Evidence points to humans being the greatest factor in mammoth extinction. Climate seems to play a minor role especially since mammoths have survived similar climate shifts dozens of times before. And also considering that there where human cultures that specialized in hunting mammoth.
Their late survival on uninhabited Beringian islands is also convincing evidence for humans being the culprits. The fact they happened to survive on uninhabited islands with low carrying capacity for thousands of years while dying out in similar mainland environments where they should have been able to support a larger populations points towards hunting as a cause for their extinction.
During the younger dryas period there is allot of evidence to suggest there were magor cataclysmic events and disasters that lead to the magority of large mammals in the northern hemisphere disappearing. Maybe the last of the species was killed off by humans but it's highly doubtful that all these large mammals died of at the same time only because of human activity.
I don't think there are any projects trying to create a cave lion hybrid. If a mammoth hybrid does get successfully reintroduced to the wilds, there will need to be a predator large enough to hunt them or at least the juveniles.
I doubt neo-mammoth numbers will be high enough to warrant an apex predator. And if they will, well, we can simply sell tickets for mammoth hunts and use the money to fund more rewilding projects. We could also teach Siberian tigers to hunt juvenile mammoths.
Since I actually run a group dedicated to rewilding, and this particular video did mention some of the more controversial species that have ever lived in the UK, I will give my very condensed analysis here... Asian elephants genetically modified to be able to take the temperate climate of the UK would be the perfect candidate to use as an ecological proxy for Paleoloxodon antiquus as Palaeoloxodon antiquus lived in the UK during the interglacial periods during the pleistocene epoch which were similar in climate of the UK today. The tiger (Panthera tigris) would be a fitting ecological proxy for the very tiger-like saber-toothed cat Machairodus as well as the saber-toothed cat Megantereon, and the European jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis) which all lived in the UK during the interglacial periods during the early and middle pleistocene epoch which were similar to the climate of the UK today. The leopard (Panthera pardus) would also be a reintroduced species from the pleistocene epoch that lived in the UK throughout most of the pleistocene epoch. I do have a question though, I know the Eemian period in the pleistocene epoch was an exceptionally warm period during the pleistocene epoch, but I am under the understanding that the UK was still a temperate climate at this time and crocodilians of any kind had already become extinct well before the beginning of the Eemian. What source did you use that stated that crocodilians were present during the Eemian period (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) during the pleistocene epoch? I'm just curious! Anyways, this video was a great watch! As you can probably already tell, I absolutely love anything having to do with rewilding! 😁
@@Caramel-donut and i say again that i'm on board with it. ngl, i'm worried of people's reactions of introducing the Leopard and Tiger to the UK - i am too. but if it means having a feline predator after Heaven knows how many years since the Pleistoscene, i'm ok with it.
Also, given that a recent genome analysis recovered Straight Tusked Elephant as a close relative of African Forest Elephant, it wouldn't need a complex de-extinction to produce a suitable animal. There is still the ethical problem of relocating intelligent social creatures for what could be regarded as a vanity project however.
Hi! Pretty sure the species for the Mammoth (and less likely mastodon) reseeding is an Asian elephant, which is closer genetically to mammoths than it is to African elephants as both mammoths and Asian elephants diverged about 440 thousand years ago, even though, yes, the Asian elephants are smaller than the other two species. A discussion has been had on whether or not an African elephant would be the surrogate due to size and time of embryonic development, but a fair number of ethicists say that makes this even more of a risky and ethically questionable thing. I am tentatively in support of it, though, though I'm sure the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put George Church and Sergey Zimov's research on a bit of a delay
My only problem with reintroducing the other big predators into the wilds of Scotland is that the Scottish wildcat population is not doing well, not sure how much the added competition would help it recover.
The UK had a small lion species until around AD1,000. It could be reintroduced. It was pretty much the same as the Asiatic lion which India still has. They are like slightly smaller African lions. We could get some of those to reintroduce. Or we could just get the closest possible African lions to them.
