Page 18 - Dainfern Precinct_Issue 4_2022

NATURE

We’re in the process of slaying
and consuming megafauna to

the point of extinction

Image: Nam-Anh,Unsplash
TO BE BIG IS

DANGEROUS Image: Sebastian Pociecha,Unsplash

BY JAMES CLARKE AND MARY BROADLEY

n the 1990s an American predicted that, if present trends region for tourists interested in seeing
futurologist wrote an essay offering continued, the world’s megafauna – the world’s surviving megafauna.
educated predictions from various megafauna meaning the larger-sized Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and
US universities about what the wild animals – will experience falls in Zimbabwe could also benefit.
Iworld might be like in a century’s population and some species would
time. I cannot recall the title or author’s be extinct or heading that way before There’s not much megafauna left in
name but I recall one of the predictions. the end of the century. the world. The Asians have very little.
It was that South Africa’s southeast Its tigers, its three species of rhino
coastline would become America’s Implicit (but unstated) in their findings and the Asian elephant barely exist
favourite region for beach holidays. is that, once again, South Africa in the wild and are generally deemed
by default would benefit because to be ‘critically endangered’. And
Even then, 30 years ago, science was we will likely emerge as the most present-day North America never had
predicting that sea levels would rise accessible and accommodating much megafauna, certainly nothing
as the poles melted. Global warming,
unless controlled, would radically alter
the world’s shorelines. It predicted
that, by the time toddlers of the 1990s
were in their dotage, the rising seas
would have wiped out most of the
world’s favourite beaches – with one
exception, the south-eastern Cape.
There, the coastal dunes are five
deep and no matter how the seas
might rise and push inland, they
cannot demolish more than the first
one or two ridges, which is why South
Africa’s eastern seaboard would
become America’s (and the world’s)
favourite region for beach holidays. Image: Mary Broadley
Last month (April), a co-ordinated
effort by universities across the world
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