is it or isn't it? extinct?

Your simply not open to the possibility that they were extinct.

The data had to be homogenised. You just don't understand how difficult this data stuff is.

They counted the snails to get an estimate of the population. Then they adjusted the data because the figures from the surrounding area needed to be taken into account.

The interpolation process caused the original estimate to be corrected to zero. So they were extinct. Now they have better models that weight the values from the surrounding area lower if it is sea when land-based animals are being counted.

It is cutting edge stuff.

The fact that it is now nearly extinct means that the snails need to be protected. This will mean that all concerned government departments, NGOs, universities and the UN Snail Protection Convention will need to visit the snails on a regular basis to keep them well-counted - all at someone else's expense of course. The fact that these visits will need to be to the Seychelles is just a cross they will have to bear. It's tough work but someone has to do it.

Chemflunky,

You are exactly right about the media turning "scientists' cautious 'well, this might be X' into 'This is definitely X, run for your lives!'"

This is why it is important for scientists to take precautions and stand firm against such exaggeration. But that is not what is happening in AGW. Climate "scientists" instead are running headlong into disaster. They exaggerate their own claims and then allow the media to exaggerate those exaggerated claims.

And what is the result? People who THINK they are in the know are suddenly scared to death that the world will end.

Take this example. Even if the scientists was being cautious, claiming CAUSATION, when you don't even know the event really occurred is EXAGGERATION. Those "scientists" should know better.

I get the whole "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" ideology, but I strongly disagree with exaggeration to get that ounce of prevention. What other stupid decisions will follow when people are making panicked ill-informed decisions? The ethanol mandate?

Oh! And did you hear? My Grannie had a hangnail due to AGW. And forest fires are down this year due to AGW. And the ocean is suddenly swallowing up the heat due to AGW. Oh, and the forest fires were up last year due to AGW. And if we increase taxes we can pull the temperature down. An increase in taxes offsets an increase in CO2. And Al Gore just wants to save the polar bears, but that mean ole MAXX won't let him.

Quote by Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace: "It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true."

And then when all the facts are in we will find out that it really wasn't a true purple snail after all. It was just a bunch of Junior Varsity Al Qaeda terrorists hiding out disguised as purple snails to fool Obama.

Alarmists of every kind love the scare mongering about 'extinctions.'

According to this paper:

"For 30 years some have suggested that extinctions through tropical forest loss are occurring at a rate of up to 100 species a day and yet less than 1,200 extinctions have been recorded in the last 400 years." http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/...

DID YOU GET THAT? Some alarmists have claimed up to a 100 species extinctions A DAY, for the last 30 YEARS --- yet less than 1,200 extinctions have been recorded over the last 4 centuries! Something is wrong.. hun? This is a good example of how Alarmists will say ANYTHING to drive their agenda forward.

And this is fun. Go to Yahoo and search on the string "Thought Extinct" and see how many hits you get. I got 128,000 hits. https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Aiegp6z9vf1nA...

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This should be called the abracadabra snail. Abracadabra its gone. Abracadabra, it is behind your right ear. I believe I heard not so long ago that the majority of "extinct" animals are later found but that is because they are so quick to label so many as extinct before their time. As somebody said once, The report of my death was an exaggeration

I very much doubt that global warming would be likely to cause the extinction of a tropical species, unless it was on an island that was hopelessly flooded.

Raisin Caine

<This is why it is important for scientists to take precautions and stand firm against such exaggeration.>

If computer models produced more modest and yet more accurate forecasts, deniers would be convinced? Or would none of us have ever even heard of these computer models?

It isn't! With higher temperatures and higher CO2 levels, one would think the species count would go up (since heat is energy and CO2 is the basis of all of life). It seems that many ocean species are thriving in the warmer waters. Blue whales, lobsters, krill, and many other ocean species seem to be "expanding their horizons".

:-)

they may have been just hiding extra good and now they are making a come back. or it could be a hybrid of the original

Congratulations. You have realized that scientists sometimes make mistakes, and that media outlets like to turn scientists' cautious "well, this might be X" into "This is definitely X, run for your lives!"

Of course isolated and/or small species are more likely to go extinct. And island (or island-equivalent) species are going to be more vulnerable to climate change, because one of the major strategies for adapting to climate change is, well, moving. If you're on an island, there's often nowhere to move *to*.