I think humans killed the mammoths. I do believe climate was a factor but it is strange that climate killed them on the mainland where humans lived but climate didn't kill them on am island only a few kilometers north? With no humans? Great video anyway mate I enjoyed it.
maybe the climate held for them on the island? - but given humans relationship with most large creatures, they likely played a bigger role than we suspect
3:40 The cause of their extinction is still debated, many scholars believe human hunting played a part or was the primary cause in the extinction of the woolly mammoth. A majority of the megafauna of Australia and the Americas went extinct around the end of the Pleistocene and if you include islands, this extinction continued into the Holocene. The causes of those extinctions are also debated.
During the younger dryas period there is allot of evidence to suggest there were magor cataclysmic events and disasters that lead to the magority of large mammals in the northern hemisphere disappearing. Maybe the last of the species was killed off by humans but it's highly doubtful that all these large mammals died of at the same time only because of human activity.
@@funkyfiss There is also die off in the Southern Hemisphere to account for and the extinction event didn't happen everywhere at the same time. In Australia the extinction event occurred around 30 000 years before the younger dryas and in Hispaniola, Madagaskar and New Zealand the megafauna went extinct millennia later. Its possible that human activity was important in some areas and timeperiods and not others, but I think its more likely that human activity was an important factor in all of the late pleistocene and holocene megafauna extinctions. I think that climate changes played a role as well, but without humans many of the megafauna would have survived climate changes with low populations that would have recovered either during the Holocene when the climate stabilized again or during the next glacial period. A mammoth abundance model from 2008 f.e. predicts range restrictions for the species 126 000 BP which the species survived, but it later went extinct during the holocene. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 I am aware of a recent nature paper that argued for climate change being the cause of mammoth extinction (www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27439-6). Maybe I am wrong and the consensus will be reached at that end.
@@ibbi30 oh on islands human intervention is probably the main cause for the extinction of large animals. Simply because there is no where to go and the size of the island also restricts population growth. Yes, New Zealand is a very good example as well as Madagascar. I'm mostly talking about the northern hemisphere and mammoths. There is new evidence to suggest that during the younger dryas period there was an asteroid impact that hit greenland and many fragments of smaller asteroids from this time period have also been found all across Europe and north America. There is also the presence of desert glass that has been dated to that time period that suggests either scorching winds hit enough to melt sand or other reasons. Mega fauna would be the most susceptible to such changes. The event wasn't as bad as that that wipeout the large dinosaurs. But it probably had a big impact on the population numbers. The last of them eventually being killed off by humans. At least that is what I am trying to say. We will never know exactly for sure...
@@funkyfiss I don't think we are too far off in our views and I hope you forgive how long this comment has become. I don't want to delete my points. Anyway, humans and megafauna coexisted for a long time in Palearctic and pre-clovis people coexisted with the megafauna for some time, although the pre-clovis people perhaps had low populations? It at least took a long time to convincingly prove that there were people in the Americas before the clovis period. In the Palearctic at least it appears that it took climate change (younger dryas or other) and human presence to cause a major loss of species. I think its also likely in the other regions that climate/the younger dryas played a part although human presence was a necessary part the mass extinction of large terrestrial animals over the last 50 000 years. Its hard to reach a conclusion for specific species. For the Mammoths specifically you have to remember though that it survived the younger dryas in multiple locations well into the Holocene. Some of these locations were on the mainland. I think you have to rely on at least a second cause, human hunting or climate change f.e., to explain their extinction. Taking a global view, the die off was a little less severe in Neotropic compared to the Nearctic (wikipedia tells me that 54% of the Neotropic megafauna went extinct compared to 66% in the Nearctic). Using the Neotropics as a control, perhaps the younger dryas event intensified the extinction in the northern half of the Americas. The die off in in Australasia, where we can rule out the younger dryas, was 67%, not less severe than the nearctic extinction though. That includes island extinctions where you give greater credence to human impact, not sure what it was in continental Australia, but high at least. How would a cosmic impact during the Younger Dryas affect Hispaniola? The map in the following article suggests that it should be affected to a similar degree as nearby mainland areas and Megalocnus survived for thousands of years after the event, until humans arrived on the island. tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/younger-dryas-climate-episode-due-to-cosmic-impact-say-researchers/ I hope a conclusion will be reached on the Mammoth and the megafauna extinctions in general soon.
