Comments on: Ancient Rubbish Suggests Humans Hunted a Giant Turtle to Extinction

By: Jay Warner

Jay Warner — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 05:02:56 +0000

Proving anything in the face of determined denial is extremely difficult – evidence matters less than desired conclusions. Did Homo Sapiens Sapiens over hunt & wipe out specific animals, especially those unable to adapt in a few generations to the new circumstances of said H. Sapiens hunting methods (and their fellow travelers, pigs & rats)? You bet your sweet bippy. Is said H. Sapiens doing it today (with, say cod, or sperm whales)? Why do we have to dig out the data? Why not let the naysayers _prove_ that we are not over harvesting?

The real question is not “are we doing it today?” We are, and we all know it. The real question is, “what are we doing to mitigate H. Sapiens’ impact on all the species, especially the endangered ones.

By: Jennifer Angela

Jennifer Angela — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:54:50 +0000

I dare say the conclusions drawn by the scientists who wrote this article are far from preposterous or even overreaching, as people have evidently displayed a blatant tendency to hunt animals straight into extinction during the 20th century – these case are documented – and as a matter of fact, extinction by hunting is still occuring, as I am sure we all know. Thus it makes sense to assume, that – surprise, surprise, – we (human beings) did it (once again), we (our ancestors) are the ones who are responsible for the extinction of all sorts of fascinating animal species. At the same time I totally agree with Rhaco… I also think it´s too bad our ancestors didn´t do that to alligators, crocodiles and sharks… and far more significantly… to pitbull terriers, dobermans, rottweilers and staffys, as live alligators, crocodiles and sharks might still be of use one day as a valuable source of food and leather. Besides these animals, that are generally viewed as dangerous, cause very little misery compared to the truly hazardous dog races mentioned previously.

By: Eublepharine

Eublepharine — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:30:20 +0000

Hey, at least we still have geckos.
They rule.

By: DeLene

DeLene — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:52:24 +0000

It seems like the problem with trying to prove causation in this species’ extinction is needing more than one midden like this showing the turtles were being butchered on a routine basis. And if the time range correlated across the multiple midden samples, then it would be a stronger case. I guess I’m just a little skeptical if all they have is one midden. (Whose to say it wasn’t also climate change, or disease, that happened to coincide with the Lapita people’s arrival?) Just playing devil’s advocate…

By: Dodo Bird

Dodo Bird — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:21:25 +0000

Well, I nearly pinned your mum down into extinction

By: CW

CW — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:23:51 +0000

There was the dodo bird, Rhac.

By: Zachary

Zachary — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:50:50 +0000

Nice one Rhacodactylus haha.

By: Rhacodactylus

Rhacodactylus — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:19:18 +0000

Why didn’t we hunt any of the non-awesome animals to extinction?