Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Wins Darwin Award, Barely Beating Guy Who Died Making TikTok At Grand Canyon

The Darwin Awards usually honor the human being that died in a particularly foolish fashion, but this year there was an incredible upset. Defying the odds in Vegas and the hopes of the World Wildlife Fund, the ivory-billed woodpecker has taken home the prize by being declared extinct. Proving once more that human beings have a long way to go if they ever want to achieve this kind of success.

Certainly there were some heavyweight contenders. Most notably a TikTok star who fell off the Grand Canyon making a video, radio hosts that lambasted covid-19 protocols and died of cover-19, and a young woman who ate nothing but sand as part of a fad diet she created. While all of those did possibly stop some reproduction of dumb genes in humans, none of their deaths led to the extinction of an entire species. That’s where the ivory-billed woodpecker had a major advantage for the judges.

“There are many people who were pulling for the TIkTok guy, but the truth is he was one of many TikTok stars that died doing something stupid this year and we hope to see those numbers go up. Awarding them may discourage future dumbasses from attempting what they did,” said one judge who would like to remain nameless.

It was no contest between the kid who plummeted over a thousand feet to his death for “likes” and the bird who became extinct from years of deforestation. Only being able to live in certain trees is what most would agree is small brain behavior. Now if they had been hunted to death for the ivory in their bill that would be one thing, but these picky birds just didn’t want to fly somewhere else to eat bugs.

So far around 23 species in the United States alone have gone extinct this year, so if anything we’re [humans] doing a pretty kick ass job at this whole evolution thing. Climate change and pollution spurred on by corporate greed and excess have had terrible effects on plant and animal species and some scientists believe 1 in 3 plant species will be extinct in the next 50 years. Luckily we have evolved to where those issues won’t affect humans until the very end, probably more like 80 years from now.