Talk:List of British Isles species extinct in the Holocene

Citations

There is a clear lack of citations in this article which is making it near to in useable. The No.1 priority has to be getting accurate citations in especially for animals which don't have their own article. PascalsCalculatingHamster (talk) 13:32, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Neanderthals

Should Neanderthals be included on this list? Pro66 (talk) 16:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so - first, because this is supposed to be a page about animals in the British Isles that became extinct after the speration from continental Europe c.8000BC - even though the page lists several animals (eg the woolly mammoth) that became extinct before the separation according to the info on the list - and Neanderthals became extinct as a distinct human group in Europe between 40,000-25,000BC (), 13,000 years or more before the separation; second, because in fact everyone whose ancestors left Africa c.70,000 years ago has around 2% Neanderthal DNA - so to that extent they're not 'extinct' anyway - and third, I wouldn't class them as 'animals', as they're 'humans'. Of course, humans are animals biologically speaking, but not in general discourse.

--Markaeologist (talk) 13:21, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

References

Tweaks and source

Some of the dates don't agree with the articles on the given species. This book might help: Extinctions and Invasions: A social history of British fauna PatHadley (talk) 13:18, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Bears

Why no mention of bears? Perhaps there is a good reason, but I came to this page looking to find out when bears became extinct in the UK, so it would be useful to say something about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.4.106 (talk) 17:38, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

There are a few species missing from this list; bears, moose and beaver were all found at some point living on the land that is currently part of the UK, but none of them are on this list. --Connelly90 09:21, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Elk

Fauna of Scotland states that "elk...lasted until about 1300" citing Hull, Robin (2007) Scottish Mammals. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 1-84158-536-X. This article states 1500 BC. The disparity is huge; which is correct? Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The Elk has not been reintroduced to Britain. Three animals were imported from Sweden and kept in an enclosure on the Alladale estate on a trial basis, they are not there now. You may as well list any other zoo animal. Quetzal1964 (talk) 06:53, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Boars?

Should the wild boar be added to the mammels list? Though it has been accidentally re-introduced in the last few decades, it was extinct in the British Isles for several hundred years. How authoritative this website about boar in Britain is I have no idea, but the idea that boar were extinct by AD1200 or thereabouts seems pretty reasonable. --Markaeologist (talk) 13:29, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

References

Walrus?

Walruses are occassionally seen off the Shetland and Orkney Islands. So seems odd to list them as extinct in the British Isles? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-21647421 — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChilternGiant (talk • contribs) 23:17, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Pelican?

A pelican was seen recently in Cornwall http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-36259924 — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChilternGiant (talk • contribs) 23:20, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

The pelican recorded in Bronze and Iron age remains was the Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus and not the Great White Pelican Pelecanus oncrotalus Quetzal1964 (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

References

Wolves

1166 for wolves in Wales in surely too early, if they were still found in Shropshire and Herefordshire around 1280-1300 (Edward I/Corbet campaign)? Walshie79 (talk) 06:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on List of extinct animals of the British Isles. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/wild-boar/wildboar-status.pdf
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/wild-boar/wildboar-status.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041123010135/http://www.birdsofbritain.co.uk/features/history-british-birds.htm to http://www.birdsofbritain.co.uk/features/history-british-birds.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050526002013/http://www.buglife.org.uk/html/insect_types/about_inverts_insect_types_bumblebees.htm to http://www.buglife.org.uk/html/insect_types/about_inverts_insect_types_bumblebees.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:48, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

B.C., B.C.E., or B.P.?

Something is really bugging me about this article. That is that the dates from before A.D. or C.E. and listed in three different ways on the article. They ways the dates are listed are B.C. (Before Christ), B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and B.P. (Before Present). There really should be consistency when it comes to listing dates. What would be the most appropriate date list for this article? --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 21:50, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

For now, I changed all dates from before Year 1 to B.P. for consistency. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 22:45, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

In a twist of fate, I decided to have a look at the talk page before continuing with some minor edits to this article, and noticed this topic at the bottom. It seemed to have escaped your notice at the time, but the zero years for BP and BC are almost two millienia apart. The resulting massive inaccuracies have gone unnoticed for three years. I've already corrected the errors, but it might be worth double-checking the changes in the offending revision and mine. EnronEvolved^{My Talk Page} 19:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I saw the changes. Sorry for any inconvenience I caused, I just wanted to make the article consistent and it looked weird seeing three date types from before Year 1 (B.C. (Before Christ), B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and B.P. (Before Present/Before Period)) and thought it would be a good idea to fix the problem. I had no idea that B.C. was not the same as B.P. and I though that they all meant before Year 1 A.D./C.E. .

Strangely, I thought that this article got redirected to the List of European species extinct in the Holocene last year, but it looks like it got brought back a few weeks ago. JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 21:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@EnronEvolved

Thanks for catching that error, appreciate your diligence.

I've decided to change all BP (Before Present) and BC (Before Christ) dates to BCE (Before Common Era), similar to other pages on Holocene extinctions. When converting, I treated BC and BCE as functionally identical and I remembered that BP and BCE have a 2,000 year difference in the year 1.

At the moment I haven't yet gone through the sources to verify these dates, I just converted the format of the dates in the existing text. Columbianmammoth (talk) 18:59, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Improving Article Quality

This article needs some love, from a dedicated person who is willing to bring it up to the same standard as all other Lists_of_extinct_species#By_region. I made a few basic improvements today by merging in List of extinct plants of the British Isles and by specifying that the article only covers Holocene extinctions. However, a far more thorough review is necessary.

This article was redirected to List of European species extinct in the Holocene during an earlier phase of editing Lists_of_extinct_species#By_region, but later brought back by consensus. However, when this article was brought back, there was no coordinated effort to bring this article up to the same editorial quality as Lists_of_extinct_species#By_region.

If you check out Talk:List of European species extinct in the Holocene#Merge proposal for British Isles, a talk page from last year, the consensus is that British Isles deserve their own article due to insular biogeography, but cleanups are welcome. Most users also agreed that species from the Last Interglacial should not be included. A user back in 2015 also pointed out the strangeness of including species that became extinct before the British Isles separated from the mainland, such as woolly mammoths (Talk:List of British Isles species extinct in the Holocene#Neanderthals). So, only covering Holocene extinctions like all other Lists_of_extinct_species#By_region and requesting a more general cleanup seems appropriate.

Columbianmammoth (talk) 01:26, 26 May 2026 (UTC)