Saber tooth cats and many other animals (like short-faced bears, mammoths, and wild horses) disappeared from their habitats in Alaska, Canada and Siberia many thousands of years ago. Interestingly enough, these animals all disappeared around the same time. The most widely accepted explanations for these disappearances are that humans hunted them to extinction or the climate and environment changed.

A recent study (in the 26 November 2004 issue of Science) using DNA from bison fossils has been cited to suggest that climate and the environment could no longer support these animals in addition to extinction by human hunting. Along with colleagues, science writer Beth Shapiro in the UK has been able to reveal the occurrence of a drastic reduction of bison approximately 37 thousand years ago. At this time, there weren’t enough humans around to cause such a reduction in species. The connection between bison and saber tooth cats is simple. If bison suffered due to a change in the environment or climate, then other larger animals would too. Bison are useful in that they are a much more commonly found fossil than saber tooth cats.

The scientists theorize that because the bison population dipped so low right before glaciers moved across Northern America, the climate and environment must have been experiencing dramatic change. Grasslands were transforming into forests among many other things. It is possible that when the human population increased the additional pressure from hunting drove these animals to extinction.