Moa, Exterminated by Extremely Low Density Human Population (IMAGE)
Caption
This is a restoration of an upland moa, Megalapteryx didinus.
A new study suggests that the flightless birds named moa were completely extinct by the time New Zealand's human population had grown to two and half thousand people at most.
The new findings, which appear in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, incorporate results of research by international teams involved in two major projects led by Professor Richard Holdaway (Palaecol Research Ltd and University of Canterbury) and Mr. Chris Jacomb (University of Otago), respectively.
The researchers calculate that the Polynesians whose activities caused moa extinction in little more than a century had amongst the lowest human population densities on record. They found that during the peak period of moa hunting, there were fewer than 1500 Polynesian settlers in New Zealand, or about 1 person per 100 square kilometres, one of the lowest population densities recorded for any pre-industrial society.
Credit
George Edward Lodge
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