Extinct in the Wild
These doves went extinct in the wild in 1972. They were from the Island of Socorro, which is part of Mexico. Although sheep have destroyed some of the habitat, and the bird was always preyed upon by hawks, the main culprit in their extinction there is cats that were introduced to the island. I need to go through and count how many of these animals I have painted that had cats play a part in their population declines. It seems like half of the small animals have cats listed as one of the reasons they are on my list. Unfortunately, some feel that most of the privately owned and bred doves, and possibly even many of the doves in zoos are actually hybrids of the Socorro and another dove that looks similar. The males are more strongly marked than the females. They have a neat iridescent patch to the back of their neck that looks pink and yellow in most of the pictures. While researching I did see many articles that mentioned there is intent to reintroduce the doves to their island once the sheep and cats are removed. I do not know what, if any progress has been made toward that goal though as the most recent article about it that I found was from 2018, and at that point it was still not possible.
I had fun shopping today for my oldest son for his birthday. I told someone today that I am going to have a 20 year old soon. I said it is rather crazy because I only admit to being 28. In less than 10 years, my son will be older than I am. My plan is to stay 28 until my license says I'm 82 and then I will suddenly decide to be 102 so I look very good for my age. I may well have mentioned that before, but I'm not going to assume people remember everything I've written, especially since I don't! My great-grandmother was an identical twin. She lied about her age all the time, and her sister didn't. Nobody really noticed it until after both of them had died. When the second had passed away and her tombstone set up people realized that the identical twins had birth dates something like 5 years apart. This was before all the government issued identification and such, so my great-grandmother was able to get away with the fake age. Her tombstone had to be replaced with a corrected one. I don't actually mind getting older, I mean my husband keeps getting better and better looking as he gets older. I don't appreciate how my body is more and more temperamental as it ages, and my bad health is frustrating. Other than that though, I jokingly lie about my age mostly as a way to make people laugh rather than because I don't want to age. One thing I always try to do is help others smile or laugh, even if it is at my expense. That is probably one of the reasons that while I have a lot of ideas for art that is fairly dark, I rarely end up doing anything along those lines.