So, it wasn't humans after all

[Simon Bar Sinister]

We'll find out soon enough (assuming the funding doesn't fall through)! Asteroid, comet, UFO, death ray...my fave Tunguska theory was the "quantum black hole racing through the earth too fast to stop" one I first read back in the '80s.

Anyway... large mammals that went extinct after humans arrived in Australia include: Large kangaroos and wombats, a marsupial lion , and the Diprotodon, which was (at 2.5 tons) the largest marsupial known to have ever existed. While hunting definitely took its toll, the consensus (such as it is) seems to be that fires set by humans did immense damage both directly and indirectly to the large Aussie mammals' populations - death by fire and loss of habitat seem to have done more damage than the hunters.

This came from an Oct. '04 article in ScienceDaily, btw. 1st thing that came up when I searched "large mammal extinction". There was a link to a story that seemed to conclude that NA humans definitely did in the mammoths/mastodons; didn't read it myself, though.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

You know, for every animal that has gone extinct since man starting hunting, I can show you one that went extinct without man's intervention. Such as the European Hippopotamus, the European Rhinoceros, the straight-tusked elephant, Deinotherium (another type of elephant), Dinofelis (a smaller saber tooth cat), the Southern Mammoth, the Tenerife Giant Rat, and many more... I can prolly find 5 for everyone of yours.

Natural Selection has a price...

The article you mention goes to prove my point that many claim it as fact that humans caused the exinction of the Mammoths even though there is no definitive proof. It's all conjecture.

[candyman]

Why is all this money spent on something that we really don't need to know? Shit, people are starving but we really need to know what happened to some large animal way back when. Really? WHY!?!?!

Shit...the green movement, obama, and now the "anti humans because of what we may have done a long time ago" movement...fuck suicide looks sooo nice compared to all this shit. But is suppose that it is all in the name of peace, love and all that other bullshit...

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

because knowing what has happened in the past helps to deal with the future.