OK... if I have an indoor cat, and an outdoor cat, and the indoor cat dies... indoor cats are now extinct in my house, yes?

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a brat. But I feel that using this term, that has historically been used to represent the end of a species forever, in this way that focuses on regional populations instead, will only degrade the seriousness of 'extinction' to the public in general. Pushing extinction this way in social media will only dull people's reaction to it in the long run. And there's already a word for what this is trying to do anyway, extirpation. But people on social media don't know that word, so well here we are ;)

Call it regional extinction, or locally extinct, and we'll all on the same page at least.

It used to be accepted that extinction of a species occurred with the death of the last member of that spices that represented a chance of reproduction in the wild. That being said, definitions of words change over time, same as trends and social norms. Things just change. And we eventually rewrite the definitions to accommodate that.

I don't think that it is particularly wrong to say an animal can be extinct in one region, while existing in another, but it it most definitly confusing to somebody who uses the traditionally accepted definition of extinct. It's much more concise to say that cheetahs disappeared entirely from the region, and only approximately 100 of their particular subspecies exist in the wild somewhere else. In fact, I would say that using the word 'extinct' in the way it is used in this post is most likely intentionally missleading- tho I appreciate that it is probably being done so to bring attention to an issue that I also believe needs to be taken more seriously be humanity on the whole.

My dog just left my living room and is now in the garage. Is it safe to say that dogs are now extinct in my living room?

I think this is more of a wording issue...

The ocean and its ecosystems are being damaged horribly. The ocean also is not a species that can go extinct.

Also, since when does anybody listen to the UN? Think China's fleets are going to magically start playing nice? Are countries going to stop dumping their garbGe and sewage into their rivers?

Probably not in my lifetime

Edit: left out the word 'go'

This is fair

So then... it's not new

Maybe they can work on lowering the price of eggs next

And the audacity of them all to pronounce 'b' like 'be'!

Only if they don't have loved ones

Finally, the once in a life time scientific breakthrough I've been waiting for