Atitlán grebe hatchling By: David G. Allen 1960s

[412/10,977] Atitlán Grebe - Podilymbus gigas

(extinct)

Order: Podicipediformes (grebes) Family: Podicipedidae

Photo credit: David G. Allen / The Wildlife Society (TWS)

Atitlán grebe, last seen 1989

Day 11 of January extinct birds - the Atitlán grebe or giant pie-billed grebe (i swear i posted this yesterday but apparently not)

This flightless grebe was endemic to a single lake in Guatemala. Their story is remarkably similar to yesterday's grebe - when carnivorous bass were introduced to the lake, eating the grebe's food and their chicks, numbers started declining steeply. A refuge was set up, which was quite successful, but the 1976 earthquake caused the population to fall again, and they went extinct around 1990.

What ever happened to...?

The Podilymbus gigas, or Atitlán grebe (In Spanish Pato Poc) is a bird species, scientifically known as the Aves class, that are endemic to Guatemala. Endemic means native to, found in a specific area of a country or area.        

What is the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. The IUCN has a special aspect to it, this is the Red List, this is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. 

The criteria of the red list are the following: 

The Pato Poc is extinct, meaning that it met all the requirements to be considered this (by requirements I mean certain death). It was last seen 1989 when two organisms were spotted for the last time before never being seen again.    

Fish Fucking

This is not a poem about sex, or even   about fish or the genitals of fish, So if you are a fisherman or someone interested   primarily in sex, this would be as good a time As any to put another worm on your hook   or find a poem that is really about fucking.

This, rather, is a poem about language,   and about the connections between mind and ear And the strange way a day makes its tenuous   progress from almost anywhere.

Which is why I’ve decided to begin with the idea   of fish fucking (not literally, mind you, But the idea of fish fucking), because the other   day, and a beautiful day it was, in Virginia The woman I was with, commenting on the time   between the stocking of a pond and the

First day of fishing season, asked me if this   was perhaps because of the frequency with which Fish fuck, and—though I myself know nothing at all   about the fucking of fish—indeed, I believe

From the little biology I know that fish do not   fuck at all as we know it, but rather the male Deposits his sperm on the larvae, which the female,   in turn, has deposited—yet the question Somehow suggested itself to my mind as the starting   point of the day, and from the idea of fish

Fucking came thoughts of the time that passes   between things and our experience of them, Not only between the stocking of the pond and our   being permitted to fish in it, but the time,

For example, that passes between the bouncing   of light on the pond and our perception of the Pond, or between the time I say the word jujungawop   and the moment that word bounces against your Eardrum and the moment a bit further on when the   nerves that run from the eardrum to the brain

Inform you that you do not, in fact, know   the meaning of the word jujungawop, but this, Perhaps, is moving a bit too far from the idea of   fish fucking and how beautifully blue the pond was

That morning and how, lying among the reeds atop   the dam and listening to the water run under it, The thought occurred to me how the germ of an idea   has little to do with the idea itself, and how It is rather a small leap from fish fucking to the   anthropomorphic forms in a Miró painting,

Or the way certain women, when they make love,   pucker their lips and gurgle like fish, and how This all points out how dangerous it is for a   man or a woman who wants a poet’s attention

To bring up an idea, even so ludicrous and   biologically ungrounded a one as fish fucking, Because the next thing she knows the mind is taking   off over the dam from her beautiful face, off Over the hills of Virginia, perhaps as far as Guatemala   and the black bass that live in Lake Atitlán who

Feast on the flightless grebe, which is not merely   a sexual thought or a fishy one, but a thought About the cruelty that underlies even great beauty,   the cruelty of nature and love and our lives which

We cannot do without and without which even the idea   of fish fucking would be ordinary and no larger than Itself, but to return now to that particular day, and to   the idea of love, which inevitably arises from the Thought that even so seemingly unintelligent a creature   as a fish could hold his loved one, naked in the water,

And say to her, softly, Liebes, mein Lubes; it was   indeed a beautiful day, the kind filled with anticipation And longing for the small perfections usually found only   in poems; the breeze was slight enough just to brush

A few of her hairs gently over one eye, the air was   the scent of bayberry and pine as if the gods were Burning incense in some heavenly living room, and   as we lay among the reeds, our faces skyward, The sun fondling our cheeks, it was as if each   time we looked away from the world it took

On again a precise yet general luminescence when we   returned to it, a clarity equally convincing as pain But more pleasing to the senses, and though it was not   such a moment of perfection as Keats or Hamsun

Speak of and for the sake of which we can go on for   years almost blissful in our joylessness, it was A day when at least the possibility of such a thing   seemed possible: the deer tracks suggesting that Deer do, indeed, come to the edge of the woods to feed   at dusk, and the idea of fish fucking suggesting

A world so beautiful, so divine in its generosity   that even the fish make love, even the fish live Happily ever after, chasing each other, lustful   as stars through the constantly breaking water.

