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[RC] Hunted to extinction? - k s swigart

Heidi said:

Given the very low population of humans at the time,
and the fact that many other much-hunted species
thrived (eg the buffalo), the idea that man was responsible
for the demise of the horse on this continent 10,000 years
ago doesn't wash.

This is not necessarily the case.  Wild horses have been hunted to
extinction everywhere on the planet, and, I contend that the reason for
this is the same as the reason that man was able to domesticate horses.
Horses do not have the dispositions or natures to protect themselves
adequately against skillful hunters.  Neither their flight instinct nor
their fight instinct is very well developed by comparison to many other
large mammal species, which makes them easy prey.

The nice thing about this, is it also makes them fairly easily
domesticated.

It is possible (no way to ever know other than by the circumstantial
evidence suggests that the demise of the horse in the Americas rather
coincided with the introduction of humans) that early Americans hunted
the horse to extinction for meat before they were able to figure out
that they could more profitably be pressed into service as beasts of
burden.

It is also possible, however, that some other environmental factors came
into play.

No way to ever know.  The truth of the past is inextricably locked in
the past, anybody who says otherwise is just guessing.

kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)

p.s.  There is some evidence that the buffalo is one of the few of the
much hunted species that survived the initial introduction of humans to
the North American eco-system (long before the Europeans arrived in 1492



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