1 thing I think of with sheep farmers and their complaints about Lynx potentially taking their sheep, aside from the arguments about Lynx staying mainly in woodland/forest and that they prefer to take things like foxes who may just as likely attack lambs, is that I would think it would be pretty easy to protect against Lynx simply by using a dog bred to protect sheep. We use sheep herding dogs still pretty regularly but, in the past, we would've employed large dogs to protect herds against animals like Lynx and Wolves and that is what they do on the continent too. It isn't even about whether the dog would spot an attacking Lynx either, although they pretty amazing at it, but just the fact that the dogs move with the sheep and mark their territory means the Lynx would most likely pick up on that scent and, being opportunistic hunters, think the risk is too great. Yes I am sure every once in a while a sheep may get lost to a Lynx but I think people make far too much out of it and it is a solvable problem - financial compensation for sheep lost to proven Lynx attacks would seem like a small price to pay to me.
Congratulations on the baby! Hippos. I’m sure they must have lived here at some point! Pelicans. They must be a more likely candidate. Sadly there is a way to go with landowners in England. What about that recent example of a white tailed sea eagle from the Isle of Wight killed in Dorset, apparently by a landowner and supported by the local MP, who had received gifts from the landowner. However it’s only by talking about rewilding that we will get there, so well done on another interesting video.
Hey! So what animal, that I didn't include, would you like to see back in Britain? p.s. Took a month off from uploading as we've just had a baby... but now I'm back & excited to be creating videos again. Thanks for watching!!
Please! What are your sources regarding the presence of crocodile in Europe during an interglacial event !? I've been searching but found nothing worth. Could you send some link please ?
Another observation in the line of this video: the golden jackal is expanding its range west and is now in France. It’s smaller than a wolf but bigger than a fox. It might be a suitable alternative to a wolf, being more acceptable due to its size. No problems have been reported between these and humans in Europe.
@@LeaveCurious wolves live in Wisconsin and if not hunted like last year for the next couple of years they will naturally expand in Illinois and there's already many sightings and black bears have already been wandering in Illinois from increasing Wisconsin and Missouri populations they will also naturally expand in Illinois in the next 4 to 5 years
@@LeaveCurious i have they bolt as soon as they see people u only see them very early morning round about 5.30 ive also seen something alot larger coming off the motorway at 1 in the morning it lept a 3 lane road in one bound and had a large tale now that did worry me it was very large
@@LeaveCurious there have also been “sightings” of lynx or ‘leopards’ in West Yorkshire near Huddersfield, even my dad claims to have seen one and there were some grainy (naturally) pictures posted on my local Facebook group. Personally I’m inclined to believe they just saw someone’s dog or a large cat, though.
The lynx and wolves could definitely be reintroduced imo although there will have to be work arounds and a public information campaign + 'wildlife literacy' segement in education, too many people are boxed up in concrete and scared of foxes. A couple bears in scotland would be great, particularly around the SNP hq.
there'd be the European Bison, Red Deer and Exmoor Ponies for the Cave Lion - and the Mammoth/Elephant hybrid in Scotland... but the problem that i see is the quantity of the 1st and 2nd and the complete lack of the 4th. and that's assuming there's enough wilderness. i'm not an expert, merely an enthusiast, i want to make that clear; so the way i'd go about it would be like this: step1, expand ready the ecosystem for the missing herbivores (emphasis on "expand". and that'd take time); step 2, introduce said herbivores and let them multiply; step 3; introduce the Cave Lion. i just want an apex predator back (and i'm not fond of the Lynx, for personal reasons).
Hyena, Crocuta crocuta. I love to hear them call at night. Though of course you need a large prey base for them. Better now to stick to lynx, jackal, bison, and the more 'friendly' animals.
