Jan.
30, 2013 — Humans alone were responsible for the demise of Australia's
iconic extinct native predator, the Tasmanian Tiger or thylacine, a new study
led by the University of Adelaide has concluded.
Using
a new population modelling approach, the study contradicts the widespread
belief that disease must have been a factor in the thylacine's extinction.
The
thylacine was a unique marsupial carnivore found throughout most of Tasmania
before European settlement in 1803. Between 1886 and 1909, the Tasmanian
government encouraged people to hunt thylacines and paid bounties on over 2000
thylacine carcasses. Only a handful of animals were located after the bounty
was lifted and the last known thylacine was captured from the wild in 1933.
"Many
people, however, believe that bounty hunting alone could not have driven the
thylacine extinct and therefore claim that an unknown disease epidemic must
have been responsible," says the project leader, Research Associate Dr
Thomas Prowse, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Environment
Institute.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!