AH Challenge: Prevent an Extinction

[blueczar]

Dinosaurs! But only in the Americas.. this would be a nice suprise for Columbus I'd like to know long would it take Europe to colonise a dinosaur-filled Americas?

 

[Ran Exilis]

One more thing: with this challenge, I meant preventing extinctions that were caused by humans and/or human activity (such as deforestration or the introduction of foreign species), or at least extinctions that took place in the age of human civilisations.

 

[Ran Exilis]

And a new suggestion (of which I am suprised that this hasn't been brought up yet): what if rabbits,
and consequently foxes, were never introduced in Australia?

That POD shouldn't be too hard, and it should certainly save quite a few species...

 

[mojojojo]

Why would Dodos have to become a food source to survive? I think it would be more likely that they would survive as ornamental birds if only people had taken up breeding them

 

[Emperor Qianlong]

Since it seems to have somehow become my thing...domesticated moa!

The problem with the Moa was their slow reproduction rate. Having no natural predators in New Zealand that would hunt them, Moas were extreme K-strategists and did reproduce only once every five years. Obviously this did contribute to their extinction since the Moas were uncapable of quickly replacing their numbers upon being hunted by the Polynesians. In fact, only very little hunting activity would have been necessary to hunt them into extinction. Also, this would have made domestication kinda tricky.

 

[The Dean]

And a new suggestion (of which I am suprised that this hasn't been brought up yet): what if rabbits,
and consequently foxes, were never introduced in Australia?

That POD shouldn't be too hard, and it should certainly save quite a few species...

Don't forget the Cane Toads !

 

[mojojojo]

The problem with the Moa was their slow reproduction rate. Having no natural predators in New Zealand that would hunt them, Moas were extreme K-strategists and did reproduce only once every five years. Obviously this did contribute to their extinction since the Moas were uncapable of quickly replacing their numbers upon being hunted by the Polynesians. In fact, only very little hunting activity would have been necessary to hunt them into extinction. Also, this would have made domestication kinda tricky.

Wasn't there a giant eagle that hunted them?

 

[Ran Exilis]

Wasn't there a giant eagle that hunted them?

Indeed there was; Haast's eagle, Harpagornis moorei, the largest eagle known to science.

 

[Keenir]

easy!:

the Dusky Seaside Sparrow's population is halted at 100, and intensive efforts to re-establish the population are successful.

(in OTL, this was probably one of the few species that perished from frustration...the last 7 individuals were all male, and the government dithered about whether to save them even when they reached that point...some folks bred the Duskies to a related species, producing hybrids that the government said made the Duskies' hybrids no longer qualified for protection as an endangered species)