What Killed the Great Beasts of North America?

sciencehabit writes "Until about 11,000 years ago, mammoths, giant beavers, and other massive mammals roamed North America. Many researchers have blamed their demise on incoming Paleoindians, the first Americans, who allegedly hunted them to extinction. But a new study points to climate and environmental changes instead. The findings could have implications for conservation strategies, including controversial proposals for 'rewilding' lions and elephants into North America."

Comments

It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[emagery]

Oh, the orbit matters... but the orbit is EXTREMELY predictable even its wobble and orientation. It might, perhaps tip the scale during the (likely ongoing) pleistocene (Where 90% of our time is spent in ice age with 10% warm snaps that should have already ended by now, contrary to spiking upwards instead) but ebbs on a timeline that should have had the pleistocene happening essentially since beginning of observable time (which it has not.) So, it's a factor, but not a decisive one. Continental arrangements and landmasses propensity for temperature extremity vs. oceanic propensity for temperature moderation and long-distance transport matter far more (even than tilt, given measuring the southern hemisphere vs. northern.) And yet, in spite of the fact that the continents and oceanic currents are still in the same messy tangle they have been for the entirety of the multi-million year pleistocene, these beasts didn't go extinct during an of the previous warm-snaps... just the one we arrived in... and now that we should be quickly descending into ice age, instead we're headed the other way. This article is of interest, but it is not argument against anthropogenic extinctions or climate change.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an interesting episode of In Our Time on recently about Ice Ages. Apparently, one of the biggest factors creating an ice age is the presence of continental land masses at the poles. Antarctica collects ice and snow, which then doesn't melt, reflects sunlight, cools the whole planet, etc.

And one definition of whether you're in an ice age is if there are polar ice caps year-round. Guess what? We're in an ice age now!

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[rahvin112]

My personal theory is that the pleistocene has been so cold because of the historically (4 billion years) high oxygen levels and the significant amount of historical carbon that has been sequestered underground.

Humans are changing that, we're sucking all the sequestered carbon out and putting it into the atmosphere where it hasn't been since the dinosaurs. Before all the science deniers reply, this is scary because humanity was born in the ice ages of the Pleistocene we've never experienced a planet as warm as the dinosaurs where there weren't any ice caps and it was 100 degrees in the northern reaches of Canada (yes I know the continents were in different places so Canada was at a lower latitude).

Humans will survive a warmer earth I have no doubt, but the potential for massive disruption to the food supply is there and if that happens there's going to be some really ugly war that humanity might not survive. The reason to be scared of global warming is because of those changing fertile zones, humanity goes batshit crazy when starvation is eminent.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[MickLinux]

That bit about continents *is* a standard theory... but it has nothing on 11k years ago. Same thing goes for the orbit. So no, it isn't the orbit, and it isn't the landmasses.

Let's see... you have the North American Clovis Point people going extinct at the same time. So it isn't *who* killed them either. If the Clovis people had killed them off, you wouldn't have had them going extinct.

Also, at the same time, you have wildfires throughout North America. That soot contains microdiamonds.

You also have mammoths in Siberia at that time, flash frozen (Alaska Science Forum November 1, 1976. Mystery of the Mammoth and the Buttercups Article #122 by J. Holland).

You also have great areas in Alaska of jumbled up, blasted fauna caracases, many of them torn apart.

Now, all told, I'm going to posit -- and I doubt I'm the first to do so -- that an asteroid hit a glacier up against the south side of a mountain in Northern Alaska. The first thing it did, was melt/throw the ice of the glacier in a great parabolic trajectory. The water of the glacier went into near space, froze to extremely low temperatures, and came down. But meanwhile, the asteroid impacted the south side of the mountain, and vaporized, causing a fireball to project back into North America.

Thus the soot, thus the extinctions (animal and Clovis culture), thus the flash-frozen mammoth, thus the tectites, thus the great boneyards.

And no, for those creationists here, I extremely doubt that ANY of this had to do with Noah's flood. Noah's flood dates to about 5000 ya, and seems to match the Madagascar chevrons and 8' of river mud, pretty well. This is something different.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me add one more link. It's the plainest of the links, but is the most to the point, and resource rich. It also has links to articles on the 5000YA strike (Burkle crater among the links) and others (pan to the top to see a list).

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The Madagascar chevrons are only used when dialing the Pegasus galaxy

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[CrimsonAvenger]

My personal theory is that the pleistocene has been so cold because of the historically (4 billion years) high oxygen levels and the significant amount of historical carbon that has been sequestered underground.

Humans are changing that, we're sucking all the sequestered carbon out and putting it into the atmosphere where it hasn't been since the dinosaurs. Before all the science deniers reply, this is scary because humanity was born in the ice ages of the Pleistocene we've never experienced a planet as warm as the dinosaurs where there weren't any ice caps and it was 100 degrees in the northern reaches of Canada (yes I know the continents were in different places so Canada was at a lower latitude).

So, you're arguing that the Pleistocene was cold because of all the carbon sequestered underground 62+ million years before the Pleistocene started?

Alright, why was the Eocene warmer than now? For that matter, why was the Eocene warmer than the Paleocene, which preceded it, and the Oligocene which followed it?

For that matter, the Eocene's peak temperature was higher than either the Jurrasic or Cretaceous.

And why was the Oligocene colder than the Miocene, which followed it?

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[CreatureComfort]

How about you actually study some real Paleoclimatology instead of pulling neo-liberal statements out of your ass?

The truth is, the earth, as a whole, is currently at about the lowest average temperature that can be inferred from the all sources of ancient data. Normally, we should be about 2-3 C higher, globally, given the historical record.

"Global Warming" is just a return to trend and should be expected whether humans are walking around or not.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Let's see... you have the North American Clovis Point [wikipedia.org] people going extinct at the same time. So it isn't *who* killed them either. If the Clovis people had killed them off, you wouldn't have had them going extinct.

So when a population of predators (humans) kills off all their prey (large tasty mammals), you wouldn't expect them to go extinct? ... What?

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Humans are changing that, we're sucking all the sequestered carbon out and putting it into the atmosphere where it hasn't been since the dinosaurs. Before all the science deniers reply, this is scary because humanity was born in the ice ages of the Pleistocene we've never experienced a planet as warm as the dinosaurs where there weren't any ice caps and it was 100 degrees in the northern reaches of Canada (yes I know the continents were in different places so Canada was at a lower latitude).

No. during the age of the dinosaurs, Canada was pretty much exactly where it is today. Yes, it was A LOT WARMER (as in tropical) but as you note, the atmosphere had more carbon back then. Here'sa map of da woild for ya, ca. 100Mya

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/f/...

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

humanity goes batshit crazy when starvation is eminent.

imminent: about to happen

eminent: well-known

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[quantaman]

You also have great areas in Alaska of jumbled up, blasted fauna caracases, many of them torn apart.

If you're trying to make a credible argument then linking to a site that talks about evidence of Noah's Flood and finding ancient Nuclear reactors is a BAD idea.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, all told, I'm going to posit -- and I doubt I'm the first to do so -- that an asteroid hit a glacier up against the south side of a mountain in Northern Alaska

Its thought to be a comet that was either an airburst, or impacted the glaciers, thus no impact crater.
See Younger Dryas Impact Hypthesis

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you'd expect them to start on the 'smaller tasty mammals', evidence of hunting only 2 large species does not imply hunting to extinction but even if it did, why would humans have stopped eating the other animals that didn't go extinct? Did Clovis just all of a sudden decide to become vegetarian. Geez, perhaps you think there were only a couple of species around for humans to eat...first time in human history too.

Re: It's the orbit, stupid

[loufoque]

Water was boiling in nothern canada?

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[dargaud]

You also have great areas in Alaska of jumbled up, blasted fauna caracases, many of them torn apart. [s8int.com]

It could have been an interesting read, if it were not for the fact that all the citations date from the 60s at the most recent... and all the side links to Noah's flood, dinosaur sightings and such.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[NoImNotNineVolt]

No, you'd expect them to start on the 'smaller tasty mammals'

When's the last time you tried throwing a spear at a small animal?

