WI: Long term survival of AUSTRALIAN megafauna?

I've seen this done in the threads on North America, but to me, this possibility seems much more interesting. The extinction of the Australia megafauna seems not to have happened in a blitzkrieg wave of extinctions as occured in the Americas, but instead was a slow process, running from around 60,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Now, surviving Australian megafauna, if we erect a "butterfly net", will not start to directly affect world history for a long time, but still, there is reason to believe that the Chinese may sit up and take much more of an interest in a very different Australia. How likely is it that creatures such as Diprotodon and the marsupial elephant could have been domesticated?

And assuming that this does not happen, and Australia is not discovered by Europeans until the 17th century, how long does it take for the Australian megafauna to die out, and what goes first?
 
I think you're right about one thing. If the aboriginals haven't been able to kill these poor animals off, the Europeans will.

And if the Europeans don't, then introduced species like goats, cattle, sheep and bunnies! will start to outcompete them in grazing. Camals will be alright, since they tend to eat stuff the Aussie animals don't.
 

Keenir

Banned
Now, surviving Australian megafauna, if we erect a "butterfly net", will not start to directly affect world history for a long time, but still, there is reason to believe that the Chinese may sit up and take much more of an interest in a very different Australia. How likely is it that creatures such as Diprotodon and the marsupial elephant could have been domesticated?

if you mean domesticated like Asian elephants, quite a lot seems to be likely canidates. if you mean domesticated like dogs and horses, diprotodon at least.
 
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