Four animals being eaten into extinction by gourmets in China and around the world

History has shown that humans have caused the extinction of many animal species.

A 225kg, two-metre flightless Australian bird, the Genyornis newtoni, was eaten to extinction 50,000 years ago. “We consider this the first and only secure evidence that humans were directly preying on now-extinct Australian megafauna,” says Gifford Miller, the associate director of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. “We have documented these characteristically burned Genyornis eggshells at more than 200 sites across the continent.”