Not only do smaller animals present smaller targets, but they also tend to be capable of much faster movement (or acceleration, more specifically). The limited accuracy and relatively slow velocity of a projectile like a spear or dart (even with an atlatl) makes such a tool nearly useless in the hunting of small animals. There is ample time for a little critter to move out of the way of such a slow-moving projectile.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[MickLinux]

Umm... there IS evidence of Noah's flood. And georeactors are common. Admittedly, they may have some crackpot ideas, but they are right to point out that certain items of evidence don't line up with current theory.

In that sense, I wish more slashdotters would listen to creation theorists, and tinfoil hatters more often, because to drown them out implies a blind faith in scientists and textbooks, a rational absurdity.

Remember that quote that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine? To silence evidence that conflicts with current theory is a a no-brainer, as in, it is a negation of the brain God gave you.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[MickLinux]

Aside from that, I pulled up the links from a google search to cherry-pick the items that I was looking for. These things have all appeared in reputable journals; but a) people who espouse popular theories odon't cite; b) those who do cite while espousing popular theories put their articles behind paywalls.

Face it, if you know about a journal article, and want to easily give references here on the web, you're going to have to learn to look at papers with theories you consider nutty.

Either that, or you're going to have to come up with a service tthat reads journal articles, references them, and summarizes them with all the relevant information, and then pays for itself with google ads.

Take your pick.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

To conserve space, please step over to the previous complainer's post, where I answered both of you at once.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the black horse, followed by the pale horse, that does it. Brings out the red horse every time. White horse ALWAYS leads, though.

I've just short circuited it so that when I see the white horse I go crazy. It's easier and quicker that way.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Muad'Dave]

If the Clovis people had killed them off, you wouldn't have had them going extinct.

If the Clovis people hunted their main food sources to extinction, I'd expect the demises of the beasts and the Clovis people to be indistinguishable in the geologic record.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[Reziac]

I prefer these handy, easy-to-understand charts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And yes, a little warmer would be more 'normal', but I expect we'll have another ice age first.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[bbsalem]

Good points, Plate tectonics provides a better explanation for Cenozoic Era paleoclimates than just the carbon cycle. The Eocene-Oligocene change has to do with Antarctica drifting over the south pole and icing up. This disrupted ocean circulation and was caused by the breakup of Gondwanaland and the beginning of the circumpolar currents in the Southern Hemisphere. The climate cooled even more in the Miocene and Pliocene because the northern continents surrounded the Arctic and restricted warming sea water from the North Pole. The orbital fluctuations were made critical by the ocean circulation, not the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is a response to ocean productivity, most carbon fuels are marine in origin. That was very much affected by the land bridges connecting the Americas and Asia, even though the Atlantic opened up. Diverting the Gulf Stream into North Europe, rather than it going from Africa across the Gulf of Mexico and into the Eastern Pacific as it did in Eocene time, would cause greater snow in Northern Europe and Canada that would not melt from season to season and lead to continental glaciation.

As for the cause of the Mass Extinction, the numbers of human in the Americas, only a few thousands, a not enough to explain the collapse of the megafauna, even if people were successful preditors, It is more likely that climate instability and the collapse of food stocks for specialized animals was the real cause. The animals could not adapt, the changes were too fast, happening in decades rather than millenia, and the spieces went extinct.

For our continued existence as megafauna, defined as needing expensive food to survive, it is climate instability that poses the greater risk than ice ages or not. We could have clearly survived in an Eocene climate and we did fine in a Pleistocene one, but to have Eocene in the next 30 years and Pleistocene in the following 30 would be very bad for us.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[david_thornley]

I'll listen to a creation theorist when said creation theorist comes up with a falsifiable theory. Alternatively, falsify evolution theory, and by "falsify" I don't mean make up this and claim there's insufficient evidence for that. Claiming "God did it" is crippling to scientific inquiry, and science has a far better record in helping people achieve a high quality of life and become humane than religion does. This is true regardless of whether God did "it" or not.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[quantaman]

Umm... there IS evidence of Noah's flood. And georeactors are common.

There's evidence of some extremely large floods in early human history, there's no evidence of a world wide flood resembling the biblical account.

And georeactors are one thing, but talking about an 'ancient nuclear reactor' implies that humans BUILT the devices, and they had some understanding of atomic physics.

Admittedly, they may have some crackpot ideas, but they are right to point out that certain items of evidence don't line up with current theory.

In that sense, I wish more slashdotters would listen to creation theorists, and tinfoil hatters more often, because to drown them out implies a blind faith in scientists and textbooks, a rational absurdity.

Remember that quote that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine? To silence evidence that conflicts with current theory is a a no-brainer, as in, it is a negation of the brain God gave you.

There's a reason to discount them, it's because they're wrong, very wrong.

If you start out to prove that the bible is literally true, or that ancient humans had what we'd consider to be advanced technology, you're very quickly presented with a scenario where you either have to lie or be completely delusional because the evidence is weighted so heavily against you.

Think of it like asking the mentally ill homeless person raving about microchips in his head about the NSA. He surely will have a lot to say and may even know some facts that you don't, but there's no way you're going to walk away from that conversation with a clearer picture of reality.

Re:It's the orbit, stupid

[sasquatch989]

My personal theory is that the pleistocene has been so cold because of the historically (4 billion years) high oxygen levels and the significant amount of historical carbon that has been sequestered underground.

Humans are changing that, we're sucking all the sequestered carbon out and putting it into the atmosphere where it hasn't been since the dinosaurs. Before all the science deniers reply....

I wasn't aware that personal theory counts as science

People!

[Anonymous Coward]

People killed them. Either by direct means or global warming.

Or, I blame God.

Re:People!

[Anonymous Coward]

But Soylent Green is people...

Re:People!

[ackthpt]

People killed them. Either by direct means or global warming.

Or, I blame God.

What about Justin Bieber, I'm sure he had something to do with the extinction of the mammoths.

To be on the safe side, sign this petition The species you save may be your own.

Re:People!

[Salgak1]

When will someone kill two birds with one stone. . .and make Soylent Bieber ???

Re:People!

[ackthpt]

When will someone kill two birds with one stone. . .and make Soylent Bieber ???

Potentially answering one question with another... Would you eat it?

Re:People!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Best slashdotting message I've seen yet:
We are currently experiencing a service outage due to unforeseen technical issues and are working to resolve them as soon as possible. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

The entire point of the original article was supposed to be that People didn't do it, but it appears that People killed the whitepaper, or at least, slashdotters did. Whether slashdotters are people remains to be proven.

Re:People!

[tompaulco]

We know it was people. They just used to think it was the paleoindians, but now they are thinking it was 20th and 21st century man that killed them with their manmade global warming.

Re:People!

[icebike]

People killed them. Either by direct means or global warming.

Or, I blame God.

There were never enough Paleoindians, or even Pre-Columbian indians in north america to have killed all of these animals.
The indigenous populations of the Americas (north and south) was somewhere well under 112 million prior 1492.
(Yup the Columbus gets the blame for native population collapse, even though far earlier arrivals could certainly have been the vector for deadly diseases).

I never believed the hunted to extinction nonsense. (Not that Native Americans were very good stewards of the land, they had been known to stampede entire herds of buffalo over cliffs just for their tongues, and a few hides, leaving the vast majority to rot.) But their population density simply was never great enough to exhaust the resources.

I don't find the idea that a steadily improving (more benign) climate over the time of these species demise seems likely either. With the retreat of the ice age glaciation opening more and more land the pressure on these species would have been less and less as time went on. We are always quick to blame man kind, (but apparently only western European man-kind) for every tragedy befalling the environment, (or the indians), without considering that disease could have been just as likely.
 

Re:People!

[Anonymous Coward]

God did it? Pish posh! They were intelligently designed out of the ecosystem. Just ask any bible banger with the science education of a four year old and they'll give you all the details you need to make a theme park.

Re:People!

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent national geographic... cuts on bones indicate that the Aztecs were cannibalistic, and supplemented their diet with prisoners, including the cliff dwellers of New Mexico in their "great feast".

Point being, apparently protein was an issue, and apparently they had large numbers of people. And... apparently the population collapsed *before* Columbus.

