5 ms·

The relatively unknown megafauna tragedy and its relevance today

38 points by vjvj 12y ago

buttcoinslol 12y ago
This article is poorly written, bringing up Paraceratherium is disingenuous considering they went extinct 23 mya. It took 400 years after Columbus for the American Bison population to drop to near extinction, not 70 years. Do people upvote articles without reading them?
- wil421 12y ago
  I think some facts got mixed up. Perhaps they were talking about 70 years after America was founded? Still doesn't seem accurate. Most of the interior US, especially the west, wasn't accessible until the rail roads came. It was my understanding most of the mass buffalo hunting was because of the railroads.
  - tofof 12y ago
    Agreed; the '500 remain' number seems to be most applicable to the beginning of the 20th century, which isn't really '70 years' from any historical milestone. (Google "500 buffalo remained", with quotes).
- pflanze 12y ago
  > It took 400 years This is not a meaningful number either if the drop (or, more to the point, the overhunting) only really started 70 years before the end of the period. I haven't found any clear statement about this, but the following article talks about the "19th century hunts". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting
  - mturmon 12y ago
    Yes, I assume the bison of the Great Plains were somewhat nonplussed when Christopher Columbus landed on an island in the Caribbean. The point being that Columbus is not the relevant marker, even though the article brought him up. In this sense the GP comment has a point, that's bad writing. It is interesting that the bison continued to thrive (until the 1800s), and I guess I never thought about why they outlasted the Ice Age/predation thing that killed off the other large animals.
    - droithomme 12y ago
      I'm curious. How do you figure the natives killed off all the tens of millions of megafauna given that extinction occurred when they had just arrived over the bering strait, numbering a few thousand across north and south america?
      - mturmon 12y ago
        I read the summary reports by experts, and that's their explanation (incidentally, I'm not sure about counts, but "tens of millions" sounds high for most megafauna species -- their small numbers is part of their survival problem). If I remember right, the last time I read this story was at the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, or perhaps the standing exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits. I'm just an interested outsider, so that's good enough for me. IIRC, the whole Bering Straits story is itself more complex than I learned in grade school. It was open longer, and was wider and bigger than originally thought. I believe humans came across in several waves that are genetically or archeologically separable. I read a lot of stuff in Science, and remember about 20%, and 50% of those memories are part-wrong, so take this with a grain of salt. ;-)
      - speeder 12y ago
        Brazil has a bunch of archeological sites much older than the last land bridge on the strait, of course several historians go histerical with the mention that prehistoric humans might have crossed the pacific by boat, so to them only the strait idea is valid and south american paleontologists are liars... Or they just say that humans arrived here by unknown means, anyway we have 40.000 year old settlement sites, 40.000 years is time enough to extinguish whatever you want even if your population is in the hundreds...
underbluewaters 12y ago
"The only place megafauna has survived to some extent to the present day is in Africa where people traditionally have lived in harmony with nature." Bullshit. From what I understand it's attributable to megafauna evolving alongside humans as they emerged in Africa. They had time to "learn" how to survive in the face of this new predator. In places like North America humans slaughtered and multiplied faster than their prey could adapt.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Though by many standards I could be considered an environmentalist, I find the "harmony with nature" trope to be laughable. Nature is not harmonious; it is a vicious battle of killing, eating, and survival. We should absolutely preserve and protect our environment. We can never live in "harmony" with something that is far from harmonious.
  - pizza234 12y ago
    The concept of harmony can refer to lions not chasing gazelles, which is certainly unrealistic , but it can also mean sustainable and balanced. Nature is certainly vicious and ever changing, but there is a balance in the bigger picture, and man is making (or let's say, is at risk of making) excessively disrupting changes. If that's the meaning, that's certainly not laughable.
    - lutorm 12y ago
      The notion of "nature in balance" is selection bias. There are certainly places where nature is not sustainable and balanced. Look for example at what happens with the introduction of invasive species (which may happen these days because of humans, but I imagine the opening of the Bering's Strait land bridge would have lead to a similar disruption.) Pre-human nature only appeared balanced because it had had a long time to equilibrate, not because of some innate quality.
  - integraton 12y ago
    The notion of "harmony with nature" has to do with balance, conservation, and sustainable development, not the absence of death within the system.
ealloc 12y ago
I highly recommend the book "Ghosts of Evolution" about the lingering effects of these extinct megafauna on our lives today. Many of our ecosystems and even many species evolved in response to their presence. A major theme of the book is how many of the fruits we see today (especially avocados, osange oranges, honey locust pods, possibly mangoes and many other large fruits) originally evolved to be eaten by megafauna. The idea is they would eat the fruit whole and swallow the pit, and poop it out somewhere. Evidence for this is that many of the trees have defenses against non-megafauna eating the fruits, or others have out-of-proportion defenses against any living animal today, the fact that many pits will only grow if they have been scoured (for example by the digestive system of an animal), and that the pits often seem over-defended, and the fact that many of these fruits are not eaten by any living animals and often fall from the tree and rot in place.
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  Thank you - I had never even thought of that despite eating those fruits every day. (Well every week)
dmix 12y ago
If you're wondering how overkilling can happen, the Romans killed 9,000 wild animals (lions, bears, etc) in one day during an opening event for the colosseum. And proceeded to sport kill thousands after: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum I can imagine exotic and big game has been the prime target of humans for a very long time.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
A terrible article about a fascinating subject. I am inclined to give the benefit if the doubt in the whole " The only place megafauna has survived to some extent to the present day is in Africa where people traditionally have lived in harmony with nature". In many hands that would be hippy happy pseudo racist claptrap. And it might be but the next paragraph points to the more realistic "harmony with nature = avoiding humans" I have severe doubts about the overkill theory - the fossil record is fairly sketchy and so many species died out within a few hundred thousand years of us arriving on the scene that exact timings are hard to believe. On top of which the practicality seems a bit hard - I can accept that some creatures might be defenceless against men and spears (giant sloths seem likely to lose out) but I am going to struggle seeing sabre tooth tigers as easy prey for man. Climate change, Eco system collapse and diseases carried by apes and their dogs seem to hold the occam razor prize for most likely explanations. A spear through the kidneys would just be making a bad day at the office worse for megafauna.

