Talk:List of European species extinct in the Holocene

Asiatic Lions in Europe

Someone had changed the county where lions occured in Europe from Greece into Bulgaria. Why? I've changed it back for now until there is more information provided. They have indeed occurred in Bulgaria, but they disappeared from Europe in Greece arround 80-100 AD. If you have addition information with source, please post that here. I would love to read it.

"Aristotle and Herodotus wrote that lions were found in the Balkans in the middle of the first millennium B.C. When Xerxes advanced through Macedonia in 480 B.C., several of his baggage camels were killed by lions. Lions are believed to have died out within the borders of present-day Greece in A.D. 80-100." Source: [1]. Pmaas 22:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

European Union?

What does the European Union, often have to do with anything? Especially when so many of the extinctions listed have occurred before it ever came to existence?

Having this article be about *Europe* is an understandable issue of geographical categorization. Having it be about the European Union, smacks of someone trying to push forward some sort of bizarre POV. Aris Katsaris 11:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Well because the EU is Europe too, it is not a bizarre POV. It does not say the article is ablout the EU, but it says, about the European Union and the rest of the European continent. The EU does not end with the European continent. Even speaking of Europe could be a POV to some people's opinions, some see Europe only as a peninsula of Eurasia. The EU has real borders, so it can certainly also be used as a geographical categorization, maybe even better than the "continent" Europe. The Canary Islands for example are Europe, but geographically they are in Africa. Cyprus is for example also geographically in Asia, only culturally European. The whole article is not about the European Union, only the part that lists the extinct animals in the EU's outermost regions. When using the EU as well for this list, you can include these extinct animals too. And some European countries did not even exist at the time most of these species became extinct. So I don't see any problem. Pmaas 16:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Well let's take your sentences one by one:

• "Well because the EU is Europe too, it is not a bizarre POV." This sentence is *at best* meaningless. The EU and Europe are two different words, and possess two different meanings. At worst it reveals the fundamental political POV nature of your argument.
• "It does not say the article is about the EU, but it says, about the European Union and the rest of the European continent. Even speaking of Europe could be a POV to some people's opinions, some see Europe only as a peninsula of Eurasia." So instead of using one POV (just Europe) you decided to use two POVs in order to make sure that this article is biased for *sure*.
• "The EU has real borders, so it can certainly also be used as a geographical categorization, maybe even better than the "continent" Europe." An argument which you yourself made null by having *both* Europe and the EU referenced in the article. As for the EU, yeah it has real borders, but they are currently in a state of moving. Moreover these borders are recent, and so don't concern the greater number of extinction that have taken place. *Moreover* the article's title says "Europe", not "European Union".
• "The whole article is not about the European Union, only the part that lists the extinct animals in the EU's outermost regions." Regions which you could have easily included by saying you mentioned the dependent territories of European countries as well. Or you could have equally well chosen *not* to include and allowed these species to be listed in the articles for their respective continents.
• "And some European countries did not even exist at the time most of these species became extinct." These European countries existed further back in time than the EU did. And I never argued that you must use specific European countries at all. If you just used the geographical term "Europe" you'd not need to use any other artificial entity as a criterion for inclusion. The ambiguities of the word "Europe" would atleast be the same as the ambiguities of the word "Europe" in every other article of Wikipedia.
• "So I don't see any problem." The problem is the inclusion of one additional artificial criterion when there's no need of one. The problem is the unceasing attempt to associate the concept of Europe with the concept of the European Union, two utterly distinct concepts. That's a political POV.

No matter what you say the point remains the article's title says "List of extinct animals of Europe" -- but without any cause or meaningful justification, the article's *content* tries to shove the EU in there as well. Why? What's the need to add one more artificial criterion? Since the title says "Europe" why must the article reference the European Union at all? And why not the *Council of Europe*, if you must include an organization with definite membership? *That* one has a more stable border than the EU does. Is it because there are more EU groupies than there are Council of Europe groupies? Aris Katsaris 17:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

If it bothers you that much, feel free to edit the page and remove the EU part so that it only says Europe. I will even change it myself. You made some good comments, but it was not an unceasing attempt to associate the concept of Europe with the concept of the European Union, although I'm indeed a supporter of the EU (as you sound like you're a sceptic, but that's everyones choise of course). A possible seperate article for the EU could be created of course. I hope the new article sounds better in your view. Pmaas 12:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Irish Elk