Doesn't mean that the animals were hunted to extinction, but there *is* new research out there.

But also... 1492 AD is nowhere close in era to 11000 BC.

Re:People!

[icebike]

It means nothing of the sort.
There was no shortage of protein leading to cannibalism, that myth has been debunked for over 20 years.

And Nat Geo never said the cliff dwellers were eaten by the Aztecs. There's not a shred of evidence that the Astecs ever made it as far north as new mexico.

Re:People!

[Vintermann]

The indigenous populations of the Americas (north and south) was somewhere well under 112 million prior 1492

That is such a hopeless argument. For one, you do not need a lot of humans to drive megafauna extinct. Not any more than you need a lot of snakes to drive flightless birds extinct on an isolated tropical island.

More importantly, this happened long, long before 1492! Some 13000 years before. The population in 1492 could have been a billion or it could have been one for that matter, but either way still wouldn't have proven or disproven the overkill hypothesis.

I never believed the hunted to extinction nonsense.

People, especially anthropologists who live with native people and/or devote themselves to try to understand their way of life on a deep level, are understandably reluctant to believe such disheartening things about their study subjects. Some of them argue passionately against it, but that is one of the times you need to look a little critically on their actual arguments - especially the things they can't explain.

If humans did not contribute decisively to killing off American megafauna, it was a fantastic coincidence of timing.

Re:People!

[icebike]

1492 is mentioned simply as the high-point of population density in the Americas. (I should have thought that would have been obvious).
13,000 years ago the density was microscopic. So much so that we've only found evidence in a very few special sites.

Small local tribes can only exhaust small local populations, but on continents the size of North and South America, Local doesn't apply, and your tropical island example is really laughable (and I suspect you knew that the minute you typed it, yet you hit that submit button anyway.).

Re:People!

[oodaloop]

There's no reason why humans would have to have killed every last one. Every species has a minimum population it needs to maintain genetic diversity. Killing a species below this would be enough for it die off eventually. Or cutting off the migratory patterns, so that each half is below the minimum. Say the mammoths needed 50,000 to maintain genetic diversity. A population of 95,000 could be split up by human tribes, such that neither side could migrate and interact with the other. In short order, the species would die off.

Re:People!

[khallow]

Small local tribes can only exhaust small local populations

Everywhere in the Americas would have had local tribes inside of a few hundred years. Humans get around. That's how a local problem becomes a continental-scale one.

Re:People!

[icebike]

Except for the facts that get in the way of that. 13000 years ago the Americas were extremely underpopulated.
At the time of Columbus, the best estimates for all of North and South american combined is less than current day Canada.
That's not enough people to drive anything extinct.

Re:People!

[khallow]

Except for the facts that get in the way of that. 13000 years ago the Americas were extremely underpopulated.

For driving things extinct? We're not speaking of passenger pigeons but rather of very large mammals who probably never were very numerous.

That's not enough people to drive anything extinct.

I don't know why you would think that.

Re:People!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, yet another 'human' with species hatred so badly that you can totally ignore the 'magnitude' arguments here. 'People get arround'? What are you 5 years old? People get around TODAY because of planes, trains, automobiles, ships...none of which existed 13000 years ago. Here's an experiment that you can try to grow up a bit. Walk across NA, you are only allowed to 'hunt & gather' for your food. Now try to 'get around' fast enough to make any significant impact on a population of animals.

Re:People!

[khallow]

Wow, yet another 'human' with species hatred so badly that you can totally ignore the 'magnitude' arguments here.

Not at all. The thing here is that intelligence is quite powerful. Even a small number of humans could kill off all the large mammals, if they were so inclined. And it's the only explanation which can span two continents.

Re:People!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/d...

I'm not going to be able to find the national geographic link, because I don't store them. The article was about a year ago or less.

But what I referenced above is probably related.

It was me. Sorry.

[TWiTfan]

My bad. Sabertooth tiger and Mammoth just tasted so good.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[crow]

What's wrong with you?

Sure, mammoths are tasty, but my dogs won't even touch sabertooth meat. That stuff is nasty.

Seriously.

In general, herbivores are tasty. Carnivores and omnivores? No way. A friend of mine in Alaska had to kill the neighborhood grizzly bear, and, indeed, even his dogs wouldn't eat the meet. They ended up having to bury it (though I suppose burning would have worked, too).

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[aardvarkjoe]

In general, herbivores are tasty. Carnivores and omnivores? No way.

This is at least partly cultural. Cats, dogs, bears, various reptiles, fish, whales, insects -- just to name a few animals off the top of my head that are carnivorous or omnivorous and are used as food with some frequency. If it's possible to eat it, chances are that somebody does -- and even considers it a delicacy.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[icebike]

What's wrong with you?

Sure, mammoths are tasty, but my dogs won't even touch sabertooth meat. That stuff is nasty.

Seriously.

In general, herbivores are tasty. Carnivores and omnivores? No way. A friend of mine in Alaska had to kill the neighborhood grizzly bear, and, indeed, even his dogs wouldn't eat the meet. They ended up having to bury it (though I suppose burning would have worked, too).

Black bear is often eaten.
And Grizzly Bear, (usually called Brown bears in Alaska) are mostly herbaceous except when the salmon are running.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[phantomfive]

And pork!

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Black bear is often eaten.

You can stomach bear, if it's spiced up in a meatball, but it's not what you'd call great. Compared with, say, elk.

But dogs? C'mon, my dog will eat a rotting squirrel. Maybe the "neighborhood grizzly" was sick - grizzlies don't ordinarily inhabit human neighborhoods, save the usual caveats about garbage.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[RabidReindeer]

What's wrong with you?

Sure, mammoths are tasty, but my dogs won't even touch sabertooth meat. That stuff is nasty.

Seriously.

In general, herbivores are tasty. Carnivores and omnivores? No way. A friend of mine in Alaska had to kill the neighborhood grizzly bear, and, indeed, even his dogs wouldn't eat the meet. They ended up having to bury it (though I suppose burning would have worked, too).

So.. no bacon for you?

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

While not having a woody stem does make brown bears easier to eat, they still have all those bones and that fur.

And Grizzly Bear, (usually called Brown bears in Alaska) are mostly herbaceous except when the salmon are running.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[HiThere]

Maybe it depends on whether it's a male or a female sabertooth. That seems to matter with goats.

OTOH, I expect ANY sabertooh meat would be quite stringy, and probably only be decent in a stew.

Still, that doesn't really matter. If you kill off the mamoths, what are the sabertooths supposed to eat? If the answer it you, then you'll kill them off even if they don't taste good.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[ColdWetDog]

What's wrong with you?

A friend of mine in Alaska had to kill the neighborhood grizzly bear, and, indeed, even his dogs wouldn't eat the meet. They ended up having to bury it (though I suppose burning would have worked, too).

Brown Bear is edible - barely. Of interest is that Alaska Dept of Fish and Game does require you to salvage meet from a Brown bear. So, your friend either did something wrong (left the carcass out) or the animal was really sick or your friend could be in a heap of trouble....

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

In general, herbivores are tasty. Carnivores and omnivores? No way.

Pigs, chickens, crabs, lobsters, and many commonly eaten fish, would act as counter-examples to your hypothesis.

More likely it's that wild animals are more lean, whereas domesticated ones tend to contain more fat making them tastier to your pampered palate.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[budgenator]

Had my first taste of bear this year and I was not impressed.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[crow]

I think the bear was healthy, but the real problem was that the dogs are a bit spoiled.

Re:It was me. Sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with you?

Sure, mammoths are tasty, but my dogs won't even touch sabertooth meat. That stuff is nasty.

Seriously.

In general, herbivores are tasty. Carnivores and omnivores? No way. A friend of mine in Alaska had to kill the neighborhood grizzly bear, and, indeed, even his dogs wouldn't eat the meet. They ended up having to bury it (though I suppose burning would have worked, too).

Maybe that bear had a taste of Sara P.

WTF are they talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see great hambeasts of North America roaming about everytime I go to Walmart. Largest in the world.

We have no shortage of large, XL, XXL, XXXL, or XXXXL wildlife.

