Humans are not to blame
Climate warming is likely cause of woolly rhino extinction
The woolly rhinoceros was wiped out by warming temperatures, not hunting, a new study suggests.
About the same size as today’s white rhino, the woolly rhinoceros was covered with thick, reddish-brown hair, and thrived throughout Europe, northern Asia and Siberia. They became extinct at around the same time as other prehistoric megafauna, including the woolly mammoth and the cave lion. It was previously proposed that hunting by humans had caused their demise, however, this hypothesis doesn’t match up with recent discoveries.
“It was initially thought that humans appeared in northeastern Siberia 14,000 to 15,000 years ago, around when the woolly rhinoceros went extinct,” explained study leader Prof Love Dalén, an evolutionary geneticist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden. “But recently, there have been several discoveries of much older human occupation sites, the most famous of which is around 30,000 years old. So, the decline towards extinction of the woolly rhinoceros doesn’t coincide so much with the first appearance of humans in the region.”
Dalén and team studied the DNA from tissue, bone, and hair samples of 14 individual woolly rhinos. By analysing the genetic diversity of the genomes, the researchers were able to estimate changes in population size. For example, genetic diversity is reduced by inbreeding, which in turn suggests a smaller population.
The researchers found that the woolly rhino population increased around 29,000 years ago, remaining stable until the data ended at 18,500 years ago, long after humans arrived in the region. The team concludes that woolly rhino numbers must have declined between around 18,500 and 14,000 years ago, which overlaps with the Bølling–Allerød warming period.
“Although we can’t rule out human involvement, we suggest that the woolly rhinoceros’ extinction was more likely related to climate,” said lead author, Edana Lord.
“Their decline doesn’t coincide with the first appearance of humans”