38 points by vjvj 12y ago

This article is poorly written, bringing up Paraceratherium is disingenuous considering they went extinct 23 mya. It took 400 years after Columbus for the American Bison population to drop to near extinction, not 70 years. Do people upvote articles without reading them?

wil421 12y ago
I think some facts got mixed up. Perhaps they were talking about 70 years after America was founded? Still doesn't seem accurate. Most of the interior US, especially the west, wasn't accessible until the rail roads came. It was my understanding most of the mass buffalo hunting was because of the railroads.
- tofof 12y ago
  Agreed; the '500 remain' number seems to be most applicable to the beginning of the 20th century, which isn't really '70 years' from any historical milestone. (Google "500 buffalo remained", with quotes).
pflanze 12y ago
> It took 400 years This is not a meaningful number either if the drop (or, more to the point, the overhunting) only really started 70 years before the end of the period. I haven't found any clear statement about this, but the following article talks about the "19th century hunts". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting
- mturmon 12y ago
  Yes, I assume the bison of the Great Plains were somewhat nonplussed when Christopher Columbus landed on an island in the Caribbean. The point being that Columbus is not the relevant marker, even though the article brought him up. In this sense the GP comment has a point, that's bad writing. It is interesting that the bison continued to thrive (until the 1800s), and I guess I never thought about why they outlasted the Ice Age/predation thing that killed off the other large animals.
  - droithomme 12y ago
    I'm curious. How do you figure the natives killed off all the tens of millions of megafauna given that extinction occurred when they had just arrived over the bering strait, numbering a few thousand across north and south america?
    - mturmon 12y ago
      I read the summary reports by experts, and that's their explanation (incidentally, I'm not sure about counts, but "tens of millions" sounds high for most megafauna species -- their small numbers is part of their survival problem). If I remember right, the last time I read this story was at the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, or perhaps the standing exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits. I'm just an interested outsider, so that's good enough for me. IIRC, the whole Bering Straits story is itself more complex than I learned in grade school. It was open longer, and was wider and bigger than originally thought. I believe humans came across in several waves that are genetically or archeologically separable. I read a lot of stuff in Science, and remember about 20%, and 50% of those memories are part-wrong, so take this with a grain of salt. ;-)
    - speeder 12y ago
      Brazil has a bunch of archeological sites much older than the last land bridge on the strait, of course several historians go histerical with the mention that prehistoric humans might have crossed the pacific by boat, so to them only the strait idea is valid and south american paleontologists are liars... Or they just say that humans arrived here by unknown means, anyway we have 40.000 year old settlement sites, 40.000 years is time enough to extinguish whatever you want even if your population is in the hundreds...

