DNA evidence suggests humans drove New Zealand bird species to extinction

DNA says we are guilty. Early human settlers probably did wipe out the moas of New Zealand. Moa DNA suggests that their population was stable before we turned up.

New Zealand was home to nine species of flightless moa until humans arrived around AD 1300. Within a century, they were all gone. The archaeological record shows humans hunted moas, perhaps to extinction.

But it is hard to separate human impacts on animal populations from other effects such as climate change. Large animals like mammoths also died out when people arrived in the Americas and Australia, which looks suspicious. But a recent study found that Arctic mammoths vanished after a climate-linked shift in vegetation, not because of overhunting.

Read the full, original story: DNA evidence points to humans for demise of moas

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