Prehistoric Giant Animals May Have Been Killed by Man, Not Climate Change

Scientists have uncovered new evidence that suggests that giant prehistoric mammals like the prehistoric giant kangaroo may not have been killed by climate change after all, as has long been thought. Last week, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argued that ‘mega-fauna’ were probably hunted to death by man on the Southern island of Tasmania. The discovery that prompted the new stance is a giant kangaroo skull found in a cave in the rainforest in the northwest of Tasmania in 2000.

From BreitBart.com:

Scientists dated the find at 41,000 years old, some 2,000 years after humans first began to live in the area.

“Up until now, people thought that the Tasmanian mega-fauna had actually gone extinct before people arrived on the island,” a member of the British and Australian study, Professor Richard Roberts, told AFP Tuesday.

He said that it was likely that hunting killed off Tasmania’s mega-fauna — including the long-muzzled, 120 kilogram (264 pound) giant kangaroo, a rhinoceros-sized wombat and marsupial ‘lions’ which resembled leopards.

Roberts, from the University of Wollongong south of Sydney, said the idea that climate change could account for the death of the animals was disputed by the fact the area had a very stable climate in the critical time period.

“Things were very climatically stable in that part of Australia and yet the mega-fauna still managed to go extinct,” he said. “So it’s down to humans of one sort or another.”

Roberts said because the large animals were slow breeders, it would not have required an aggressive campaign to see them quickly die out.

Interesting theory. It wouldn’t be surprising, would it? We humans seem pretty good at messing things up.

Link [BreitBart.com]
Photo credit: Opal Fossils of South Australia

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