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forsythHumans are odd.
I've never gone hunting, and not in favor of humans wiping out species. I mean, obviously. My entire career I'm working toward involves trying to rejigger science and technology to work in partnership, or at least not against, nature.
And yet, when I was involved in a discussion about the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions today, I wasn't really upset by the discussion.
For the uninitiated, by about 17,000 years ago, the large mammals on most continents had been wiped out. But only the largest, things over a hundred pounds. Cool things, like woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, giant "birds from hell", etcetera. They were around, and then they weren't, and nothing else moved in to take over their ecological niches. Climactic change doesn't seem likely, because the extinctions were spread out over time and continents, and some survived in isolated areas after the rest were gone. And nothing else took their place.
The most likely reason the megafauna went extinct everywhere but Africa? Clever monkeys learned how to sharpen spears, and the megafauna were tasty. That's the likeliest reason. The times of the extinctions match the times when humans arrived on the continents, remains of the critters have been found with marks from weapons on the bones, and so on. So why are there elephants in Africa still? Because elephants evolved alongside us monkeys while we were learning to hunt, and so learned how to cope, while animals elsewhere just were surprised and eaten.
And for some reason, this thought makes me feel rather smug and self-satisfied. Humans probably killed off hundreds of species, because they were tasty.
But I suppose it's not so weird. Roving bands of hunter humans were in a completely different life than we're in now. And honestly? Dudes who could go up against mammoths and hellbirds with stone spears? That's hardcore. Hunting deer with a rifle's got nothing on that. What's the quote from Snow Crash? "Descended from a long line of the biggest badasses to walk the planet."
Still, intellectually, it feels weird to cheer this. But honestly? Great-great-great-great....great-grandparents, who went faced down the biggest things on the Earth with stone spears and fire, and won? They're why I'm here. And one of these days, I'll toast them for it, then get back to making sure we don't have to live like that again.
I've never gone hunting, and not in favor of humans wiping out species. I mean, obviously. My entire career I'm working toward involves trying to rejigger science and technology to work in partnership, or at least not against, nature.
And yet, when I was involved in a discussion about the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions today, I wasn't really upset by the discussion.
For the uninitiated, by about 17,000 years ago, the large mammals on most continents had been wiped out. But only the largest, things over a hundred pounds. Cool things, like woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, giant "birds from hell", etcetera. They were around, and then they weren't, and nothing else moved in to take over their ecological niches. Climactic change doesn't seem likely, because the extinctions were spread out over time and continents, and some survived in isolated areas after the rest were gone. And nothing else took their place.
The most likely reason the megafauna went extinct everywhere but Africa? Clever monkeys learned how to sharpen spears, and the megafauna were tasty. That's the likeliest reason. The times of the extinctions match the times when humans arrived on the continents, remains of the critters have been found with marks from weapons on the bones, and so on. So why are there elephants in Africa still? Because elephants evolved alongside us monkeys while we were learning to hunt, and so learned how to cope, while animals elsewhere just were surprised and eaten.
And for some reason, this thought makes me feel rather smug and self-satisfied. Humans probably killed off hundreds of species, because they were tasty.
But I suppose it's not so weird. Roving bands of hunter humans were in a completely different life than we're in now. And honestly? Dudes who could go up against mammoths and hellbirds with stone spears? That's hardcore. Hunting deer with a rifle's got nothing on that. What's the quote from Snow Crash? "Descended from a long line of the biggest badasses to walk the planet."
Still, intellectually, it feels weird to cheer this. But honestly? Great-great-great-great....great-grandparents, who went faced down the biggest things on the Earth with stone spears and fire, and won? They're why I'm here. And one of these days, I'll toast them for it, then get back to making sure we don't have to live like that again.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 01:04 pm (UTC)For example, the Wooly Mammoth. It was on it's way out anyways because the Ice Age, which it had evolved to live through, was ending.
And most of the prey that the predator megafauna went after were going through similar changes. Maybe it simply became disadvantageous to be so large when the creatures you ate got smaller and faster?
Humans played a part, to be sure, but there were a lot less of us around back then. Later extinctions, such as that of the Dodo Bird, were less excusable; we should have known better then.
What gets me is that there are still poachers and legislaters who will go after the endangered animals. I know legislators don't care; they're just trying to get ahead politically by making laws that satisfy people, even if they disregard the natural order of things. But poachers...you'd think they'd realize that they'd be out of a job once whatever it is they're hunting is gone.
yeah... bad asses...
Date: 2008-05-01 03:14 pm (UTC)But we seem to enjoy it so...
Sorry... not hatin', just sayin'...
mojo sends
Re: yeah... bad asses...
Date: 2008-05-01 06:22 pm (UTC)There are quite a few who seem to enjoy the killing stuff aspect, but that's not really comparable to going up against a mammoth or whatever with a stick with a sharp rock on it.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 06:32 pm (UTC)There were a lot less of us, but there's usually less of any kind of large animals, because they need lots of food to survive, and more range. And if you look at how the Native Americans used to hunt buffalo, including things like stampeding herds over cliffs with fires, it's fairly plausible that human hunting could wipe out massive amounts of large animals. Hell, we almost did it to the American Bison, remember Oregon Trail?
The Dodo, on the other hand, was slightly different. That wasn't so much a matter of human predation as animals humans brought with us. In this case, rats that ate the eggs, and dogs that ate dodos. There'd been no natural predators on the island before we brought them, and dodos nested on the grounds.
Many poachers don't care, because of the money they make. Others are trying to feed their families, either directly or via the money they get from poaching. When you're trying to feed your family, that worry comes first, things like "how many elephants are left?" comes second, usually. That's one of the ways the problems of poverty and environmental degradation tie together. There's many more, which I should do a post about one of these days.
Re: yeah... bad asses...
Date: 2008-05-01 06:43 pm (UTC)... and calls it "hunting."
mojo sends