Endangered

It is so quiet on the shore of this motionless lake
you can hear the slow recessional of extinct animals
as they leave through a door at the back of the world,
disappearing like the verbs of a dead language:

the last troop of kangaroos hopping out of the picture,
the ultimate paddling of ducks and pitying of turtledoves
and, his bell rolling in the distance, the final goat.
-- From Questions About Angels, by Billy Collins

& about saving what's left:

Just how far should we go to save the last of a species? Jeffrey A McNeely, the chief scientist at IUCN-The World Conservation Union, argues in this week's Green Room that even a little effort can reap huge reward. - BBC