Human arrivals wiped out the Caribbeans giant ground sloths
Human arrivals wiped out the Caribbean’s giant ground sloths
By Fred Pearce
Who killed the giant ground sloth? Or the mammoth and sabre-toothed cat, come to that. Was it humans or a natural event, like the end of the last ice age? The question is endlessly debated. But the answer, at least in the Caribbean, now seems certain: it was humans.
It is hard to distinguish the effects of humans and natural climatic shifts on wildlife. The trouble is that changes in climate impact on where and how humans live. So if many species die off at the same time, we are none the wiser about the culprit.
In most of North America, humans arrived around the end of the last ice age, and a menagerie of large mammals disappeared in short order. The casualties included dire wolves, short-faced bears, the American lion and ground sloths. Attributing blame is near-impossible.
But the Caribbean islands are different, say Siobhán Cooke at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The ice age ended 12,000 years ago, but archaeological evidence shows humans only made it to most of the islands around 5000 years ago.
More:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/human-arrivals-wiped-caribbeans-giant-ground-sloths/?cmpid=ILC|NSNS|2017_webpush&utm_medium=ILC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=webpush-human-arrivals