Michael Blumenthal

This is not a poem about sex, or even   about fish or the genitals of fish, So if you are a fisherman or someone interested   primarily in sex, this would be as good a time As any to put another worm on your hook   or find a poem that is really about fucking. This, rather, is a poem about language,   and about the connections between mind and ear And the strange way a day makes its tenuous   progress from almost anywhere. Which is why I’ve decided to begin with the idea   of fish fucking (not literally, mind you, But the idea of fish fucking), because the other   day, and a beautiful day it was, in Virginia The woman I was with, commenting on the time   between the stocking of a pond and the First day of fishing season, asked me if this   was perhaps because of the frequency with which Fish fuck, and—though I myself know nothing at all   about the fucking of fish—indeed, I believe From the little biology I know that fish do not   fuck at all as we know it, but rather the male Deposits his sperm on the larvae, which the female,   in turn, has deposited—yet the question Somehow suggested itself to my mind as the starting   point of the day, and from the idea of fish Fucking came thoughts of the time that passes   between things and our experience of them, Not only between the stocking of the pond and our   being permitted to fish in it, but the time, For example, that passes between the bouncing   of light on the pond and our perception of the Pond, or between the time I say the word jujungawop   and the moment that word bounces against your Eardrum and the moment a bit further on when the   nerves that run from the eardrum to the brain Inform you that you do not, in fact, know   the meaning of the word jujungawop, but this, Perhaps, is moving a bit too far from the idea of   fish fucking and how beautifully blue the pond was That morning and how, lying among the reeds atop   the dam and listening to the water run under it, The thought occurred to me how the germ of an idea   has little to do with the idea itself, and how It is rather a small leap from fish fucking to the   anthropomorphic forms in a Miró painting, Or the way certain women, when they make love,   pucker their lips and gurgle like fish, and how This all points out how dangerous it is for a   man or a woman who wants a poet’s attention To bring up an idea, even so ludicrous and   biologically ungrounded a one as fish fucking, Because the next thing she knows the mind is taking   off over the dam from her beautiful face, off Over the hills of Virginia, perhaps as far as Guatemala   and the black bass that live in Lake Atitlán who Feast on the flightless grebe, which is not merely   a sexual thought or a fishy one, but a thought About the cruelty that underlies even great beauty,   the cruelty of nature and love and our lives which We cannot do without and without which even the idea   of fish fucking would be ordinary and no larger than Itself, but to return now to that particular day, and to   the idea of love, which inevitably arises from the Thought that even so seemingly unintelligent a creature   as a fish could hold his loved one, naked in the water, And say to her, softly, Liebes, mein Lubes; it was   indeed a beautiful day, the kind filled with anticipation And longing for the small perfections usually found only   in poems; the breeze was slight enough just to brush A few of her hairs gently over one eye, the air was   the scent of bayberry and pine as if the gods were Burning incense in some heavenly living room, and   as we lay among the reeds, our faces skyward, The sun fondling our cheeks, it was as if each   time we looked away from the world it took On again a precise yet general luminescence when we   returned to it, a clarity equally convincing as pain But more pleasing to the senses, and though it was not   such a moment of perfection as Keats or Hamsun Speak of and for the sake of which we can go on for   years almost blissful in our joylessness, it was A day when at least the possibility of such a thing   seemed possible: the deer tracks suggesting that Deer do, indeed, come to the edge of the woods to feed   at dusk, and the idea of fish fucking suggesting A world so beautiful, so divine in its generosity   that even the fish make love, even the fish live Happily ever after, chasing each other, lustful   as stars through the constantly breaking water.

Michael Blumenthal, Fish Fucking

What happened to Podilymbus gigas?

The podilymbus gigas, commonly known as the Atitlán grebe, was an endemic animal to Guatemala, what does this mean? Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type. The podilymbus gigas is in the IUCN Red List, this is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. According to this Red List, the Atitlán grebe is already extinct. It is classified as this because the last time it was seen was at 1986, and until 2012 the animals were said to be extinct. Some characteristic for the animals to be called extinct are some like: people would have to go a long time without seeing it, also knowing that there are no places near where the animal could possibly live. 

Atitlán Grebe (Podilymbus gigas) : 1989

Atitlán Grebe, Podilymbus gigas

Native to only one lake (Lago de Atitlán in Guatemala), the conservation history of this bird is one of decline, hopeful recovery, and a final, tragic loss of the species. In the late 1950s and early 1960s. large- and smallmouth bass were introduced to Lake Atitlán. These bass preyed on the same species that the grebe relied on for food, and are also believed to have eaten grebe chicks. Conservation efforts in the 1960s and 1970s helped recover the already-reduced population to around 200, but when the 1976 Guatemala earthquake struck, it cracked the floor of the lake, causing water levels to drop, resulting in a further reduction of the grebe population. The last pair was spotted in 1989, and the species was declared extinct that year.