[MCN] What happened to China's grizzly bears?

[Lance Olsen]

News Release 23-Dec-2019
Cultural evolution caused broad-scale historical declines of large mammals across China
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
Researchers from Aarhus University and Nanjing University have shown that cultural evolution overshadowed climate change in driving historical broad-scale megafauna dynamics across China. By mining Chinese administrative records for data on species distributions and land use alongside climate data from 2 to 1953 CE, the researchers identified the millennia-long spread of agriculture and agricultural intensification as the main cause of the extirpation of the Asiatic elephant, Asian rhinoceroses, tiger, Asiatic black bear, and brown bear.

JOURNAL
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
 <https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/au-cec122319.php>Full release https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/au-cec122319.php <https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/au-cec122319.php>

I saw NO mention of China’s human population boom during these two centuries.  But that may have had a lot more to do with wiping out the animals than “culture” could ever do alone

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“Schwartz and others (2010) found that grizzly bear survival in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem declined 
as road density, number of homes, and site developments increased.”

Flathead National Forest Biological Assessment, December 2017 p. 104

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