Extinct in the wild George on the Galapagos island of Pinta on 1 December 1971. Since then, Lonesome George has been a powerful symbol for conservation efforts in general and for the Galapagos Islands in particular. With his death on 24 June 2012, the subspecies is again believed to be extinct. With the discovery of 17 hybrid Pinta tortoises located at nearby Wolf Volcano a plan has been made to attempt to breed the subspecies back into a pure state. Not all species that are extinct in the wild are rare. For example, "Ameca splendens", though extinct in the wild, was a popular fish
Nature Conservation Act 1992 Nature Conservation Act 1992 The Nature Conservation Act 1992 is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota. As originally published, it provided for biota to be declared "presumed extinct", "endangered", "vulnerable", "rare" or "common". In 2004 the act was amended to more closely align with the IUCN Red List categories: "presumed extinct" was changed to "extinct in the wild" and "common" was changed to "least concern". "Near threatened" was introduced as an eventual replacement for "rare", but the latter was to be phased out over time rather than immediately