Eradication of Megafauna: Pleistocene-Holocene Event
White Tailed Deer
Thirteen thousand years ago, the western United States and northern Mexico supported at least thirty-one species of ungulates and ten species of large carnivores. Currently, there are only five species of carnivore and nine species of ungulates in the western United States and northern Mexico. In the eastern United States there is one large ungulate remaining, the white tailed deer. In the mid-20th century, climate change was believed to be responsible for the extinction of megafauna during the Pleistocene. However, in the 1960's the overkill theory was proposed to be responsible for the mass extinction. The overkill theory states that the arrival of skilled human hunters migrating from the Bering Land Bridge swept across North and South America killing megafauna. The time period of megafauna extinction due to the evolution and migration of people is called the Pleistocene Holocene event which is broken into three waves. The first wave occurred from forty thousand years ago to thirty five thousand years. This wave is the migration of skilled hunters to lands where people never existed before and the culture change from hunting and gathering to farming. The second wave occurred from 1500 to1970. This wave is the time of European colonization and exploration which caused industrialization to spread around the world. The third wave occurred from 1970 to the present. This is the explosion of human populations and technology.
Rewilding North America by Dave Foreman
Rewilding North America by Dave Foreman