Why did the mammoths become extinct?

Researchers from the Natural History Museum in Sweden tested d.na. of mammoths in an attempt to determine why they became extinct.

Researchers from the Natural History Museum in Sweden tested d.na. of mammoths in an attempt to determine why they became extinct.

The researchers led by Dr. Love Dalen publish their findings inProceedings of the Royal Society B . The findings contradict the accepted assumption that the death blow to the mammoths was given by human hunters.

According to the researchers, "extensive examinations of the woolly mammoths added evidence that the giants were wiped out due to climate change". The researchers were looking for the signature of the genetic code that is transmitted in the maternal lineage and for that they examined the DNA sequences. From 300 samples of mammoth bones, teeth and tusks. The data revealed the genetic diversity, which made it possible to estimate the size of the populations and their migration routes. With the help of the discovered data, the researchers built the mammoth family tree, which branches out over 200,000 years in Eurasia and North America.

Two periods were identified in which there was damage to the large populations, both of which coincide with the warming between the ice ages (interglacials). Until the first intermediate period, the size of the mammoth population is estimated at several millions. About 120,000 years ago there was a warm period in which the populations dwindled and became scattered. The dispersal caused a different subspecies to appear in Western Europe.
The cold returned for a period of about 100,000 years (the Pleistocene) - the last ice age that lasted until about 14,000 years ago. The mammoths that were adapted to the cold dominated the north and their distribution was from Western Europe to the northern parts of North America (Western Europe and North America were linked to Eurasia by the ice bridge that covered the Bering Straits). Later, the temperature began to increase, the mammoth population was pushed into small niches where there were suitable living conditions for mammoths, but according to the researchers, the extinction already began at the height of the cold, about 20,000 years ago, perhaps because the cold did not allow the growth of grass for grazing.

According to Dr. Delen, the next chapter in the mystery surrounding the mammoths was the final one. Many researchers attribute the final blow that caused their extinction to the human hunters, but Dr. Delen claims that "if the mammoths were competent - people should not be blamed." Warm periods made mammoths more vulnerable, but to understand why an entire species became extinct it is necessary to study the last places where they survived.
Suitable candidates are two islands, one is St Paul near Alaska and the other island is Wrangel in the Arctic Ocean off Siberia. The two islands are considered the "last refuge" of the mammoths that survived there until about 5000 years ago.
The fact that populations survived in places that were far away and less accessible to human hunters who came to the islands later brings back to the discussion the role of early hunters in the extinction of mammoths.

This is the gist of the study and its conclusions, which were also published in the daily press. I would not have addressed the subject if I had not seen the similarity between what happened in ancient history and what is happening nowadays. The researchers do claim that the influence of human hunters on the extinction of the mammoths was minimal, but this claim does not stand up to the fact that the last of the mammoths survived on two islands that were difficult to access, so it can be assumed that human hunters almost never reached them. This fact allowed two remnant populations of mammoths to continue to exist thousands of years after the populations on land had already disappeared. That is to say, the conclusion about the lack of influence of the hunters is neither unequivocal nor perfect.

The imagination to our day is on two levels. One: is climate change. The researchers claim that climate change was the main cause of the extinction of the mammoths. Nowadays, man-made warming (anthropogenic warming) which causes difficulties in existence, is already harming many diverse environmental systems, causing severe damage to human populations.

The second similarity is no less disturbing and is the similarity in the hunter's activity between our ancestors and "hunters" today. The fundamental difference is that our ancestors hunted mammoths in order to survive, whereas today, after the Americans completely destroyed the millions of migratory pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius), after they slaughtered about 50 million buffaloes (Bison bison) and brought the species to the brink of extinction - they continue to kill elephants by the thousands to satisfy traditions Unnecessary and senseless vanities. Gloomy forecasts predict that if the killing continues, by the end of the century the (African) elephants will disappear despite international efforts that increase the enforcement of wildlife protection laws and the trade in animals or their parts such as talks between East African countries and China.

The US provides surveillance drones, and the local authorities have initiated the destruction of tens of tons of ivory in Kenya, Tanzania and the US. Despite the (welcome) activity, every year thousands of elephants are killed in Africa. Our ancestors hunted mammoths to survive.
Nowadays... they kill elephants for nothing.

And it has already been said that the time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there will be control of the human population for the sake of the environment.