Species loss is sometimes considered a purely modern phenomenon, but humans have been exterminating wildlife since prehistory. A prominent theory explaining the extinction of megafauna (large animals such as mastodons, sabertooth cats, mammoths, American lions, and the now topical dire wolves) is geoscientist Paul Martin’s overkill hypothesis, suggesting that humans rapidly hunted many big game animals to extinction.
In the Americas and Australia, where humans first arrived later than in Eurasia or Africa, human beings proved particularly deadly, as local species were unused to coexisting with homo sapiens and had not developed ways of surviving human interaction. As science writer Sharon Levy’s book on megafauna notes, the last 50,000 years saw about 90 genera of large mammals go extinct, amounting to over 70% of America’s largest species and over 90% of Australia’s.
In fact, such exterminations continued throughout the preindustrial era. New Zealand provides a relatively recent example of an overkill extinction. People first settled in New Zealand in the late 13th century. In only 100 years, humans exterminated 10 species of moa, along with at least 15 other kinds of native birds, including ducks, geese, pelicans, coots, the Haast’s eagle, and an indigenous harrier.
Today, few people know that lions, hyenas, and leopards are all native to Europe but were eliminated from the continent by human activity in antiquity. As historian Richard Hoffmann notes in his book An Environmental History of Medieval Europe, lions, hyenas, and leopards had “vanished from Mediterranean Europe by the first century BCE, and bear populations in both the Balkans and the Apennines were much reduced.”
He notes that “elimination of all the now proverbially ‘African’ animals — lion, elephant, zebra, etc. — from areas north of the Sahara was complete by the fourth century CE … These purposely targeted ‘trophy’ organisms [were] pursued on cultural grounds beyond all reasonable expenditure of energy.”
Countless species have been exterminated from large parts of their native habitats or were driven to extinction in the preindustrial era. Hoffmann further notes, “Such prized game as bear, wolf, and wild pig were extirpated from the British Isles by the end of the Middle Ages. The last individual specimen of the great native European wild ox, the aurochs, was killed by a known noble hunter in Poland in 1637.”
In Iceland, by the 12th and 13th centuries, the walruses that once lived on the southwest coast were gone. The examples of premodern species depletion go on and on.
In the modern era, some claim that extinctions have accelerated, with alarmists such as Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich even going so far as to say we’re in the midst of a sixth “mass extinction.” That is, by any account, a gross exaggeration. The last true mass extinction occurred some 65.5 million years ago, when the dinosaurs died, long before humans existed.
In reality, for the past 50 years, species populations are no longer shrinking in wealthy countries, and in many cases, they are increasing. According to a 2023 investigation, poor countries’ populations have also stopped declining. “The extremely large number of species that are said to be continuously dying out comes from theoretical models of insects and even smaller organisms that are assumed to disappear,” the author notes.
Wild animals are coming back in rich areas of the world, with a resurgence of bison, boars, ibexes, seals, turtles, and more. European wolf conservation efforts have been such a success that many people now see the exploding wolf population as out of control, and Sweden is even seeking to cull 10% of its wolves through hunts. Last year, thanks to the growth in their numbers, the Iberian lynx wildcat, the red-cockaded woodpecker, and the Apache trout all ceased to be endangered.
Not only is it clear that humans were much more likely to drive large animals to extinction in the past than they are today, but for the first time, we are trying to bring past forms of wildlife back. What explains this dramatic shift?
As human beings have grown wealthier, they have also come to care about environmental stewardship and gained the resources to act upon their newfound compassion for wildlife. For most of history, animal welfare was not a concern. Hoffman relates that “late antique and early medieval writers often articulated an adversarial understanding of nature, a belief that it was not only worthless and unpleasant, but actively hostile to … humankind.”
Today, in contrast, many people voluntarily exert enormous effort toward protecting species and even attempt to reengineer extinct creatures back into existence. It turns out that human progress isn’t only good for humanity. Growing prosperity and advancing technology have enormous potential to benefit many beloved and majestic animal species. Perhaps even extinct ones!
