Mass Extinctions – the horrid truths.
Before the first fields were ever planted humans had totally wiped out all the Earth’s megafauna.
The Mastodon, Giant Elk, Giant Sloth, Mammoths, Giant Beaver, Giant Sea-Cow and many others were all hunted to extinction. The first signs that humans had migrated into an area was the total disappearance of all the megafauna.
These creatures, being large, were easy to find and hunt and provided much meat. They were also slow to breed so they did not replace their numbers. It did not take long to wipe them out to complete extinction.
Homo sapiens wiped out all other species of humans and then set about wiping out the rest of life on the planet.
It is estimated that human beings are responsible for the extinction of:
90% of the large animals of Australia
75% of the large animals of America
50% of all the large animals on the planet.
We look at the early cave paintings and can only wonder at the creatures we see depicted in them. We killed them all.
But it doesn’t stop there. We are hunting the remaining large animals – the gorillas, whales, porpoises, dolphins, hippos, rhinos, elephants, chimps, orangutans and tigers. Soon they will be gone too.
We don’t seem to learn our lessons.
Our children will inherit a world devoid of the plethora of wild-life. All they will have are the seagulls, pigeons, crows, rats, foxes and cockroach – the creatures that have adapted to life off our rubbish dumps and dustbins, to hide in our sewers and slide into chinks in the wall.
Before we even became farmers, while our numbers were few, we had destroyed some wondrous creatures.
The speed we are killing our creatures is increasing. When will we wake up?