Caracara lutosa (Ridgeway)

Guadalupe Caracara (Caracara lutosa 

The Guadalupe Caracara was described in 1876, it was restricted to the Isla Guadalupe in the Baja California wher it was the top predator.

The species is one of the few who disappeared directly due to hunting by humans; the birds were condemned by farmers to be vicious goat killers, which, of course, was complete nonsense, since the birds almost certainly did not hunt the goats themselves but just fed on deceased animals.

The species was already nearly extinct when on December 1, 1900 the infamous American collector Rollo Beck, in the course of a scientific epedition, encountered what probably were the last eleven existing birds. Not knowing that these might be the last surviving individuals of their species, he shot 9 of them and thereby eradicated the species quite incidentally.

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edited: 21.09.2020