Two subspecies of bison now live in North America.
Posted on 11/25/2004 7:25:47 PM PST by Fatalis
WASHINGTON - Hunters may not be to blame for the decline in bison populations, according to a new study that points the finger at climate change.
Scientists had thought bison were hunted to the brink of extinction when people first crossed an ice-free bridge between what's now Alaska and Siberia.
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Two subspecies of bison now live in North America. |
Now researchers say bison DNA shows their genetic diversity began to decline more than 20,000 years before humans reached eastern Beringia in what is now North America, according to archeological evidence.
Scientists at Oxford University analysed DNA samples from 442 fossils from bison that lived in what's now Alaska, Canada, China and Siberia.
The team of 27 scientists said the decline in bison diversity coincided with a deep freeze that may have done in many of the animals about 32,000 to 42,000 years ago.
The results suggest the two subspecies of bison ranging across North America today, the plains and the wood bison, are likely descendents of one population that migrated south before the deep freeze.
Cold "and arid conditions increasingly dominated, and some component of these ecological changes may have been sufficient to stress bison populations across Beringia," the study's authors wrote in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Brown bears and a type of horse went extinct in Alaska at about the same time.
The researchers say their results point to climate as the main cause of decline for bison, rather than the final blow they faced.
And, to think, all this time I thought it was the fault of Republicans.
If this had not happened would Buffalo be the choice of Thanksgiving dinners instead of that smelly bird we consumed today...
Thanks for the ping. I never thought it was due to humans...there weren't enough. I have toyed with the idea that it could have been a virus/germ brought in by the humans though.
The bird...turkey. Was one of the two animals domesticated in South America by the Natives...also, Guinna(sp) pigs.
The Spanish took the domesticated turkey back to Europe in the 1500's and the original Pilgrims to the new world brought it back to North America when they came. These domesticated turkeys brought by the Pilgrims eventually mixed with all the wild turkeys in North America. The turkey you ate today had genes brought here by the Pilgrims.
The story of the Indians introducing the turkey to the Pilgrims is just BS!
Evidence Aquits Clovis People Of Ancient Killings, Archaeologists Say
University Of Washington ^ | 2-25-2003 | Joel Schwartz
Posted on 02/25/2003 4:46:54 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/851809/posts
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
I think so.
At the end of the last Ice Age (just yesterday in geological time), camels, bisons, mammoths, lions, saber-toothed cats, and packs of wolves roamed the Los Angeles Basin. Had we lived here then, we also would have shared territory with the short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, perhaps the largest and most powerful predator in North America at the time. When fully grown, the male of this snub-nosed, long-legged carnivore was immense, as much as 2 feet taller at the shoulder than the largest grizzly or polar bear and-- at 1,500 to 1,800 pounds-at least 500 pounds heavier than the modern species.
ping me, pls, with ggg
thanks
George Bush killed all them all off!
Net enough people to warm the global Eh?
There were absolutely no emission controls on the cars, back then.
Ive read stories about the "God bears of Kamchatka" and somewhere along the line I saw a show in search of them. The "jist" of it is that some believe that a rare Arctodus simus still exists here and there generally unnoticed amongst the other brown bears of Kamchatka.
80 million Buffalo have disappeared since the "White" man came to North America. 100 million Beef Cattle have taken their place. Why? Beef taste better!
"the brown bear extinction referred to may be (probably) the short-faced bear, which (if it were around) would make the grizzly run for its mommy. :')"
I highly resemble that remark. (:>(
It was because all those mean-spirited human hunters were Republicans - and never bothered to go see the "Day After Yesterday", down at the CaveCity Performance Art Theatre.
I read that the Great Plains was once forested but the Indians burned it so often chasing game that it couldn't re-grow.
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