4:10 I don't think you did your research about this and just heard this from second hand resources as they are not using African elephant DNA but Asian elephant DNA, and you have to consider that they were closely related to the Asian elephant and regularly hybridised with them anyway so it will be as close to a mammoth as you can get.
Also we humans are the cause for the extinction of the mammoth, if we would have not hunted them then climate change would of not effected them too much as they survived 20 glacial episodes from 3 million years ago and wherever our ancestors went the megafauna went extinct and the only reason why the megafauna is relatively untouched in Africa is because those animals co-evolved with us so they knew how to deal with us but when our species spread out the animals from other continents were caught off guard and gave in to extinction.
I bet if you unlocked The genetic recipe secrets for every species of prehistoric bear and bison and horse The chances are biodiversity would be increased Why not the cave lion and other prehistoric mammal species bird species and reptile species
I would love to see brown bears back in this country I know there are loads of barriers that will probably make it never happen at least in my lifetime but still im obsessed with them and it would be great to see them back instead of having to travel abroad to see them in their natural environment properly.
@@Gertyutz No it won't. They belong here. It will help nature, just as bringing wolves back to Yellowstone in America helped nature. The balance is upset wothout them! That is why deer are overgrazing Scotland. They lack their apex predators!
@Alvaro4034 it’s a great idea, just needs to be managed perfectly. As in only engineering species to replicate fitting extinct ones with no added bonuses and testing their viability with the environment on smaller islands. It’s the easiest and longest term way to undo a lot of damage, like maintaining the Siberian, Icelandic, Australian, North American etc climates through varying species that would fill currently empty slots that would cause a positive feedback loop for the region, reducing forests in northern Russia and doing the opposite it Australia and Iceland, increasing fertility and diversity of the land wherever the environment in more appropriately diverse, even if we need to create that diversity
@@atriox7221 Thanks for your explanation. I see what you mean but I am still unsure. The GMOs are already there and we do not know the impact they will have long term. I think nature is wiser than us and that our knowledge cannot grasp its complexity. Therefore, rewilding with natural processes is, in my opinion, the better way. Will we (individuals, businesses and governments) allow that to happen?
@@theenglishjackass5373 really? Explain? Why do you say I'm wrong? There have been panther and possibly puma, living in Aus, for decades. And why would you bother to deny it?
@S.Trades it's the same with the United Kingdom there is a possibility of big cats there but there is never enough evidence to suggest that big cats exist in both of these areas plus I've never in my life heard of a big cat sighting in Australia
Animals you really don't want back Me: ok you can try but you can't find such a thing 1 lynx Me: ok first fail, and a Big one, it's the most innofensive and less problematic "large" predator of Europe 2 mammoth I would like to see them too Also, no human kill them, climate change was not helping but they were adapted to it and already survived throught several glaciation periods Stop using climate arguments just to Say "see it's not our fault" because everytime human migrated to a New continent, most megafauna died, it's not a coïncidence it's the proof that we killed them Also they will be cloned with asiatic elephant not african elephant Cave lion I want them back too Same for mammoth, cave lion was killed by lack of food due to human presence Crocodile Like for mammoth and cave lion the only issue is environnement, they can't live here anymore Wolf and Brown bear I want them and should be here, like lynxes, you have the opportunity to prepare for their reintroduction, unlike continental countries, si prepare farmers and hunter to coexist with wolves, put solution to help farmers and prevent attack on livestock and reintroduce what you've killed You forget Moose, bison, cave leopard, cave hyena, wild horse, auroch, musk Ox, saïga, and well a lot of other en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_the_British_Isles
All these problems with endangered species, and also climate change, could so easily be fixed if humans simply reduced their populations. Have world law that only one child per woman allowed. Also, people who are terminally ill, suffering and wanting to end their lives should be allowed to in special clinics. As the population slowly decreases, so does the energy we use and the pollution we make. And,, we will not need to keep expanding cities or farmland as we will need less food and land. Just that one simple thing is all that is needed!
It's actually a combination of over hunting from humans AND a change in climate which caused there extinction as it is thought to have created a negative feedback loop