At the time, a changing climate caused sea levels to rise, shrinking both the island’s size and the mammoth herd. Hundreds of miles away from the mainland, it was uninhabited except for a few species of small mammals, like arctic foxes, and one big one: woolly mammoths. As sea levels rose around the island, the salt water pushed inland and displaced some of the freshwater, so the mammoths had less to drink. Changes in sea levels that would have been relatively inconsequential for continents were magnified on tiny St. Paul Island. The authors argue that this extinction offers important lessons about freshwater availability and island populations in a changing climate.

Source: New York Times August 01, 2016 19:00 UTC