On Sept. 29, 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its intention to remove 23 long-unseen species from the protection of the Endangered Species Act — because they've probably gone extinct, and you can't keep protecting what's already gone.
Among the proposed dead: the ivory-billed woodpecker, an iconic lost species often referred to as "the Lord God bird," supposedly based on the words of wonder people once exclaimed upon seeing the magnificent creature flying above them.
