Scientists trying to clone, resurrect extinct mammoth

[Docfeelgood]

there is no way man could have made these animals go extinct.

What did they use? satellites to track them all down?

[Elok]

Agriculture is a relatively recent invention, DFG. Less than 10,000 years old. Before that, we were hunting and gathering full time, moving around to follow the herds. Wherever there was a herd, there'd be a batch of humans thinking of dinner, no need for satellites. Oh, and primitive cultures used less "sporting" hunting practices than we did, I hear. Like starting fires to stampede whole herds over a cliff...kill your meat and tenderize it, all in one step.

[Dinner]

there is no way man could have made these animals go extinct.

What did they use? satellites to track them all down?

Biologists have done lots of studies and computer models which have shown humans don't actually have to kill that many large animals like mammoths to send a species into a death spiral especially if the species is already under stress from climate change or disease. Hell, even unintentional effects of humans on the environment can have a catastrophic effect such as deforestation (for wood or fuel), use of fire, or erosion (from farming or over grazing or even just cutting down trees); all of these can change the environment thus disrupting the web of species living in the area eventually sending the megafauna over the edge even with just light to moderate hunting. Most of the megafauna all have the same problem namely low reproduction rates and long lead times before an infant matures and becomes sexually active. Combine that with the need for large unbroken tracks of territory needed by the animals and it's easy to see how humans can drive them extinct. Even stone age peoples.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080331223843.htm

It has been particularly difficult to untangle these two potential causes of extinction, as climate change and increased human hunting are linked. When the climate in mammoth territory started to become too warm for the furry beast, it allowed humans--who couldn't handle the lower, mammoth-friendly temperatures--to move into the area.

Therefore, the mammoth faced the heat and predation pressure from hunting in the same regions at approximately the same times, making it difficult to test the importance of the two factors independently. It had also been argued that, as the mammoth had survived many temperature fluctuations previous to those that coincided with its demise, it was only human hunting that was a substantially different condition that could have caused the extinction of the species.

[Tupac Shakur]

it allowed humans--who couldn't handle the lower, mammoth-friendly temperatures

This also doesn't make sense.

[Dinner]

Agriculture is a relatively recent invention, DFG. Less than 10,000 years old. Before that, we were hunting and gathering full time, moving around to follow the herds. Wherever there was a herd, there'd be a batch of humans thinking of dinner, no need for satellites. Oh, and primitive cultures used less "sporting" hunting practices than we did, I hear. Like starting fires to stampede whole herds over a cliff...kill your meat and tenderize it, all in one step.

Not to mention even small tribes can quickly exhaust the hunting and gathering potential of an area in a short time. Let's say you have a tribe of 30-40 people, you'd need at least one deer per day to feed those people but are there really 365 deer in a 20 mile area to feed them all in a year? There probably isn't even 40 or 50 so even if you consider they're hunting all the game animals in that 20 mile radius area and gathering plants and maybe even fishing (if they have the technology) they're still very likely to exhaust all the available food in 3-6 months and for sure with in one year even in especially productive areas. Thus the need to keep moving because each area quickly gets exhausted. Now imagine human population is going up so that more and more of these bands/tribes are looking for virgin areas but those areas are becoming fewer and fewer while even previously used areas are getting less rest time between humans coming in and using up the resources. That spells population collapse for most of the wild species even with relatively low densities of humans.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

perhaps - in sufficient numbers - is missing

[Dinner]

Even stone age peoples can make clothing out of animal hides using bone needles. Inuit have been around for a very long time and seem to do just fine hunting in extremely cold places. Now, I will give you this: Humans will naturally want to take advantage of more productive areas (which tend to be warmer areas) of the global before expanding out into more marginal areas (like the arctic) so human population densities would have likely had to go up in the more productive areas before hunter gatherers would move into the marginal areas simply because they had no better option open to them.

[Docfeelgood]

Biologists have done lots of studies and computer models which have shown humans don't actually have to kill that many large animals like mammoths to send a species into a death spiral especially if the species is already under stress from climate change or disease. Hell, even unintentional effects of humans on the environment can have a catastrophic effect such as deforestation (for wood or fuel), use of fire, or erosion (from farming or over grazing or even just cutting down trees); all of these can change the environment thus disrupting the web of species living in the area eventually sending the megafauna over the edge even with just light to moderate hunting. Most of the megafauna all have the same problem namely low reproduction rates and long lead times before an infant matures and becomes sexually active. Combine that with the need for large unbroken tracks of territory needed by the animals and it's easy to see how humans can drive them extinct. Even stone age peoples.

Too far fetched!
A global extinction by monkey men?
There were not that many monkey men .
I just watched a docu and they are starting to think a comet did them in.