🚀 go-pugleaf

"H. E. Taylor" <het@despam.autobahn.mb.ca> wrote:
><floyd@barrow.com> Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>As I said, there simply is no evidence that actually supports
>>>>a claim that Native Americans hunted even one single animal to
>>>>extinction.
>>>
>>>There is. You may find it weak. I don't.
>>
>> Well, *you* haven't presented any, and neither has anyone else.
>> That is not for lack of trying either.  There have been a couple
>> of serious attempts at making a case, and they've fallen flat by
>> all counts.  None of them hold water if *all* facts are
>> included.  They only look reasonable if significant exclusions
>> are made.  Hence people who *want* to believe are quite able to
>> put on a set of blinders and believe.
>>
>
>       Well Floyd there are some well documented island extinctions which
>       are quite suggestive.  In New Zealand, for example, the Polynesians
>       who became the Maori wiped out some 10 species of flightless birds.
>       There are other examples - Hawaii, Mauritius and the Meditteranean
>       islands.  It seems more likely to me that humans act like every
>       other predator.  If they move into a new territory where they have
>       a competitive advantage, they wipe out their prey.
>
><$.02>
>-het

So your basic argument is that you think it may have happened
somewhere else and therefore it must have happened here too.

Stick with preaching sermons, because that kind of logic won't
get you far!  First, there is no reason to believe the basic
connection you propose.  Second, even the premise that it
happened elsewhere is open to serious question.  You are taking
it as true that humans did in fact cause extinctions in New
Zealand and elsewhere, but you aren't presenting any evidence.

It might be true, but in at least the New Zealand case the claim
is just about as flimsy as the idea that Clovis technology
allowed Native Americans to hunt megafauna to extinction.

>--

...

>Extinction Issues: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro.html#ExtNews

I spent some time looking over that URL, and found much
interesting reading there.  I didn't do an exhaustive search,
but I found nothing that supports either your claim above, or
the previous claims about extinctions in North America.

I would also point out another interesting circumstance, that
people tend to draw a lot of conclusions from without a full set
of facts.  Everyone is concerned about saving the whales, and
everyone should be aware that we know that several species of
whales have become extinct.

What you need to consider is that /not a single species of
whale/ has become extinct due to *human* predation.


-- 
FloydL. Davidson           <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@barrow.com