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

I resemble that remark, asshole!

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[Chemisor]

Those are the elephants. They now want to introduce lions to thin the herds.

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to not say it first, but that was my thought... the WalMart candy aisle has substantial populations of mammoths, and on backpage.com you can find any number of giant beavers.

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[Type44Q]

I see great hambeasts of North America roaming about everytime I go to Walmart. Largest in the world.

You should visit the Muskogee, Oklahoma Walmart - it's like WALL-E meets Deliverance...

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[CohibaVancouver]

it's like WALL-E meets Deliverance...

You win the internet today, my friend.

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[idontgno]

Dammit.

I am going to be spending the entire rest of my life trying to get that visual out of my head.

Damn you. Damn you to hell.

Re:WTF are they talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see great hambeasts of North America roaming about everytime I go to Walmart. Largest in the world.

We have no shortage of large, XL, XXL, XXXL, or XXXXL wildlife.

Jeremy Clarkson: Where are you from?
Female spectator: I'm American.
Jeremy Clarkson: I don't believe you... you are nowhere near fat enough.

rewilding?

[HornWumpus]

Lions and Elephants? Time to get a 450 WinMag!

Seriously, nobody is actually proposing this, are they? Just some PETA dweeb, smoking crack.

Re:rewilding?

[MobyDisk]

Seriously, nobody is actually proposing this, are they?

Yup. Read the article.

Re:rewilding?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yeah, that's real shocker in the story. Someone wants to introduce elephants and lions to what is now cattle ranch territory? There has already been a crazy amount of push back when reintroducing wolfs into different areas.

Something tells me elephants won't pay attention to barbed wire fences.

Plus, aren't we already having a difficult time keeping mountain lions alive?

Re:rewilding?

[HornWumpus]

GTF out. Read the article. What has /. come to?

Re:rewilding?

[TWiTfan]

Seriously, nobody is actually proposing this, are they?

Artificially tampering with Mother Nature by bringing back extinct species into modern environs is probably even worse in the end than (maybe) helping to drive them into extinction to begin with. Sometimes, it's best to just let it go. Much as I would love to see the beautiful Carolina Parakeet back in the wild (and maybe even own one as a pet), I know it's best not to go tampering around where my good intentions could lead to very unexpected (and perhaps very unpleasant) results.

Re:rewilding?

[jythie]

'nobody' is a pretty big space. Anyone can propose anything, just look at any slashdot thread. The question really is, is someone with any significant chance of being taken seriously or who has actual political power proposing it?

Though it sounds like the elephant one is not all that crazy since the idea would be to take a particular species of elephant that is currently endangered and start a colony of it in the southwest where it would fill a niche by eating types of plants that are threatening other types of plants that people want. Others are saying the ecological estimates are flaws, so looks like there is legitimate debate over if it would be a project that would help rebalance things or throw them further out of whack.

Re:rewilding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. What has /. come to?

Waiting for someone with a four digit UID to reply "you must be new here"

Re:rewilding?

[clovis]

Read the article. What has /. come to?

Waiting for someone with a four digit UID to reply "you must be new here"

I'm on it!

You must be new here.

Re:rewilding?

[Runaway1956]

I'd rather have a .270, thank you very much. Ye Olde Elephant Gun is highly over rated. That little old .270 can be wildcatted to take on the biggest of game, or it can be light loaded for squirrel hunting. And, the .270 is amazingly accurate at long range, no matter how you load it. My second choice is the .308, but it's less versatile as a varmint gun. Squirrels, rabbits, and prairie dogs just go splat when you hit them.

Re:rewilding?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What article?

We are currently experiencing a service outage due to unforeseen technical issues and are working to resolve them as soon as possible. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Re:rewilding?

[tompaulco]

Artificially tampering with Mother Nature by bringing back extinct species into modern environs is probably even worse in the end than (maybe) helping to drive them into extinction to begin with.

Jurassic Park anybody?

Re:rewilding?

[RabidReindeer]

Something tells me elephants won't pay attention to barbed wire fences.

I dunno. Elephants are supposed to be pretty thin-skinned.

Assuming they don't just rip the posts out of the ground or something. They're also relatively smart.

Re:rewilding?

[confused one]

You have to be careful with elephants. If you don't kill one outright, it will run over and flatten you. Plus, let's not forget they are herd animals -- miss one and you're now dealing with a dozen angry, upset, intelligent, truck sized animals. I'm not saying a .270 isn't good enough -- frankly I don't know; but, I suspect there's a reason hunters of old liked to use the very large caliber, high weight, magnum rounds.

Re:rewilding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that skipping the reading of the article was largely considered an act of politeness, to avoid taking the hosting server down with too many requests from Slashdot.

Clicking those links is outright rude. No decent slashdotter would consider such a thing.

Re:rewilding?

[14erCleaner]

Well, Clovis, don't keep us hanging - what did happen 11,000 years ago?

Re:rewilding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, aren't we already having a difficult time keeping mountain lions alive?

Not in the Bay Area. This is an urban area with parks, large estates and other quasi-rural properties right up against the cities. Deer thrive, and mountain lions eat deer. They'd never have a deer hunt here in bleedin' heart country even though it could be safely conducted on many of the larger tracts. Thus, mountain lions are doing quite well despite all the cars that can hit them. They just recently decided to tranquilize and relocate them, after years of saying that was pointless because the relocated lions would just become a problem again and/or fight with resident lions and get killed. I tend to believe their former position, and figure they just bowed to bleeding-heart pressure.

Re:rewilding?

[avandesande]

Apparently Slashdot was published on mammoth hides and are partially to blame for the extinction.

Re:rewilding?

[nitehawk214]

I am pretty sure Mr. Anonymous Coward was here pretty early on.

Re:rewilding?

[HiThere]

I can see a lot of benefit in elephants, but somebody had better consider how much they eat, and that the bulls tend to be a bit unpleasant when they go into must.

Mastodons make more sense, but I don't think we can do that this year. And if warming continues, then they'll stop making more sense. (They make more sense because they can live in areas that are unpleasantly cold for most people, and where most of our crops won't grow...trees excepted. I don't know if even the mamoths could live out on the tundra.)

But also please note that elephants, and presumably mamoths, have a very long reproductive cycle. I think it's around 20 years, but I guess it could be a bit quicker. So you need to expect a VERY slow population growth, even without predation. And there WILL be predation. (Elephants are currently threatened with extinction because of predation by humans.)

So perhaps what is needed is a "micro-mamoth". Something with a thick coat of hair, that's shaped about like an elephant, but which is about the size of a bison. And has a quicker reproductive cycle. But we can't build that yet.

Re:rewilding?

[swb]

I dont think there's any credible African guides who would let you hunt dangerous game -- elephant, Cape buffalo, rhino or lion with anything smaller than .375 H&H mag to avoid a wounding shot, and of course to keep you from getting killed.

Many of the intermediate calibers are very versitile, but .270 tops out at 150gr bullets and hotting them up only gets you so far. With close ranges and great accuracy, Elk is about as big an animal as you'd want to take.

Re:rewilding?

[chuckugly]

Walt Bell would probably agree, he was famous for dropping elephants with a 7x57.

Re:rewilding?

[Langalf]

I live near one of those "wolf reintroduction" areas. It is pretty awesome to be hiking and here a wolf pack calling back and forth to each other around you. I for one would love to see wolf reintroduction to all the lower 48 states (I believe one form or another of wolf lived in all of them). In particular, I would LOVE to see a thriving pack within the Washington, DC beltway, picking off random Congresscritters. If ever a herd needed thinning ...

Re:rewilding?

[khallow]

I know it's best not to go tampering around where my good intentions could lead to very unexpected (and perhaps very unpleasant) results.

I see your point with one caveat. You don't actually "know" what you claim to know. Good intentions can lead to very unpleasant results or they could lead to very wonderful results. One way to find out is by actually doing it and seeing what happens.

Re:rewilding?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I know it's best not to go tampering around where my good intentions could lead to very unexpected (and perhaps very unpleasant) results.

