Diversity of life forms was greater in the past, when huge titans such as mammoths, cave lions and short-faced bears were enriching entire ecosystems. The megafauna of the last ice age went extinct on a quick pace, due to intense and rapid change of weather conditions. Rapid warming has caused extreme changes to wildlife and now we can see the long disappeared mammoths only in Ice Age cartoons, pictures and encyclopedias.
The Late Pleistocene has seen a rapid and unstable fluctuation in climate conditions. 6000 to 12.000 years ago, sudden climate spikes have caused extreme degradation of entire natural habitats. During that period, temperatures have risen between 7 and 26 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of decades. First forms of life affected by the sudden changes were large mammoths. The hot conditions destroyed shelters and prey, affecting mammoths to the degree of complete extinction. Lack of food, overheated environments, melting of the ice blocks and extreme temperatures have led to the massive death of large animals.
The interstadials, or the sudden levels of increase in temperatures have led to “dramatic shifts in global rainfall and vegetation patterns”, according to official declarations coming from researchers, the Pleistocene age has faced extreme drops in temperature as well but those have not been associated with the levels of degradation extreme heating had caused.
The megafauna is probably the best example of rapid extinction in the history of wildlife. A team of researchers has studied what caused animals weighing more than 99 pounds to die off during the late Pleistocene. This is the first piece of research which links specific climatic changes to localized extinctions of megafauna.
Although humans have been blamed for interfering with nature and causing high degrees of extinction among entire structures of wildlife, it seems that they are not to blame for the events that happened back in the Pleistocene era. Earlier studies outlined that extreme hunting had affected the megafauna to the point of extinction. This research contradicts the earlier findings and raises another dimension of meaning to the extinction phenomenon. Seemingly, there are situations where humans are not to blame for all the bad that is happening in the world. The course of nature sometimes acts aggressively, causing great shifts that imply a certain degree of sacrifice.
However, climate change is not the only reason behind massive wildlife extinctions. Man still played a role, as humans have taken over entire territories of wildlife and destroyed entire regions with the rapid development of infrastructure.
Our environment is facing a real crisis right now. To avoid the little bit of history repeating and keep habitats away from disappearing completely, we must rapidly take action over climate change. Both global warming and human intervention are presently causing dramatic switches to life conditions all over the world. The sad story of mighty mammoths could be defined as the sad story of mankind, if we fail to learn from past mistakes.
Image Source: geneticsandsociety.org