ABSTRACT
Species that became extinct before the invention of photography are present to scientists through specimens, skins, descriptions, or drawings. Photographs of extinct species belong to another order of presence altogether, one that accords with our modern experience of loss as being mediated by technology. Photographs of vanished species have the power to haunt us in a way that stuffed specimens, engravings, or other means of representation do not. This is because, firstly, the technology of photography has potent historical and philosophical links with death and resurrection, and, secondly, because photographs of extinct species demonstrate a continuing spectral presence for conservationists, inspiring action and reflection. In this chapter, we ask how and in what contexts “ghost species” are conjured into presence through photography. We argue that photographs of “endlings” are magical images for conservationists—at once signs of individual life and icons of species loss. They are presented as both “real and ideal in an enunciative present, one which is separated from both the past, a time of presence, and the future, a time of absence”. By exploring the interface between photography, haunting, and extinction, we demonstrate the value of the concept of spectrality in thinking about the loss and return of species.