Im deleting the line bugger me backwards for obvious reasons. But I am also uncomfotable with the Irish elk where it is. Its extinction probably isn't man made but been in the Holocene list gives a suggestion that it is. Is it really relevent there? When i'm looking for Holocene extinctions I relate that to a man made cause. I understand that this is your page Peter so if you would rather leave it there I understand. but isn't there some way to make the distiction? Phoenixis 18:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Phoenixis, first it is not my page, but everyone's page. Holocene extinctions are certainly not all human made, even some extinctions from the last 500 years are not human made (although most are). One example: Antillean Giant Rice Rat from Martinique. And scientists differ in opinion if humans did participate in extinctions during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Personally I think they had a contribution, but weren't the only reason. Maybe we can add a text part on the extinction reasons in Europe, clearing it up that not all are human made extinction. Peter Maas 08:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes I think that would be best. I will add a part in the intro and if you want to reword it you can. BTW I only refered to it as your page because I see that you have made it and supplyed alot of the infomation. I didn't want to barge in and add something which you felt was irrelevent. Also where did you find some of the information regarding the island species? Phoenixis 13:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, kind of you. Thanks for adding. Where I did find the information? Any specific species or island? Well I host a website on recent extinctions [2], and an extinction forum [3] where you can find a lot of information. Besides, there are many scientific articles, books, and sites like the IUCN Red List. Just google for example and you will already find a lot of info on the extinct island species. Peter Maas 14:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

bears.

now i know this ,ight sound funny to the non english among you, but werent british bears baited to extinction?

the bear baiting article mentions england a lot, but i could swear that britain used to have bears, and it is a common fact among others that bear extinction in britain came from baiting.

if someone could come up with a citation proving that bears were brought in through the empire (which isnt very likely as baiting was a customary event) or that bears were made extinct in britain i would like to see it included bear-baiting for the article.

on closer inspection, the extinction of bears is in the britsh only section but not in the european section, however the date 1000ad does not correspon with the bear baiting of the 1600s, any ideas?

It is not listed on this European list as it still survives in some parts of Europe. In which British section do you mean? This: List of extinct animals of the British Isles? If you know the extinction date is wrong and you know the correct one, you are free to change it of course. But please use references to avoid reverts, and keep in mind that the "British Isles" are not just the UK, but also Ireland, etc. Peter Maas 20:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Minorcan Giant Lagomorph

I have found in the Catalan wikipedia an article about a giant "rabbit" that lived in the island of Minorca.[4] I live in this island and I have heard about this extict animal in some newspapers. I have translated the article into English but I have not found any more information. I would like to include this animal in the list of European extict mammals and add the {{WikiProject Extinction}} tag in its talk page so to be able to improve this poor stub. There are some interesting extict mammals in the Balearics such as the Majorcan Hare, Majorcan Giant Dormouse, Minorcan Giant Dormouse, Myotragus balearicus and the Balearic Giant Shrew, which are all listed in the List_of_extinct_animals_of_Europe#Mammals. I believe that the evolution of insular mammals is very interesting and I would be very gratefull if anyone could improve these articles. --Francisco Valverde 17:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Extinctions in dependent territories of European countries??

I would like to propose the deletion of the section Extinctions in dependent territories of European countries because it uses a contemporary political concept for a biological topic. In that case we could also talk about Extinctions in former European colonies or even Extinctions in countries that belong to NATO. In talking about List of extinct animals of Europe I presumed that we were talking of Europe from a geographical point of view. --Francisco Valverde 18:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Futher dispute on the whole article

I would futher dispute the whole article, because I believe it uses the political term "Europe" instead of a geological or geographical term. I believe that to use the nature of the actual political human society in relation to where animals have become extinct, even millions of years prior to human existance is ridiculous. I would propose the renaming, and expansion therefore, of this article to List of extinct animals of Eurasia or that someone could provide a geological and geographical definition of Europe. In the other case, I would propose the deletion of the article. --Francisco Valverde 19:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I consider Europe to go to the Urals, and down to the Caspian. The border goes through the Causacus, and also the Turkish straits. I think this article is very interesting for those animals which have become extinct in historic times. --MacRusgail 19:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

i agree with MacRusgail. We are talking about worldwide extinct species which occurred in European countries. --Melly42 11:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Besides if we're going to get really pernickity, Africa's part of the same landmass. --MacRusgail 16:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If you have a look at the article Continent. I quote:

