TIME for a retrial? It seems that humans were not responsible for the extinction of a large flightless bird within 10,000 years of setting foot in Australia, as was suggested in 2005. We had an alibi: the bird was already on the way out when humans turned up 55,000 years ago.
Around 45,000 years ago 90 per cent of Australia’s large animal genera disappeared, including the bird . An analysis of carbon isotopes in fragments of fossilised eggs showed sudden dietary shifts followed by extinction.
Using a different statistical approach, at the University of Tasmania, Australia, says there is “good evidence” that the decline happened gradually due to changes in rainfall, beginning 80,000 years ago – long before humans arrived (Global Ecology and Biogeography, ).
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