‘Endlings’ are the last animals of their kind. Can their stories help us save them?

“I think the power of this paradigm can be leveraged to save other species before it is too late,” he adds. “We need to harness this outpouring of ecological grief and use it to motivate people to care about ending endlings—by bending the curve of biodiversity loss.”

But while endlings present opportunities to combat extinction and biodiversity declines, there are some problems with their appeal. For one, endlings are inevitably anthropomorphized. Was Lonesome George, the last male Pinta Island tortoise, really lonesome? Nobody knows, but the effort to find him a mate created an international fandom that catalyzed conservation causes in his native Galápagos Islands, and beyond, according to Johannah Barry, former president of Galapagos Conservancy.

“He also became a symbol of the tremendous advances that can be made when science, conservation expertise and political will are aligned on a common cause,” she said in a 2020 statement about his impact on conservation. 

Though famous endlings like George can signal-boost broader struggles, it is also important to be aware of the favoritism we place on charismatic species—a category that doesn’t necessarily overlap with the species that are most in need of our empathy.

“We’re still finding out about new species every year, who are often tiny invertebrates and so on, that may well be becoming extinct before we’re even aware of their existence,” says poet Joanna Lilley, author of the 2020 collection Endlings. “Those little invisible creatures may come and go without us even knowing it, which is really heartbreaking.”