TPO 34 Integrated Task

In the given set of materials, the focus of the passage is on the reasons which might have caused the extinction of the Steller's sea cows lived near coast of Siberia. While the writer puts forward three possible reasons for the topic, the professor casts doubt on each reason and claims that there are problems with each one.

First and foremost, according to the passage, overhunting by native Siberian people may have caused the sea cows extinction as they were great source of food. However, the professor refutes this reason by stating that these creatures were massive animals, that some of them weights up to ten tons, and a few numbers of them would be sufficient as food for months. Also, the native Siberian population was not very large, and hence, there was no logical reason for them to overhunt these animals.

Second, in the writer's view, ecosystem disturbances may have caused a scarcity of these creature's source of food which led to their extinction, On the other hand, the professor challenges this notion by mentioning that was this the case, then other parts of the ecosystem would have been affected as well such as a decline in whale population. But there is no evidence of such damages. Therein, this claim is not convincing.

Last but not least, the professor rejects the third reason of the writer, killed by European fur traders which led to extinction, by pointing out that by the time they arrived in Siberia, population of these animals was already small. Therefore, something else was causing the extinction long before the arrival of Europeans.