The division of the landmass of Eurasia into the separate continents of Asia and Europe is an anomaly with no basis in physical geography. The separation is maintained for historical and cultural reasons. I think we could all discuss if Europe and Asia are different continents or the same Eurasia. And if we could merge or not the articles. But what I believe it is fundamental is that we use scientific terminology when discussing extinctions. I do not see it viable to use political terms for animals that first do not have any national allegiance to any country. So instead of talking of extinct animals of dependent territories of European countries, such as the Falkland Islands or Madeira, why not just forget about it and enter them into the Extinct animals of the Americas or at least of South America. I do not think that anyone will find a fossilized Falkland Island Fox with a Union Jack (or even a smuggled Argentinian flag) around its neck (!). Anyway, we should be using in this list a geological or geographical "Europe" instead of a "political" Europe. Mountains and seas last for millenia, countries and policies sometimes don't even last a week... If tomorrow the Falkland Islands or Madeira became independant or it's dependancy on a European country ended, would it matter to the extinct animal? We would have to edit it off and move to, for example, List of extinct animals of South America or someone could create an article titled List of animals of territories formely dependant of European countries (!!) --Francisco Valverde 19:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

This is as maybe, however, we are humans (most of us) and we perceive the world in this manner. Why exclude Africa from Eurasia as well? Actually, I have a problem with the notion of Asia as a single entity, it's obviously three or four culture regions, and the fauna of Siberia is quite different compared to that of south east Asia.--MacRusgail 23:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Europe is still considered to be a continent by the vast majority. I'm against renaming it, but revisions and edits are always welcome. And everyone is of course free to create a list for Eurasia. And I see no problem if "political" country borders are used, alongside geological borders. And these borders will always disputed by someone. It would be hard to please everyone. On every continent there is a difference in fauna per region. The north of Europe is different from the south! If this page should be deleted or renamed, we can delete all these kind of lists, including the lists per country. To me it is ridiculous to delete of merge this page while there exist such a list of for the other classic continents, which children still learn on schools. Peter Maas\^talk 07:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection in removing the part "extinct animals of dependent territories of European countries" if many have problems with it. And the removal of content that ar considered "political" here. But I'm really really agains a merger with Asia or deletion. Peter Maas\^talk 07:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could just classify all extinct animals per regions that there is a consensus and is scientificly sound, but I do not believe we should use political boundaries to separate extinct animals, not even living animals, (and this is outside the discussion, human beings). Political boundaries are human constructs, are temporal and cultural divisions; nothing to do with animals. I would suggest that we had a look at the articles ecozone and Biogeography to set us a model for classifying these animals, although I also see the downfall to this solution in that today's ecozone, perhaps do not have anything to do with the ecozones of, say, one million years ago. In the same way, as someone commented before about the difference between North and South Europe, yes, it's true, but in the present, who knows, if the differences were the same, thousands of years ago. So, I would suggest, to use geological boundaries, to classify extinct animals. I am anyway seeking advice from the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology so if a geologist could help us with this matter. I do not think, in the other hand, that lists should repeat themselves, someone said that Europe is ok, and Eurasia too... That is redundant and inefficient, that was the other reason I was against "extinct animals of dependent territories of European countries", because there was a danger of repeting in other list, like for example: South America. Francisco Valverde 11:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not using the definitions of the seven traditional continents of the Earth as used here in Wikipedia for these lists. For Europe this would than be: "Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bound to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea." Peter Maas\^talk 15:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Shall we move all the extinct animals of Cyprus to the Asian list? --Francisco Valverde 18:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

That is ok, but it should be clarified in the text. Otherwise we will keep getting edits, because Cyprus is considered an "European" country in the political sence. Peter Maas\^talk 11:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

English wolf

Is there any reason to suppose that wolves in Britain were distinguishable from those elsewhere in Europe? If not then surely they should either be removed, or other extinct British animals such as bears and boars must also be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.197.5.18 (talk) 11:45, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps they should be included in the Local section Europe is a big place, several species are extinct and have been for centuries in some countries and islands of Europe.

