“A learned institution sent an expedition southward,
one of whose many projects was to determine whether or not
the sea-otter was extinct. In due time it returned with the
information that the sea-otter was indeed extinct. One of us,
some time later, talking with a woman on the coast below
Monterey, was astonished to hear her describe animals living
in the surf which could only be sea-otters, since she described
accurately animals she couldn’t have known about except by
observation. A report of this to the institution in question elicited
no response. It had extincted sea-otters and that was that.
It was only when a reporter on one of our more disreputable
newspapers photographed the animals that the public was
informed. It is not yet known whether the institution of learning
has been won over.”
– John Steinbeck,
Sea of Cortez, p. 180, (1941)