underbluewaters 12y ago

"The only place megafauna has survived to some extent to the present day is in Africa where people traditionally have lived in harmony with nature." Bullshit. From what I understand it's attributable to megafauna evolving alongside humans as they emerged in Africa. They had time to "learn" how to survive in the face of this new predator. In places like North America humans slaughtered and multiplied faster than their prey could adapt.

nitrogen 12y ago
Though by many standards I could be considered an environmentalist, I find the "harmony with nature" trope to be laughable. Nature is not harmonious; it is a vicious battle of killing, eating, and survival. We should absolutely preserve and protect our environment. We can never live in "harmony" with something that is far from harmonious.
- pizza234 12y ago
  The concept of harmony can refer to lions not chasing gazelles, which is certainly unrealistic , but it can also mean sustainable and balanced. Nature is certainly vicious and ever changing, but there is a balance in the bigger picture, and man is making (or let's say, is at risk of making) excessively disrupting changes. If that's the meaning, that's certainly not laughable.
  - lutorm 12y ago
    The notion of "nature in balance" is selection bias. There are certainly places where nature is not sustainable and balanced. Look for example at what happens with the introduction of invasive species (which may happen these days because of humans, but I imagine the opening of the Bering's Strait land bridge would have lead to a similar disruption.) Pre-human nature only appeared balanced because it had had a long time to equilibrate, not because of some innate quality.
- integraton 12y ago
  The notion of "harmony with nature" has to do with balance, conservation, and sustainable development, not the absence of death within the system.

ealloc 12y ago

I highly recommend the book "Ghosts of Evolution" about the lingering effects of these extinct megafauna on our lives today. Many of our ecosystems and even many species evolved in response to their presence. A major theme of the book is how many of the fruits we see today (especially avocados, osange oranges, honey locust pods, possibly mangoes and many other large fruits) originally evolved to be eaten by megafauna. The idea is they would eat the fruit whole and swallow the pit, and poop it out somewhere. Evidence for this is that many of the trees have defenses against non-megafauna eating the fruits, or others have out-of-proportion defenses against any living animal today, the fact that many pits will only grow if they have been scoured (for example by the digestive system of an animal), and that the pits often seem over-defended, and the fact that many of these fruits are not eaten by any living animals and often fall from the tree and rot in place.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Thank you - I had never even thought of that despite eating those fruits every day. (Well every week)

dmix 12y ago

If you're wondering how overkilling can happen, the Romans killed 9,000 wild animals (lions, bears, etc) in one day during an opening event for the colosseum. And proceeded to sport kill thousands after: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum I can imagine exotic and big game has been the prime target of humans for a very long time.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

A terrible article about a fascinating subject. I am inclined to give the benefit if the doubt in the whole " The only place megafauna has survived to some extent to the present day is in Africa where people traditionally have lived in harmony with nature". In many hands that would be hippy happy pseudo racist claptrap. And it might be but the next paragraph points to the more realistic "harmony with nature = avoiding humans" I have severe doubts about the overkill theory - the fossil record is fairly sketchy and so many species died out within a few hundred thousand years of us arriving on the scene that exact timings are hard to believe. On top of which the practicality seems a bit hard - I can accept that some creatures might be defenceless against men and spears (giant sloths seem likely to lose out) but I am going to struggle seeing sabre tooth tigers as easy prey for man. Climate change, Eco system collapse and diseases carried by apes and their dogs seem to hold the occam razor prize for most likely explanations. A spear through the kidneys would just be making a bad day at the office worse for megafauna.