Przewalski's horse was extinct in the wild for DECADES. but thanks to multi-nation cooperation, they were able to be officially taken off the "extinct in the wild" designation and moved up to "endangered" in 2005. today there's about 2500 individuals, with around half of them living in the wild again.
the green sea turtle was just taken off the endangered list this month, october 2025, after 40 years of relentless conservation efforts.
just 20 years ago, the kelp forests of the pacific off of the southern california coasts had disappeared entirely because of an invasion of sea urchins. today, those kelp forests are thick enough to anchor boats in place. the mats they form on top of the water so abundant that sea birds can use them to rest on. and this was accomplished just by a handful of people who were single-handedly hunting down urchins for a few hours a day. because the kelp returned, huge amounts of fish returned, which meant the bigger predators did as well. what was once an area void of nearly all life is absolutely teeming with it now.
speaking of california, as someone showed above, the smog and acid rain has been all but eliminated from LA. yes, the pollution is still the highest in the nation but it's not literally poisonous to breathe the air anymore, and every year it gets a little better. china has seen a lot of the same recovery, too. we all remember the smog problems china had through the 80s/90s and part of the 00s. they got that shit cleaned up on a time scale that hurts my head actually. some days there is still a bit of smog, but again, it's absolutely nothing compared to what it used to be. in another 10 years i'm almost positive that LA and China both will have a significant boost in air quality.
pandas were downgraded from endangered to vulnerable in 2016 from decades of successful conservation efforts and restoration of habitats. their numbers continue to climb.
the mountain lion has been extinct in the wild for a huge swath of the US - basically east of the rockies (excluding florida). every year there are more and more sightings of them as far east as the appalachians. this year in oklahoma, we finally had a confirmed instance of mountain lions breeding in the state rather than just passing through. the first time in the state's history that we have native mountain lions. and that is without human help, mind you. would you like to know how long mountain lions have been absent from oklahoma, specifically?
since european colonization. since before the country was born. hundreds of years. but because we stopped trying to eradicate them and put enforced limits on hunting them, they have finally, FINALLY returned to their natural ranges - and will continue spreading.
i think we're all very familiar with the reintroduction of wolves to yellowstone at this point, and what a profound success it was on the entire ecosystem.
jane goodall is the sole reason why science and conservation around primates changed for the better. one person did that. and because of that, countless other things happened that benefited both the environment and animals. she campaigned for better treatment of animals in captivity, for more humane methods of animal testing - and eventually called for the abolishment of it altogether. she set up sanctuaries. she helped with reforesting projects. she's the reason chimps were finally given the proper designation of endangered. this one woman changed how the entire world thinks about chimpanzees, from the layman's perception to science and research.
when i was a kid, damn near every professional on the subject was convinced cheetahs had roughly 20 years left before they'd be gone forever. i grew up preemptively mourning them, because they were my favorite big cat and it broke my heart that i'd never get to see one. that they wouldn't even exist anymore by the time i was grown up. a lot of stories i read and watched even dealt with this idea that we would lose them and could only hope for the future to introduce the technology to clone them back into existence. like, it was spoken of as if it were already fact.
well, i'm getting close to 40 now and cheetahs are still here. conservationists are desperately doing everything they can to save them, to keep them going just a bit longer until we can figure out better solutions. i've seen cheetahs in person. up close. and i cried, because these beautiful cats still existed. because people around the world cared enough to TRY and save them despite being told it would be hopeless.
we're still losing them at an alarming rate, but they're still here. they're still here. they're still here.
it's still uncertain if we'll be able to save them now that their gene pool is so limited. but even if there comes a time when there is only one cheetah left in the world, i can guarantee you that the world's best will still be TRYING, still be brainstorming, still be theorizing ways and means to bring it back. i know this because that is exactly what's happening with the northern white rhino at this very moment.
there are two left in the world. both female. both unable to carry a pregnancy. they are functionally extinct. scientists have been scrambling every single day for years to figure out how to bring them back, knowing the clock is ticking before they're gone entirely. TEN YEARS they have been working on this project - using stem cells, gametes, and frozen sperm - to try and create viable embryos. they've succeeded in a handful, which are now frozen. just a couple years ago they did their first insemination of a surrogate. sadly she died from unrelated causes before her gestation was completed, so now they're on the hunt for another surrogate. meanwhile, najin and fatu, the last two living females, have 24/7 bodyguards and other insane security measures.
and while it may well be impossible to bring them back, thylacine restoration has been constantly looked into since 1999. despite setbacks time and time again, it hasn't stopped people from doing their part to try. be it cataloging all known specimens around the world or researching its evolutionary history and links to modern canids, or sequencing the genome. you could ask any one of the people who have been part of this process for the last ~20 years why the hell they would care about something that's already dead and gone with extremely little possibility or even hope to restore it. i think most of them would probably answer along the lines of: because we have a responsibility to care and a responsibility to try and fix what we are at fault for destroying.
and you know what? even if the world falls into catastrophic nuclear war, people will still be doing everything in their power to undo damages where possible. people will still be trying to help make it better.
