hello tweets,

i thought you all might be interested in this story from today's
washington post (3.27.00)

regards,

Deborah Wisti-Peterson email:nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
<><><>Graduate School: it's not just a job, it's an indenture!<><><>


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 12:13:37 -0500

SCIENCE NOTEBOOK


Compiled from reports by Curt Suplee and Rob Stein.
Monday , March 27, 2000 ; A11

Fastest Documented Extinction

When Maori settlers arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia in the 13th
century, they were met by the sight of large, flightless birds known as
moas. The settlers quickly developed a taste for the friendly creatures,
and began killing and eating them in large numbers. Eventually, all 11
species of moa became extinct.

It has long been assumed that it took about 1,000 years for the
relatively small number of humans to completely wipe out every one of
the estimated 160,000 moas. A new analysis of bones and other evidence,
however, shows that it took less than 160 years, making the extinction
the fastest such kill-off ever documented.

Richard N. Holdaway of Palaecol Research and Christopher Jacomb of the
Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, who conducted the
analysis, concluded that the quick extinction was possible because of
several factors, including the creature's low reproductive rate. The
birds, which stood more than 6 feet tall and weighed up to 440 pounds,
laid only one or two eggs at a time.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said
Jared Diamond of the University of California at Los Angeles in an
article accompanying the report in the March 24 issue of Science. "Then
there were no more moas; soon, there will be no more Chilean sea bass,
Atlantic swordfish, and tuna. I wonder what the Maori who killed the
last moa said. Perhaps the Polynesian equivalent of 'Your ecological
models are untested, so conservation measures would be premature'? No,
he probably just said, 'Jobs, not birds,' as he delivered the fatal
blow."