Today, I went to Sprouts to pick up some items and found that one of the items- Their store brand bulk Gummi Bears (@ $.99 this week) was out of stock. Dare I say... Extinct.
That got me thinking about the ecology of Ursus Gelatinosis Fructus Sapidus, more commonly known as the lesser gummi bear. They used to be plentiful, roaming across the fields and hills of Germany, but the division of the country after WWII cut into their migratory path and affected their habitat. only after 1989 when the Berlin wall fell was the breeding program established in the black forest by Haribo able to bring these once proud creatures back to a fraction of their former numbers. They have come back from Critical to near threatened, and are approaching least concern.
When I went back to Sprouts later, they had restocked- I made sure to ask if they were farm raised, free-range, or wild caught. The checkout clerk wasn't sure, but suspected free range.
I'm happy to report that Salmo Nanus Cerasium Gelata, or the Dwarf Cherry Jelly Salmon is doing excellently in the salmon hatcheries of Ikea, where it is filleted, halved, and packaged under the suspiciously mundane name of Swedish fish.
http://clairemcwhite.github.io/tardigrades/
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