The Death of the Mega Fauna | Teen Ink

The Death of the Mega Fauna

January 27, 2011
By Money.Man. SILVER, Brownsville, Oregon
Money.Man. SILVER, Brownsville, Oregon
9 articles 0 photos 17 comments

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The death of the mega fauna was one of the most devastating things that happened to the first people and their source of food. This was because their culture was based upon chasing, following migration patterns, and hunting these animals for food. Once the mega fauna were wiped out, they had to rely on the plants, roots, nuts, and berries in the environment around them to survive.

There were four theories that scientists believe is the cause of the extinction of the mega fauna. They are over-chill, over-kill, over-grill, and over-ill. Scientists think that there was only one theory that caused the extinction, and I believe it was most likely a combination of all four.

Over-chill is the theory that the mega fauna were wiped out by a major change in climate, which began about 17,000 years ago. The main wave of climate changes happened around 12,900 years ago. The reason people believe this theory is true is because there was a lot of climate changes that were going on that could have drove the mega fauna to extinction. But most people don’t believe in this theory because they can’t find any frozen or evidence that the animals were naturally killed some how. Another reason people don’t believe in this theory is because there has been so many swings in climate so how can it be that they were just taken out by one climate period?

Over-kill is the theory that the first early people wiped them to extinction. Many people don’t believe in this theory because there are only 14 kill sites and only two species of animals that were massively wiped out. These were the mastodons and the mammoths. Scientists believe because only this hardly enough evidence to support that the mega fauna was killed by mass hunting.

Over-ill is the theory that the mega fauna were wiped out by an illness that spread from one animal to the next and so on. They believe rabies were what caused the death of all the animals. Many people don’t believe in this theory because the chances of it occurring are like 1 in 1000.

Over-grill is the theory that the mega fauna were wiped out by a comet that hit where the mega fauna were. This apparently caused the death of the 15 of the 35 species of animals there was. This happened about 12,900 years ago. But scientists haven’t been able to find any evidence of where the comet hit. There is some black mat that shows some evidence that there may have been some kind of comet that hit the earth

So what was the real cause of the death of the mega fauna? We may never know what really caused the death of the mega fauna but one thing is for certain, the mega fauna were wiped out by something. In my opinion I think the death of the mega fauna was caused by a combination of all four. Scientists have been trying to find out what the cause was for years but I guess well never know what truly caused there extinction.


The author's comments:
The reason I wrote this was because the story of how the mega fauna died was very intriguing to me.

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