extinction of Madagascar’s megafauna

Humans ate giant lemurs to extinction:

Humans ate giant lemurs to extinction

Madagascar’s first inhabitants probably hunted the island’s largest animals to extinction according to research published in the November issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

…Despite its current biological wealth, Madagascar is relatively impoverished when compared to flora and fauna that existed on the island before the arrival of humans 2000 years ago. Roaming the island were gorilla-sized lemurs, monstrous tortoises, pygmy hippos, and the enormous Elephant bird (Aephornis maximus) that stood ten feet (3m) tall, weighed over 1100 pounds (500 kg), and laid an egg large enough to make an omelette to feed 150 people. All these species went extinct after man reached the island.

Sorry.

The problem with hand-wringing about historical extinction of megafauna is that it completely overlooks some basic truths.

1. To parents with children, giant carnivores are dangerous pests.
I would gladly kill every giant carnivore on the planet to save one child.
2. To parents with children, giant herbivores are attractive sources of nutrition. See Matthew 7:9.

Now we can afford to save and protect giant megafauna, and by all means we should do so. But to pretend that we should have done so hundreds or thousands of years ago simply flies in the face of fundamental realities of our nature as a pack-organized, omnivorous, mammalian primate.

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• Australian megafauna