Indeed, but what if by not tampering around, you fail to stop some very unexpected (and perhaps very unpleasant) scenario? How do you know the Carolina Parakeet isn't our only weapon against an impending alien invasion / zombie apocalypse / Bieber album? See, that argument cuts both ways.

Re:rewilding?

[msobkow]

People have an issue with smaller predators like wolves and coyotes and some wacko thinks they'll be allowed to introduce lions?!?!?!?!?

Re:rewilding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you post as AC just so you could post that?

Re:rewilding?

[HornWumpus]

You can infer the content of TFA from the other comments.

Re:rewilding?

[TWiTfan]

The reward of bringing back a species is relatively small, and the risk can be great. The bison and wolf populations in the U.S. have undergone extensive human-assisted replenishing in recent decades. The reward for that has been generally okay (we get to see them in the wild and eat bison burgers). But the potential harm of reintroducing a species could be much greater than this small reward. If we reintroduced a species that turned out to be a huge pest--or even a big threat to modern crops, humans, or other wildlife--the results could be devastating. Just look at the problems in Australia with invasive species.

Re:rewilding?

[TWiTfan]

How do you know the Carolina Parakeet isn't our only weapon against an impending alien invasion

Well, that's easy. We'll just get some plucky starship captain and his skilled and witty crew to travel back in time, pick up the species we need, and return just in time to save us.

Re:rewilding?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

While my comment had a comedic slant to it, I was trying to convey a serious point.

Our society seems to be paralyzed by fear of the consequences of our actions. We're coddling ourselves into irrelevance. "Oh, we better not do X, because who knows what might happen!"

Rarely do we stop to think the opposite. Is it not equally possible that our inaction, the perceived "safe" course of action, could be what leads to some catastrophic end? I suppose it might be an aversion to being blamed for any negative outcomes. After all, it's much easier to blame someone that did propose some novel activity, rather than someone that merely wanted to stay the course. After all, we didn't know what the result of some novel action would be, but of course we did "know" that if we didn't change anything, nothing would change. Obviously, past performance is no indication of future results, but that seems to be rather counterintuitive to many people. This type of false reasoning has always stood in the way of progress.

I say bring on Jurassic Park. Sure, a handful of people might get killed, but that's a price I'm willing to pay to see us at least try to take another step towards being masters of the universe.

Re:rewilding?

[TWiTfan]

Using that attitude, you could justify doing any foolish thing. In real life, you have to weigh the possible rewards against the possible risks before taking an action. If you're asking yourself "Should I drive my car off this bridge?" you don't follow with "Sure, the idea seems crazy on the surface, but what if my NOT driving the car off the bridge causes an accident up here on the bridge that kills someone?"

As I said in another post, the rewards of reintroducing species is generally fairly minimal. The risks are potentially great. Given that, the most reasonable course is just to leave it alone (unless you can be pretty damned sure you know wtf you're doing).

Re:rewilding?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I thought they tried reintroducing wolves in the lower 48. Maybe I was confused about the issues ranchers are having near yellow stone.

Re:rewilding?

[clovis]

lol, no.
But now that you've given me the idea ...

Re:rewilding?

[clovis]

Well, Clovis, don't keep us hanging - what did happen 11,000 years ago?

We just didn't want to wait around for Natalie Portman to pour hot grits down our pants

Maybe we all left in anticipation of Global Warming. Not that we cared; we just didn't want to talk about it.
Or maybe we knew we could not keep our present healthcare policy, even if we wanted to.

I really wanted to put an ambush goatse link in here.
I could have, but then I couldn't. Do you know what I mean?

Re:rewilding?

[khallow]

The reward of bringing back a species is relatively small, and the risk can be great.

Or the risk could be smaller than the reward. I think such would be the case for restoring other species in the homo genus, for example.

If we reintroduced a species that turned out to be a huge pest--or even a big threat to modern crops, humans, or other wildlife--the results could be devastating.

Well, we could figure that out before we create the species.

Re:rewilding?

[strikethree]

Hm. I thought you were extinct: http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

Re:rewilding?

[Langalf]

I was being snarky. I want all the states to have as much "fun" as Montana has. In particular, I want to see Washington, DC politicians understand what happens when you reintroduce large predators in you back yard.

So it WAS the Paleoindians after all

[Anonymous Coward]

But a new study points to climate and environmental changes instead.

So it WAS the Paleoindians after all, driving their SUVs.

Re:So it WAS the Paleoindians after all

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it the Cherokee? Or the Grand Cherokee?

who killled the millions of original campers here

[Anonymous Coward]

teepeeleaks etchings (native genocides) now a motion picture http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unrepentant&sm=3

IT WAS BEAUTY !!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is what killed the beasts !! But what killed slashdot ?? Crap articles is what did that !!

...into the wind

[Anonymous Coward]

Species go extinct. It's how evolution works. Why are we fighting this, to artificially support particular ones we humans subjectively like? Survival of the Cutest?

Re:...into the wind

[jedidiah]

This is where the Samurai crab comes from...

Re:...into the wind

[jythie]

Well, most of human existence is fighting one thing or another. Artificiality is pretty much by definition anything we do.

Re:...into the wind

[Anonymous Coward]

It's how evolution works

What did the North American elephants evolve into? Javalinas? (The theory of evolution frowns on the concept of an apex species' extinction, so elephants must have become something)

Re:...into the wind

[Anonymous Coward]

If they didnt/werent able to adapt to the changing climate in N.America, they evolved into an extinct species.

Re:...into the wind

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that elephants don't even blink at the idea of a 300-mile seasonal migration, and that their fossils were found spread well across both American continents "moving the herd closer to the equator" is hardly a difficult adaptation. If anything, climate-wise, they were better off then, here, than they are now, in Africa.

Re:...into the wind

[Anonymous Coward]

The Heike Crab...google it =o)

lets not

[FudRucker]

we dont need more wild animals capable of eating us in the wild

Re:lets not

[Anonymous Coward]

we dont need more wild animals capable of eating us in the wild

I think we don't have enough. Something needs to keep the surplus population in check. Help weed out some of the slow and stupid as well.

Re:lets not

[hrvatska]

It hardly seems wild if there aren't wild things that can eat people in it.

Re:lets not

[tompaulco]

Something needs to keep the surplus population in check. Help weed out some of the slow and stupid as well.

We spend billions of dollars a year making sure that the slow and stupid are protected from themselves and others and even encouraged to breed in order to get more handouts. Why would we suddenly decide to thin them out?

Re:lets not

[NewWorldDan]

There are wolves, bears, snakes, mountain lions, and alligators out there. There are plenty of things to eat you without introducing new problems. One more thing to consider is that these creatures don't respect boundaries on a map. If you introduce lions to the US, they'll probably find their way into Mexico and even further south.

Re:lets not

[HiThere]

Actully, I think that African lions would be unlikely to survive in North America. Even mountain lions and wolves, who are native, are having a hard time of it. And a large part of the reason is people.

Elephants are also unlikely to survive, but they might have a better chance than in Africa. (I don't know about S.E. Asia.) The thing is, if you have a tractor, then an elephant is unlikely to seem like a reasonable option. If you don't, then you're unlikely to be able to afford to feed it. And wild elephants need a LOT of space. Which make protecting them against poachers difficult.

Re:lets not

[Reziac]

Because the money has run out, and now they're eating US.

the link does not seem to work at the moment

[Maimun]

Is that the article?

http://news.sciencemag.org/arc...

Elephants!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's what we need in North America right now, non-native lions and elephants. That makes perfect sense- if our lions have been dead for ELEVEN THOUSAND YEARS and mammoths for FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED, we need to get right on with importing them by the truckload to make up for lost time. Lions are top predators, so we can spend defense money on this, too! And elephants are adorable, so we can spend healthcare money on them!

What could go wrong!?

Re:Elephants!

[PortHaven]

Actually, I think it'd be rather cool to have some wild elephants in North America.

I say we bring Asian male elephants and African females, the result will be a unique hybrid to N. America.

Re:Elephants!

[Quirkz]

Great, that's just what we need. Africanized Asian elephants. Have you not heard what happened when we Africanized honeybees? We'll have swarms of tempermental pachyderms stampeding through every village in the Great Plains before mid-century.

