Reply #50: Heavy reforestation probably had a lot to do with it too. [View All]

[Xithras]

There were far fewer trees across much of North America and Eurasia during the last ice age, with vast expanses of the semi-frozen grasslands that they were adapted to. When the ice began to recede many of these grasslands turned into marshlands and forests, two environments that they couldn't survive in (dense forest made them easy pickings for predators, and they were too large for marshes). What little remained of the cool grasslands they required was too fragmented to maintain a large population. Early human hunting was simply the final blow against a species that was on its way to extinction anyway. Even if there were no humans on this planet, it is highly unlikely that there would be any mammoth today.