Ashley Explores The Arts

Giant tortoises, dodo birds, and humans. What do they all have in common? They all lived together at one point.

The islands of Madagascar and Mascarene are home to many mega fauna. A word not often used but referring to the animals that weigh 22 pounds or more. These islands are extremely biodiverse. However, because of human existence, they have lost a majority of their native species.

According to Julia Jacobo, a reporter for ABC News, there has been new research on the two islands. Researchers have studied about, “8,000 years of climate data from cave mineral deposits,” Jacobo said in her article. With the use of these deposits it shows that climate change alone did not cause extinction.

Madagascar and Mascarene were two of the last places on earth to be invaded by humans. Not long after humans took over the islands, the giant tortoise became extinct. Following that, in the late 17^th centaury, the dodo bird went extinct as well.

The giant tortoises and dodo bird’s extinction have been thought to be caused by human activities. As Jacobo says in her article the tortoise and dodo bird survived “repeated megadroughts over several thousand years.” The species thrived before humans arrived at the islands because there was nothing to upset the balance of flora and fauna. The use of this study is proving that humans and climate change are killing off the native features of earth.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/humans-contributed-extinction-dodo-bird-giant-tortoise-madagascar/story?id=73564865&cid=clicksource_4380645_18_big_feature_bf_image