Wild North American Elephants!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally an equal to the current alpha-predator family of Sierra Uniform Victor.

Too much of a coincidence

[Novogrudok]

Large mammals managed to survive for a long, long time before people came to Americas and then, shortly after people came, they were killed off by "climate and environmental changes"? Sounds a bit fishy to me!

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh!, Oh, Oh! Mr. Potter, the great flood!!!

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[jythie]

To be fair, humans were able to migrate to the Americas because of a shift in the climate, so it is plausible that both effects had the same cause rather then one causing the other.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[T.E.D.]

Large mammals managed to survive for a long, long time before people came to Americas and then, shortly after people came, they were killed off by "climate and environmental changes"? Sounds a bit fishy to me!

This is exactly the problem, and I don't see anything in these "new findings" addressing it. What I'm seeing here is two-fold:

1) There were actually two megafauna die-offs, and the first happened before there were humans in the Americas. This is actually a reasonable argument, but it only addresses half the issue.

2)There's a part of the continent where we have found megafauna from before the second die-off, but we haven't yet found a lot of evidence in those specimens of human predation. This argument I find inherently specious, unless you for some weird reason really want to believe humans had nothing to do with it. It makes no attempt to explain why the timing is so coincidental with human occupation. It makes no attempt to explain why humans, known to be hunters and to have hunted megafauna in other parts of the contienent, decided to leave it alone in the NorthEast to prosper if not for (???). Wouldn't a much simpler explanation be that you just haven't happened to find the evidence yet?

In other words, a decisive amount of circumstantial evidence is already pointing us toward humans as at least a part of the cause of the second die-off. The burden of proof is on those who want to claim humans had nothing to do with it. But all they are claiming here is, "lack of evidence" (and only in a small area too, there's plenty of that evidence elsewhere), but that does not help them.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[RabidReindeer]

Large mammals managed to survive for a long, long time before people came to Americas and then, shortly after people came, they were killed off by "climate and environmental changes"? Sounds a bit fishy to me!

Tobacco comes from the Americas. They obviously all died of smoking-related illnesses!

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Alomex]

In other words, a decisive amount of circumstantial evidence is already pointing us toward humans as at least a part of the cause of the second die-off. The burden of proof is on those who want to claim humans had nothing to do with it. But all they are claiming here is, "lack of evidence" (and only in a small area too, there's plenty of that evidence elsewhere), but that does not help them.

Exactly. I've been studying science for long enough to know that there are times when it gives rather surprising novel explanations to phenomena we thought we had explained away. So while it would be a surprise to learn that it wasn't humans, as a scientist I'm prepared to be blown out of the water any time.

However, this is not the first study trying to argue that "humans didn't do it" and none of them have the weight of evidence nor the "aha!" explanatory power of conventional-wisdom turning discoveries. To make matters worse, said studies too often seem to be punctuated with some sort of "noble savage" morality play, suggesting that only modern western humans are capable of environmental destruction.

In all likelihood humans ran into a system of weakened prey species (ice age anyone?) that might or might not have survived if we hadn't shown up, and we delivered the coup de grace by hunting them down.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[spitzak]

In all likelihood humans ran into a system of weakened prey species (ice age anyone?) that might or might not have survived if we hadn't shown up, and we delivered the coup de grace by hunting them down.

That's what the paper says in the first paragraph of the abstract, so they agree with your idea.

But the paper just shows that the decline in the big species predates the largest number of humans. All that might mean is that humans were really efficient at killing them off, so that they were going extinct from just the actions of the first groups of humans. Humans kept arriving and reproducing even after they were extinct. There is no reason the extinction could not be caused by fewer than the maximum number of humans.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[TapeCutter]

The same thing happened to Australia's magafauna at roughly the same time, this also coincided with a wave of people coming from Asia but Australia was already populated long before that.. The new arrivals brought dogs (dingos). However regional movements of people cannot be the whole story since the megafauna die off was global. It was probably a bit of both, humans were just better equipped to survive the changes by moving, mass migration of humans simply added to the stress on megafauna populations.

Interestingly the aborigines recorded the environmental changes in their oral history and rock art, they tell the story of ancestors coming from the north and how a supernatural being cut the land bridge after they arrived. They also show the changes to local fauna as the oceans rose and receded at various times, for example fish carvings were overwritten by kangaroo carvings as the ocean receded and the local environment changed.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Flannery presents a fairly convincing demolition of the 'it was climate' argument in 'The Eternal Frontier': we can see similar climactic changes elsewhere in the world, without similar extinctions; we can see when people turn up elsewhere in the world, without climate change, but with similar extinctions. Why, then, if the arrival of humans is a common factor to recent extinctions, but not climate, are we so insistent on finding a climate-related cause?

Flannery postulate a 'black hole' theory of extinction - that is, that the various American megafauna disappeared into the black hole between the noses and chins of arriving Clovis people.

Click here, then scroll down and start from page 187:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GkQ_xxcqMO4C&q=clovis%20climate&f=false

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

In all likelihood humans ran into a system of weakened prey species (ice age anyone?) that might or might not have survived if we hadn't shown up, and we delivered the coup de grace by hunting them down.

That's what the paper says in the first paragraph of the abstract, so they agree with your idea.

But the paper just shows that the decline in the big species predates the largest number of humans. All that might mean is that humans were really efficient at killing them off, so that they were going extinct from just the actions of the first groups of humans. Humans kept arriving and reproducing even after they were extinct. There is no reason the extinction could not be caused by fewer than the maximum number of humans.

Megafauna in Africa and Asia evolved alongside humans and both were used to killing/evading each other. When the early humans migrated to the Americas they found a continent full of animals that had evolved without humans and had no natural fear of man. That's always a recipe for disaster for an animal.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is NOT the 'overkill' hypothesis...it literally is 'humans killing the species through over hunting'. In fact the proponents of the 'overkill' hypothesis specifically reject that there is any evidence to support extinctions due to climate or environmental change.

Yeah, you could have read the article but i did it for you.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The GGP, GP & P in this thread are entirely off base, unless of course you WANT to accept that humans were the cause of the extinctions. Here, read this,

http://faculty.washington.edu/grayson/jas30req.pdf

Second, claiming that the 'burden of proof' for the hypothesis that humans caused the extinctions is on those saying it wasn't is NOT science, the burden of proof is on those making the claim. At most there is evidence that 2 specifies that have become extinct show signs they were hunted by humans, 2 out of 35. Yeah that's the fault of humans alright. It is only if you believe that humans are the 'bogey man' either in the past or now that anyone can hold on to the 'overkill' hypothesis.

The GP argues that people refuting the 'overkill' hypothesis believe in some type of 'noble savage' hypothesis, when there is absolutely not evidence of that claim, in fact there is evidence of 'kill sites', large numbers of dead animals due to human hunting, what is 'noble' about that? Nothing. But why is it so hard to believe that just because humans happened to be in an area where an extinction occurred that humans did not CAUSE an extinction. In fact since there is an entire lack of evidence supporting the overkill hypothesis, it is only via the belief that humans are 'inherently evil' compared to the rest of nature ("Mother Earth") that proponents can continue to hold on to the belief.

How really hard is it to believe that extinctions occurred before humans, extinctions occurred while humans existed but not in the areas where the extinctions occurred, that extinctions occurred in areas where humans existed but were not caused by humans and yes that us 'evil humans' caused extinctions as well. Geez people, get a brain, leave your 'humans are inherently evil and the cause of all that is wrong' behind, quit the self-hatred already.

Re:Too much of a coincidence

[Alomex]

The burden of proof is not on those making the claim. It falls on those making the non-occam razor claim.

Group of hunters shows up, prey group disappears. Conclusion, hunters killed prey until substantial evidence to the contrary is gained.

Climate change?!

[scottbomb]

Is this to say that the Earth's climate has gone through natural changes over the centuries? Warming and cooling? All by itself?! I thought global warming - I mean - climate change - was caused by man burning fossil fuels.

Re:Climate change?!

[Stumbles]

Yeah well they will postulate a theory and then pretend its true the Woolly Mammoths, Lions, Tigers were actually capitalists and conspired to rape the Earth of natural resources because all they could to was fart methane causing global warming in their time.

