Demise of large animals caused by both man and climate change

Research provides new insights about what caused the extinction of many of the world's big animals over the last 100,000 years. Our research suggests that a combination of human pressure and climate change was able to cause the extinctions of many large animals in the past. Many large, charismatic animals today are threatened by both hunting pressure and changes in climate; if we do not take action to address these issues we may see further extinctions." - —Graham Prescott, currently a PhD student at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology Past waves of extinctions which removed some of the world's largest animals were caused by both people and climate change, according to new research from the University of Cambridge. Their By examining extinctions during the late Quaternary period (from 700,000 year ago until present day), but primarily focusing on the last 100,000 years, scientists have been able to assess the relative importance of different factors in causing the extinctions of many of the world's terrestrial megafauna, animals 44 kg or larger. These extinctions included mammoths in North America and Eurasia as well as mastodons and giant sloths in the Americas, the woolly rhino in Europe, giant kangaroos and wombats in Australia, and the moas (giant flightless birds) in New Zealand. The researchers used data from an Antarctic ice core, which gives one of the longest running records of changes in the earth's climate, covering the last several hundred thousand years.