zebra and a giraffe –    
   was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901.   
   After increasingly rarer sightings, it vanished from the wildlife radar    
   for decades from 1959, prompting fears that it had died out.   
   But five years ago researchers working for the WWF found okapi tracks in    
   the wild.    
      
   Other mammals ‘back from the dead’ include the rat-like Cuban solenodon,    
   the Christmas Island shrew, the Vanikoro Flying Fox of the Solomon    
   Islands, the Australian central rock rat and the Talaud Flying Fox of    
   Indonesia.   
      
   The revelations come as the world’s leading conservationists prepare for    
   a major United Nations summit on biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, next    
   month.    
      
   Many scientists believe the world is going through a new ‘mass    
   extinction’ fuelled by mankind – and that more species are disappearing    
   now than at any time since the dinosaurs vanished 65million years ago.    
      
   According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 22    
   per cent of the world’s mammals are at risk of extinction. In Britain,    
   more than two plant and animal species are being wiped out each year.   
   But while the report does not play down the threat from deforestation,    
   overfishing or habitat destruction, it raises questions about the way    
   species are classified as extinct.   
      
   Dr Diana Fisher, of the University of Queensland, Australia, compiled a    
   list of all mammals declared extinct since the 16th century or which    
   were flagged up as missing in scientific papers.   
      
   ‘We identified 187 mammal species that have been missing since 1500,’    
   she wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.    
   ‘In the complete data-set, 67 species that were once missing have been    
   rediscovered.    
      
   More than a third of mammal species that have been classified as extinct    
   or possibly extinct, or flagged as missing, have been rediscovered.’   
      
   Mammals that suffered from loss of habitat were the most likely to have    
   been declared extinct and then rediscovered, she said.    
   Species spread out over larger areas were also more likely to be wrongly    
   classified as extinct.   
      
   The mistakes cannot be blamed on primitive technology or old fashioned    
   scientific methods.     
      
   ‘Mammals missing in the 20th century were nearly three times as likely    
   to be rediscovered as those that disappeared in the 19th century,’ Dr    
   Fisher added.    
      
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