Re:Climate change?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume there is a funny missing from this post? If we assume that you mean generation of CO2 then note there are non-anthropomorphic means of doing so. And, given the spells of vulcanism in the geologic record, it's not surprising that gasses that are opaque in the IR region caused problems when present.

Re:Climate change?!

[spitzak]

You might want to study what the term "first derivative" means. Current climate change is unprecedented in the history of the earth.

Re:Climate change?!

[TapeCutter]

Is this to say that the Earth's climate has gone through natural changes over the centuries? Warming and cooling? All by itself?! I thought global warming - I mean - climate change - was caused by man burning fossil fuels.

That can only be because you haven't been paying attention for the last 20yrs, perhaps you should spend an hour or so reading the relevant WP entries for further enlightenment.

Re:Climate change?!

[Vintermann]

Yeah, it's getting warmer. And OK, it's getting warmer faster. And although it's less clear, it seems this is speeding up too. But if you look at the third derivative, it's not so clear, there might actually be evidence of a slowdown!

("retreat to the derivative", a common strategy in numbers-based arguments...)

Giants, etc.

[PopeRatzo]

Forget the "giant beasts". I want to know what happened to the giant humans.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Anci...

I heard an interview with the guy the other night and he didn't sound like a crackpot. There seems to be evidence that there were some giant people living in North America over 10,000 years ago, who were advanced enough to do mummification and sophisticated pottery. The Smithsonian covered it up because they wanted to advance the theory that there were only savages living here when the Europeans came.

I have no idea, but the "Bering Land Bridge" theory never made sense to me. I just don't see people walking across Alaska and Canada and finally settling in South America in the course of a few thousand years.

Re:Giants, etc.

[confused one]

I'm sure he sounded perfectly reasonable. The ancient aliens theorists do a credible job sometimes. Where's the evidence. That's all I'm asking for... verifiable, peer reviewed evidence.

Re:Giants, etc.

[PopeRatzo]

He's not talking about "ancient aliens". There is nothing in his book about "ancient aliens". His entire thesis is based upon the people who were extra-tall in the Americas being 100% human.

Typical pop skeptic. Create a red herring, ignore actual argument, and then claim "verifiable, peer reviewed".

And by the way, the book cites, "verifiable, peer-reviewed" articles about the archaeological findings.

Re:Giants, etc.

[TapeCutter]

I just don't see people walking across Alaska and Canada and finally settling in South America in the course of a few thousand years.

Why not? - A Frenchman in the 1800's walked from Paris to Moscow on stilts in under a year, however his 1000 mile journey was deliberate and had other humans along the way. Humans (like any other species) simply expand their range in the direction of least resistance, which when your at the top of the food chain means, "away from other humans".

Re:Giants, etc.

[PopeRatzo]

simply expand their range in the direction of least resistance

I would hardly call going over a land bridge in the Bering Strait, coming down the coast of Alaska and then crossing the Canadian Rockies a "direction of least resistance".

But people do things for strange reasons, as your story of the guy walking on stilts from Paris to Moscow illustrates. I know if I found myself in a Canadian winter, I may well start walking South and not stop until I got to Tuscon. In fact, considering the weather here in Chicago these last few weeks, I might just find a pair of stilts and head to Rio.

Re:Giants, etc.

[confused one]

you didn't read what I said. I claimed nothing. What I said is: Where is the evidence of the giant humans? Show the evidence. Let it be well documented and verifiable. Let peer review determine it's validity. If this all passes, then I'll believe. You're the one who started the argument by saying the Smithsonian Institute created a coverup to hide the evidence in order to further their agenda -- a common argument made by the crackpots you mentioned. You also made an argument based on a "feeling" that the currently accepted theory was not likely. Science and scientific method work.

Re:Giants, etc.

[PopeRatzo]

Where is the evidence of the giant humans? Show the evidence.

Read the book. He presents what he calls the evidence and it's surprisingly interesting.

The evidence of the Smithsonian coverup is also pretty compelling.

I don't know if there were ever giants, but there certainly are human skeletons well over 8 feet, and there have been hundreds of such skeletons, some over 10 feet that have been sent to the Smithsonian. There's a plethora of papers and news accounts and clippings and photographs and receipts from the Smithsonian for "skeleton, human" and giving the outrageous dimensions.

Even if there never were giants, the book is a great read. The author isn't an "alternative historian" or any of that nonsense. He's a documentarian who fell into a very interesting story and writes a very good yarn.

Re:Giants, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldnt exactly call it a credible source, but even the Bible speaks of giant 'humans'. I dont mean Goliath either - the Nephilim, allegedly half-human half-angel hybrids, were said to be giants (God killing them off is the actual reason stated for the "Great Flood"). A lot of of the history documented in the bible is turning out to be true (and by that, I mean what's actually written there, not the crap that gets spewed by "christians").

I've heard more credible sources saying that giants existed in South America as well, but I cant remember offhand what they were.

Obviously it was the Vikings and China

[WillAffleckUW]

They found a wormhole in the Pacific at this strange black temple on an island and went back in time to hunt.

Duh.

Gay beast marriage

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it obvious?

rewilding lions and elephants into North America

[machineghost]

Am I the only one who pictured Bruce Willis in Twelve Monkeys, staring dumbfoundedly at a lion in the ruins of Baltimore, after reading that?

Wrong question, corrected and answered

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect: What Killed the Great Beasts of North America?
Correct: Who Killed the Great Beasts of North America?
Answer: The lesser Beasts from Europa that invade America.

And like a disease they continue doing the same things today.

(OK, Im not trolling. Its a sad fact)
>;P

Re:Wrong question, corrected and answered

[Anonymous Coward]

no you definately are trolling, you just may not be smart enough to realise it

Re-wilding?

[jklovanc]

There are very few cases where introducing a non-native species into the wild has turned out to be a good thing. There are hundreds of examples of things going wrong. Just look up invasive species. Our track record is not good.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA? I guess not. :::Posted from same IP, different reader.

slashdotted...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going to suggest mega fauna died from climate and not humans, the burden is on you so answer why that mega fauna survived all the previous climate swings, only to be brought down by the one which brought humans.

Re:slashdotted...

[Sentrion]

The research was funded by the no-limit hunting lobby. "Unrestricted hunting doesn't wipe out entire animal populations - climate (and legislative) change do!"

Re:slashdotted...

[maxwell demon]

The research was funded by the no-limit hunting lobby. "Unrestricted hunting doesn't wipe out entire animal populations - climate (and legislative) change do!"

In that case, I wonder why we put so much effort in fighting pathogenic germs. We should just outlaw them, and they'll disappear!

The obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Chuck Norris.

WHAT!!!

[PortHaven]

You'd have to be crazy.....

Seriously...the earth is hotter than it's ever been before...so I was told, by Mr. Al Gore.

Demise of the giant beaver?

[Gothmolly]

I thought porn brought that about in the 90s?

Giant beavers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we really want giant beavers? That will just cause a rise in compensatory purchasing. Time to buy stock in sports cars and firearms I suppose.

We're in an ice age now!

[rossdee]

Yep, I looked outside and theres snow and ice everywhere,
however it is warming slightly. In the past couple of days the temperature has risen from 243 to 267 thats a 10% increase

Re: We're in an ice age now!

[wonkey_monkey]

http://xkcd.com/605/

Slashdotted

[SirGarlon]

Unfortunately TFA is Slashdotted, so an informed discussion of the actual science will not happen today.

Before reading this study, I was learning heavily to the human-predation side of the debate, because as I understand it multiple climate zones of North America were affected simultaneously and over a very short time period that happens to coincide with the development of Clovis spearpoints.

No doubt the researchers have a rebuttal for this explanation, but like I said ... it's slashdotted.

After never hearing of giants beavers before...

[grapes911]

I very stupidly just Googled "giant beaver" at work.

Re:After never hearing of giants beavers before...

[Tablizer]

Better learn to google "jobs" now

already here

[confused one]

There are several hundred elephants already in the United States. The number of big cats is startling as well -- for some species there may be a greater number in the U.S. than left in the wild. All we need now is a couple of releases... (queue the PETA folks doing something stupid).