Tarpan

Last one died in 1919 according to the actual article, not the 1880s, as I recall from what I read by smashing its own head into a wall until it was free, which didn't quite work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.207.191 (talk) 09:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Neanderthal...

...is extinct, yes, but surely it's not an animal. Drmies (talk) 16:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Tigers

Any credible source describing any wild tigers found in Crimea in recorded history (or well, in the last 2000 years or so)? I wouldn't consider it too improbable though that a few individuals from e.g. the Caucasus area could have wandered off some distance from their usual homelands.

McLoaf (talk) 16:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Unicorn, seriously?

If we're going to insist on using 'common' names to refer to pleistocene species, which is kind of preposterous anyway (they don't have common names - even 6yos refer to them by scientific genus - just like with dinosaurs), could we at least use 'common' names that have some basis in... something? The Elasmotherium page does not give 'unicorn' anything as a common name - it gives 'thin plate beast' as the only common name. I'm removing the common name entirely because its inappropriate for a fossil species, but if someone would like to document a real common name for it or use the one from the elasmotherium page, I suppose that would be fine. --69.209.59.245 (talk) 21:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

"European American" animals

There are three American animals, with species that only appear on this Wikipedia page, or other web sites that seemingly copied their content from here: "Canis latrans jorus", "Cyanocitta jorgei" and "Haliaeetus meridionalis", I'm looking at you. Birds I could understand colonizing another continent, but a terrestrial mamal that arose specifically in America and doesn't even naturally occur in Alaska? Yeah, I'm not finding any good references for this, or any references, period... 50.30.49.10 (talk) 04:17, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Removing Wrong Information

I am removing all inaccurate animals and local extinctions and rediscovered animals to make this list more like the other extinct animal lists that only include animals that became extinct in the Holocene Epoch. I am also including in See Also, Extinct in the Wild and Lazarus Taxon for people looking for those animals. I will also alphabetize the extinct animals — Preceding unsigned comment added by Extinctanimals22 (talk • contribs) 23:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Extinctanimals22 (talk • contribs)

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Page Merges

I recently merged the contents of the pages listed below into List of European species extinct in the Holocene. (List of Caucasian animals extinct in the Holocene was also merged into List of Asian animals extinct in the Holocene, see Talk:List of Asian animals extinct in the Holocene#Page Merges.)

My reasons for merging are twofold:

First, these nine articles were largely redundant with List of European species extinct in the Holocene. The nine regions in question seem to be biogeographically intertwined with the rest of Europe and separating them off results in redundant articles.

Second, some of the former articles included pre-Holocene extinctions. List of European species extinct in the Holocene is limited to the Holocene extinction, as is standard for Lists of extinct species#By region.

Also note that List of European species extinct in the Holocene excludes endangered species (except for locally extinct species) and extinct domestic breeds, as is standard for Lists of extinct species#By region.

Columbianmammoth (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Future Plans - Page Cleanup

I recently undertook a time-intensive series of edits summarized above in Talk:List of European species extinct in the Holocene#Page Merges. In view of this, I plan to take a break from editing. Before that, I decided to summarize my vision for the future of List of European species extinct in the Holocene, described below.

1. Restructure the entire article to use the improved format (table layout and taxonomic sequence) that is gradually becoming standard for all Lists of extinct species#By region articles. At the time of this writing, the articles for the following regions use this improved format: Africa, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands, Macaronesia, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Australia-New Guinea, Hawaii and New Zealand, while the article for Oceania is currently undergoing a major restructuring by another editor.
2. Remove all pre-Holocene extinctions. Since some of the Late Pleistocene megafauna actually survived until the Early Holocene, carefully eliminating pre-Holocene extinctions will take time and patience. Please summarize your findings and sources in the "comments" section of the table.
3. It's fine to include possibly extinct and extinct in the wild animals (as is standard for Lists of extinct species#By region). The list article for Africa also sets a precedent for including extinct-in-the-wild species with an ongoing reintroduction project (see the entries in that article for the Mohrr gazelle and Scimitar oryx).
4. Thoughtfully cull the locally extinct species while leaving at least some behind. At the time of this writing, List of European species extinct in the Holocene contains an absurdly large number of locally extinct species, which is mostly due to the fact that the article merges described above in Talk:List of European species extinct in the Holocene#Page Merges mostly resulted in me adding more locally extinct species. In my opinion, the vast majority of these locally extinct species should be deleted. However, the list articles for Africa and Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands show that at least some locally extinct species ought to be included. In the list article for Africa, there is no precedent for including random species that are only extinct in one particular country. Here is a standard I propose for what locally extinct species are notable enough to be included:

