Are humans responsible for the extinction of Megafauna?
It has always been speculated that because of over-hunting and humans infringing on natural habitats that humans lead to the extinction of some species of megafauna. Recent extinction include the Cape Lion in South Africa that was hunted to extinction by colonizers. Current examples of megafauna include elephants, large wild cats, and rhinoceros.
A recent study shows that humans helped push a giant horned turtle to extinction 3,000 years ago on an island off of Australia. A giant turtle, known to live longer than other megafauna like the woolly mammoth and saber-toothed tiger which became extinct 50,000 years ago, survived until the arrival of the Lapita people to the island of Vanuatu.
Researchers found leg bones, as opposed to skulls and shells, which show that the giant turtles were hunted because the leg is the only fleshy part of the body. They dated the bones to 200 years after the Lapita people arrived.
Speculators still believe that climate changes or a meteor strike is the cause for the extinction of megafauna species. However, this study shows that people are at least partially responsible for hunting some species of animals to extinction.
Humans are only partially responsible for the extinction of SOME species of megafauna.
The woolly mammoth was not hunted to extinction by humans. Rather, with the increasingly cold climates 20,000 years ago, grasslands became sparse and the woolly mammoth had a diminishing food source.
Both natural and anthropogenic factors are to blame for the extinction of megafauna.
