Why did the Pyrenean Ibex go extinct? And how it came back to life. by reese saho
The Pyrenean Ibex is a sub-species of the Spanish Ibex, and one of the two extinct sub-species of the species. They lived in the Cantabrian Mountains in Spain, and the Pyrenees Mountains in southern France. Scientists don't know exactly why the Pyrenean Ibex went extinct, but they theorize they died because of poaching, disease, and the loss of food and habitat because of other herbivorous ungulates in the area. These factors caused the sub-species to go from 50,000 animals to less than 100 by the 20th century.
In the year 2000, the last known Pyrenean Ibex, a female named Cecelia, died of wounds from a tree falling on it. However, just before she died, scientists got cells from her ear to hopefully clone her and placed it in liquid Nitrogen. Nine years later, they succeeded in cloning Cecilia. However, the clone only survived for seven minutes after birth as it suffered from lung defects, and died. Scientists are still attempting to clone the Pyrenean Ibex to have enough to repopulate the world.