Good to include (if it meets one or more of the following):

1. The extinct population is considered an extinct subspecies, such as the Caucasian wisent and Carpathian wisent.
2. The species is extirpated from the entire European continent (or very nearly so), such the leopard (Holocene), lion (3rd century), northern bald ibis (16th century), and saiga antelope (recent).
3. The species is extirpated from an entire island environment (eg, Great Britain, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and/or Mediterranean islands). Locally extinct species in Great Britian and/or Ireland include the gray wolf, brown bear, Eurasian lynx, Eurasian elk (moose), reindeer, wild boar, several reptiles and frogs, and certain insects.

Columbianmammoth (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I've watched a lot of the work above and it's looked like quality edits made with wisdom. Keep up the good work, but take your well-deserved break. Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:35, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree for the most part, but with nuances.

For example I'm against including "mostly extinct" species like the leopard and saiga, because the article is about "extinct species of Europe" and those animals have never been gone from the continent. Species that are extinct in the wild, on the other hand, do belong because they are removed from the ecosystem, so they are as good as dead when the natural order is concerned (or they were at one point, for the time period they were gone before they were reintroduced by humans, if that is the case). There is also an obligatory subjectivility to what constitutes being "mostly extinct": is, for example, the Eurasian beaver "mostly extinct" from Europe? What about the time it was reduced to just four populations? What about the European bison, which just has 3,000 animals in the wild now, but is present in half of European countries in some manner? No, the article should be about extinct species. Not "almost" extinct species.

I would include extinct subspecies, because they are also disappeared taxa and a biodiversity loss. Also populations that were mistakenly considered subspecies or species in the past, because extinction and rewilding are popular topics and this way we avoid people adding them in the future without realizing they were subsumed into extant taxa and possible edit wars. The Comments section is well suited to explain that history.

As for species that are just gone from a given country, they should be taken out. I was about to speak about those articles being irrelevant when you decided to merge them. There are already separate lists of mammals, birds, reptiles, etc by country which have a section for species locally extinct at the end (see List of mammals of peninsular Spain or List of mammals of Egypt for example). To have the gray wolf or the brown bear or the wild boar here just because they were extirpated from Britain or the Netherlands at one point is both irritating and confusing, because there are healthy populations in other European countries and have always been. This is different from say, the listing of a species extinct in Australia but surviving in Tasmania in the List of Australia-New Guinea species extinct in the Holocene. In this case there are just three considered locations (Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea) that are separated by the ocean, so a species extinction in one is unlikely to be "corrected" in the near future unless there is a human-caused reintroduction. Whereas, in Europe there are over fifty countries to consider but only a single landmass. If the wolf becomes extinct in the Netherlands, it can always come back on its own from Germany, or Poland, or Russia, as it already happened. If you include the wolf because it was extinct in the Netherlands once, you invite editors to include a line about when it became extinct in all other European countries, and to include species that are gone from other countres but not from the Netherlands. And before we know it we have a list of either every species in the European continent bar domestic ones, or one that is both incomplete and misleading as the current list is.

Nevertheless I could support the split of a List of species extinct in the British Isles, both because of the sheer number of human-induced extinctions compared to the continent, and because they are naturally cut-off from the continent, requiring human reintroduction to reverse the extinction. Besides, we can mention in that case local extinctions in Ireland, Scotland, and England (I don't think there would be entries just for Wales) because there would be just three entities to consider instead of the chaos of fifty different European countries. I don't think a similar split for the Mediterranean islands is warranted, since there are comparably few extinctions in them and they can be covered well in this article (as they were pre-merge).

