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Cow Could Soon Be Largest Land Mammal Left Due To Human Activity, Says Study (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The cow could be left as the biggest land mammal on Earth in a few centuries, according to a new study that examines the extinction of large mammals as humans spread around the world. The spread of hominims -- early humans and related species such as Neanderthals -- from Africa thousands of years ago coincided with the extinction of megafauna such as the mammoth, the sabre-toothed tiger and the glyptodon, an armadillo-like creature the size of a car. "There is a very clear pattern of size-biased extinction that follows the migration of hominims out of Africa," the study's lead author, Felisa Smith, of the University of New Mexico, said of the study published in the journal Science on Thursday. Humans apparently targeted big species for meat, while smaller creatures such as rodents escaped, according the report, which examined trends over 125,000 years. In North America, for instance, the mean body mass of land-based mammals has shrunk to 7.6kg (17lb) from 98kg after humans arrived. If the trend continues "the largest mammal on Earth in a few hundred years may well be a domestic cow at about 900kg", the researchers wrote. That would mean the loss of elephants, giraffes and hippos. In March, the world's last male northern white rhino died in Kenya.
It won't be hunting.
It'll be habitat loss.
In Minnesota, moose populations are having difficulty with warmer winters leading to a higher parasite load (ticks). The warmer summers also stresses them.
In addition, at least one study has forecasted that with the expected amount of global warming, Minnesota forests will turn to grasslands in about a hundred years. The prairie/forest border will move up to the area of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
So at least where I'm at, moose may be locally extinct in a hundred years.
Do you know what happens in the US when the population of a game animal gets too large? The next season the bag limit is raised or more permits are issued. This is repeated until wildlife management authorities determine that the population is back to sustainable levels.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
so never? meat and milk substitutes still suck arse, only vegans and vegetarians or the ignorant make the claims that it tastes almost as good.
While it indeed will take like 50-100 years for fake meat to approach the real thing, you can bet on certain governments banning actual meat within less than 20 years of fakes entering mass production.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
That is a nice theory, except that all of the hunters I know would prefer to hunt caribou to hunting white tailed deer. According to the sources I have seen, the spread of white tailed deer has more to do with agricultural practices which expand their habitat at the expense of the habitat of boreal caribou (the subspecies of caribou which inhabited Minnesota at one time).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison