Fascinating. One of the interesting open questions in human history is the prevalence of extirpation due to human hunting pressure. I think the theories range

Fascinating. One of the interesting open questions in human history is the prevalence of extirpation due to human hunting pressure. I think the theories range from a "blitzkrieg" of human impact as sapiens hit the cultural milestones of the paleolithic revolution to gradually mounting impact starting in pre-sapien times or even having started relatively recently (with prehistorical extirpations attributed to other factors). I bet type of dynamics you're talking about go back a long time. Humans are very culturally driven. What & how people hunt or eat is all very culturally driven. Hunting cultures still exist today. There are still living traditions of hunter gatherer cultures. There are people who fish. There are brits on horses. All of them have cultural norms that seem counterintuitively random. For example, fish considered edible by fisherman are almost always a much smaller subset than blind palatability test would estimate. When I visited the states (florida) I caught some "mudfish" which I looked up online, then ate (tastes good). The locals told me "we don't eat them, but some black people do." This is not unusual. The English eat different fish than the French. It's true of gamebirds and it's true in traditional cultures too. ...Anyway, hunting practices can have big effects on local ecology. It seems likely that cultures with beneficial rites, spread or spread those rites.