Dec 15, 2022
66 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, causing the fifth
mass extinction of species on earth. With the dinosaurs gone, new
species proliferated all over the planet. Now we're in the sixth
extinction––this time caused by people. But when did it start? And
what happened on on this continent in particular?
Dan Flores' new book, Wild New World: The
Epic Story of Animals & People in America, explores the
deep history of the North American continent, which was once
populated by giant bison and mammoths, massive eagles and condors,
ground sloths and dire wolves––all of whom were here when human
beings first arrived tens of thousands of years ago––and how people
affected their environment and its animals, from the first
migrating bands to the wildly destructive European colonizers.