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Mercnbeth -> RE: VIDEO - Climate change threatens “a third of all species” - Climate : news, world (12/7/2009 4:38:32 PM)
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US - the mass extinction, over a very short period even for mass extinctions, of nearly all the major mammals in North America - elephants, horses and all manner of creatures, that coincides rather well with the arrival of man on the continent.
Horses were indigenous to North America, but died out exactly at the same time the elephants died out. The last prehistoric North American horses died out between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene, but by then Equus had spread to Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Those here now were brought here; doing quite well, in some instances living in the wild.
Elephants suffered similiar fate.
In a paper called "Bring Back the Elephants," published in the spring issue of Wild Earth, Martin and co-author David A. Burney note that the disappearance of North American elephants about 13,000 years ago during the late Pleistocene occurred almost yesterday in the geological time frame.They too, like the other extinctions noted, died out long before man was at the top of the food chain.
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What this shows is that these things don't necessarily happen naturally, that the effects of the most successful species (to date in this era) on this planet can also cause these things. Therein is a lesson of caution to us now - there will be only one real loser if we get this climate change thing wrong, us. Natural extinctions don't point to a natural cause of death. Natural also applies to any specie which takes over the environment it finds itself, to the detriment of species who happened to be there before them. It happens all the time, in the animal and well as plant kingdoms.
Fifteen to twenty years ago some Asian carp got into some rivers and streams as a result of flooding. They've since taken over and comprise over 90% of the fish population and are going fast. So much so, that they've recently tried to poison them.
The most drastic action to date to try to stop Asian carp from getting into Lake Michigan was taken Wednesday, when authorities dumped 2,300 gallons of the fish-killing toxin Rotenone into a 6-mile stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship canal. Authorities conducted the massive fish kill to ensure that no Asian carp were in the waterway and could sneak through while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shut down for maintenance an underwater electric barrier designed to turn back the fish.
Nature has a way of taking over. Only humanity has the inappropriate sense of self importance to belief they have, or can, control it in absolute terms or even know all there is necessary to know to have a global impact.
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