Finally, and to continue the reduction of overlap between continental extinction lists, I suggest moving all Caucasus extinctions to the European list instead of the Asian list, and including a disclaimer in the heading reading that the countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are included even though they can be included partially or fully in Asia depending of the definition of "Europe" used - which in the end is quite arbitrary. Asia is a big continent and its list can afford to lose weight. Besides, it is much more relevant for Europe to note the rencent presence of the Asian cheetah, Persian lion, and wild water buffalo in Armenia, since it could be argued that these animals could have colonized Europe if it wasn't for human intervention, than it is for Asia, where those animals are still present to this day, and Armenia was just the outermost fringe of their continental distribution. This way we could add a note in the Comments explaining the Pleistocene presence of water buffalo in Europe and why the domestic buffalo is a species used by Rewilding Europe. We could also throw in Cyprus, though this would affect only one Holocene extinction in either case. Menah the Great (talk) 17:40, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

On second read I admit there is a case for the leopard's inclusion, if it is limited to something like "Balkan leopard(s) (population(s) of Panthera pardus)". Their geographic origin is different and independent of extant Caucasian leopards, unlike the case of all these Dutch/Nordic/even British extinctions. But saiga, even though found as far west as Romania centuries ago, would have been contiguous and essentially part of the same population as the one in Kalmykia. Menah the Great (talk) 20:32, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your great work over the past couple months cleaning up and rewriting this article. It makes me happy to see the extinctions by region articles be held to a higher standard of quality. Columbianmammoth (talk) 03:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

List of Extinct Plants of the British Isles

Here is a comment from User talk:Columbianmammoth. I copy/pasted it to Talk:List of European species extinct in the Holocene because I believe this page is a more appropriate forum for this question.

"Hello, I am pretty angry this morning to find that an article I created several years ago 'List of Extinct Plants of the British Isles appears to have been deleted without notifying me. When I click on my link to the article it now redirects to 'List of European Species Extinct in the Holocene'. The article 'List of Extinct Plants of the British Isles' listed about 30 species of plants, with details of each one, whereas 'List of European Species Extinct in the Holocene' only lists 2 species of plants. None of the information from my article has been incorporated into the article 'List of European Species Extinct in the Holocene, so it's an entirely inadequate solution to a problem that didn't exist. Why has all the content I slaved over just disappeared??? Regularuk (talk) 08:06, 25 May 2024 (UTC)" Columbianmammoth (talk) 16:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I'm sorry to hear that you're upset. I understand how you feel. I'm sure all Wikipedia users have been in your shoes at some point.

List of extinct plants of the British Isles was caught up in a larger movement over the past couple years to improve Lists of extinct species#By_region articles. I encourage you to review the talk page and edit history of List of European species extinct in the Holocene to learn more about what happened in this specific case. You'll see that List of extinct plants of the British Isles and ten other articles were merged into List of European species extinct in the Holocene because they're largely redundant with the scope and purpose of this article. When I performed the initial page merges, I copy/pasted the original material in a largely raw and uncut form. Later, user Menah the Great came along to polish and restructure List of European species extinct in the Holocene. It was at this point when most of the material from List of extinct plants of the British Isles was deleted. I believe that the justification was that the species in question were not locally extinct from the entire European continent, only Great Britain and Ireland. I believe that user Menah the Great's work greatly improved this article, but I can see why seeing your work disappear would be upsetting.

You'll see that on a comment on Talk:List of European species extinct in the Holocene from 20 September 2023, user Menah the Great states, "Nevertheless I could support the split of a List of species extinct in the British Isles, both because of the sheer number of human-induced extinctions compared to the continent, and because they are naturally cut-off from the continent, requiring human reintroduction to reverse the extinction. Besides, we can mention in that case local extinctions in Ireland, Scotland, and England (I don't think there would be entries just for Wales) because there would be just three entities to consider instead of the chaos of fifty different European countries." I personally disagree with this motion. Great Britain and Ireland are largely the same as mainland Europe, as opposed to Hawaii which is radically different from mainland North America. However, I respect this opinion. I honestly think that a page about the British Isles including both animals and plants extinct in the Holocene is your best bet to get your work restored in some way, shape, or form.

Remember that, because of the extensive edit histories, deleted work is not lost forever. Columbianmammoth (talk) 16:31, 25 May 2024 (UTC)