If so, TFS is wrong

[SirGarlon]

Seems likely that this is the article. If so, I've only read the abstract so far, but TFS seems to misrepresent the authors' conclusion.

TFS claims:

the first Americans, who allegedly hunted them to extinction. But a new study points to climate and environmental changes instead.

whereas the abstract says:

Chronological data,Sporormiella abundance, genetics, and paleoclimatic data suggest megafauna populations declined prior to human colonization and people were only briefly contemporaneous with megafauna. Local Paleoindians may have only delivered the coup de grace to small scattered and isolated populations of megafauna.

In other words, the authors are not saying humans were not involved in the extinctions. They are saying human predation cannot be the *sole* cause.

Re:If so, TFS is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not buying the gradual "megafauna populations declined prior to human colonization" business.

But humans may have been in North America before the Clovis culture and contributed to the megafauna decline prior to widespread human culture that left enough artifacts to be discovered today.

Also the "megafauna populations declined prior to human colonization" smells like the baloney that Princeton and other Ivy league geology departments would have us believe about the dinosaurs being on the decline before for the Chicxulub Asteroid/Comet strike.

now if only

[Anonymous Coward]

climate change could rid us of the urban metrosexual foot-tapping, panty waisted Euro-worshipper we'd be happy, precious!

Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the southwest and would love the chance to draw an elephant tag!

Did anyone else...

[Scragglykat]

Read "Breasts" at first glance?

Re:Did anyone else...

[maxwell demon]

This is Slashdot. Did anyone not read "Breasts"?

Re:Did anyone else...

[Anonymous Coward]

What Killed the Great Breasts of North America?

Read "Breasts" at first glance?

They'be be flat out lying!

It's 2013...

[argStyopa]

...of COURSE the explanation (today) is 'climate change'.

My shoe was untied this morning, I'm pretty sure it was due to climate change.

What Killed the Great Beasts of North America?

[tom229]

Ancient Aliens... obviously.

obviously

[zakeria]

Chuck Norris

Slashdot Beta killed the Great Beasts of North Ame

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot Beta killed the Great Beasts of North America. Mystery solved.

Filters aggravated the problem.

The Stone Cutters

[Culture20]

"We did, we did."

oh for fuck's sake! grow a pair already!

[Thud457]

People used to hunt them with spears ! Man up, you wussies!

If we had more people like you, we'd be overrun with mammoths.

Re:oh for fuck's sake! grow a pair already!

[HiThere]

I think Neanderthls used spears. Humans don't seem to have done that often. Fire was used (and yeah, it was destructive and wasteful...but less dangerous to the hunter).

OTOH, if you go to more modern times (but before firearms), the approach was apparently to have a sharpened blade, something like a machete, and then sneak up on the elephant and cut his achilies tendon. But you need to have a very sharp blade, and be quite stealthy. Then you run off and hide until the prey is left along. THEN you use your spears. But you need to be quite careful about your sneaking, because if the elephant notices your approach it's likely to trample you. And elephants can trample very well.

Re:oh for fuck's sake! grow a pair already!

[confused one]

I'll hunt with a spear when I have to. I'll hunt with a .270 if it's appropriate. If it's not, I'll use the right tool for the job.

I was making a light-hearted attempt to point out that a .270 might not be the right tool for the job. Your welcome to your spear; but, remember, the mortality rate for Neolithic hunters was pretty high.

It was smoking.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

And drinking. Man, those mammals were *wild!*

I'm not saying it was Bigfoot...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it was Bigfoot.

I have found the killer

[Anonymous Coward]

It was guns, no wait,
It was Obama care, no wait,
It was NSA,
lack of net neutrality,
Windows 8, gay marriage,
a ninja fighting in drunken Bieber style....

God DAMN Elselvier!

[thomst]

Seriously.

It's not bad enough that these scumbags have a stranglehold on scientific research publishing. The primary website to which the summary points requires the reader to allow so many third-party scripts to run that I simply gave up on the article altogether.

Oh, and FUCK SLASHDOT for pointing me to such a piece-of-shit website in the first place.

And when they die...

[Anonymous Coward]

We bury them... eventually they will become oil just like the dinos did, right?.... whoopee! Renewable fuel!

Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

The overkill / disease / climate debate has been raging for decades. The only story is that no one seems to consider the possibility of more than one contributing factor.

this answer may leave you a little wet

[Anonymous Coward]

Flood. Next question!

Why is this so complicated.

[nicoleb_x]

If you know the history of megafauna mammals then the end of them is obvious.

"Subsequent to the Cretaceous - Paleogene extinction event that eliminated the non-avian dinosaurs about 66 Ma ago, terrestrial mammals underwent a nearly exponential increase in body size as they diversified to occupy the ecological niches left vacant. Starting from just a few kg before the event, maximum size had reached ~50 kg a few million years later, and ~750 kg by the end of the Paleocene. This trend of increasing body mass appears to level off about 40 Ma ago (in the late Eocene), suggesting that physiological or ecological constraints had been reached, after an increase in body mass of over three orders of magnitude. However, when considered from the standpoint of rate of size increase per generation, the exponential increase is found to have continued until the appearance of Indricotherium 30 Ma ago."

So, they got bigger because there was a sudden niche to exploit. The niche ended and eventually they died off as the advantage was lost. Did humans effect the timescale of this, maybe. Did humans change the course of nature, almost certainly not, as if humans aren't part of nature.

BTW, when did the avian dinosaurs go extinct? I can't find that fact.

False.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ancient animals were massive according to the fossil record because the environment was different before the flood and animals lived longer too. God created the world 6 thousand years ago like the Bible says. Kent Hovind has great videos on this.

Start small

[russotto]

Before re-introducing the elephant and the lion, let's get the wolf fully established in its old territory. Should take care of the surplus population of troublesome creatures, such as deer, geese, and tourists.

Giant beavers are extinct?

[hyades1]

I'm pretty sure my buddy's dating one.

Al Gore's Farts

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Human Warming!

Trenberth's missing heat, i.e. energy, is captured in human bodies: Global Human Warming!

In order to balance the world, humans must die!

Trenberth, with tears of joy running down checks as Bon Ki Moon butt fucks him in a "men's room toilet" within the UC Bolder Campus NCAR building.

Ha ha

That's an example of unthinking alarmism

[GPS Pilot]

humanity was born in the ice ages of the Pleistocene we've never experienced a planet as warm as the dinosaurs... Humans will survive a warmer earth I have no doubt, but the potential for massive disruption to the food supply is there and if that happens there's going to be some really ugly war that humanity might not survive. The reason to be scared of global warming is because of those changing fertile zones, humanity goes batshit crazy when starvation is eminent.

Humanity has experienced the whole gamut of climates, from hot deserts to frozen Arctic lands. Civilization is very tenuous at those northern fringes (see the Vikings who ended up having to abandon their colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland).

Guess you haven't thought about the fact that there are vast tracts of land in northern Canada, Alaska, and Siberia that will become viable farmland if the growing season gets a little longer. If the predictions of global warming alarmists come to pass (and so far they have not), I'll be concerned about inundation of coastal cities; but given the large net increase in viable farmland, there should be no concerns about starvation. Global warming is much more likely to exacerbate the obesity epidemic.

Re:That's an example of unthinking alarmism

[Reziac]

Maybe not, if enough of the population get off their fat asses and become farmers again.

Conveniently politically correct

[Anonymous Coward]

This sure is the answer that is politically correct (i.e. Native Americans did not hunt them to death), but very shaky scientifically.

I blame Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is G.W. Bush's fault, especially when it comes to Global^H^H^H^H^H^H Climate Change.

Clinton and Gore never did anything to prevent it, but still I blame Bush.

How about the other ice ages

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mega-fauna of North American successfully weathered a succession of Ice Ages, so why was it that the last one wiped them out? This smacks of Politically Correct (i.e. the Native Americans did not hunt them to death) bogus science.

oops,

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought the headline said "What Killed the Great Breasts of North America?"

What killed the giant breasts ?

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t