I was studying Anthropology around the late 1980s and early 1990s at UCSC in Santa Cruz and other colleges along the way. One of the interesting things I learned was that ancestors of either Mayans or Aztecs hunted by driving herd animals off of cliffs as a less dangerous way of hunting for food. But, doing this was incredibly inefficient as a way of hunting because they drove extinct many herd animals in Mexico and Central America by doing this. Luckily they knew how to grow Corn and Beans which created a whole protein so they could survive this (the ones that survived after this) in Mexico and Central America. So, the biggest animals they had left to eat were Chickens maybe and possibly goats? or other smaller animals that they might have kept for food but bigger animals like Deer were completely gone from their potential larder for food.
This is one of many interesting facts regarding the original people (native North Americans) who lived in the areas we now call Central and South America.
After White people arrived after Columbus from at first Spain and then other countries all this changed a lot as we can see today because we brought with us horses and cattle and goats and likely chickens and other things as well for food on board ships and they got loose often and reproduced here in North America ongoing through time. OF course this also likely upset the ecological balance because this is what happens when you introduce new species into the ecology of any area on earth. And these species can be plants or animals or they can be mice or rats or even the mongoose from places like India and Asia.
The mongoose devastated places like the Hawaiian Islands for example when they were originally brought from India to kill the rats because the mongoose is much faster than the rats and could easily win in a battle. But, the mongoose did not like eating rats or fighting rats and instead liked the tropical birds found on the Hawaiian islands and so drove extinct many tropical birds along the way. Also, if you go to Kauai which is the northernmost visited island of the Hawaiian Island chain there are Asian Chickens which are very colorful wandering around and reproducing all over the place. In fact, one time my wife and I were sort of attacked by a rooster trying to eat our food at an outdoor restaurant but when he tried to jump on my knee to get to our food I moved my knee quickly and he fell on the ground before he got to our food. So, he was unsuccessful at attacking and getting our food. So, wild things you need to be aware of all over the place here on earth and be ready for anything when you are traveling.
For example, traveling in India and Nepal there are monkeys that range in size of a small monkey to ones that are almost as big as a human being and about 5 times as strong. So, you have to be careful to stay away from monkeys because they will attack if you irritate them or if you have food as a family and bite you all over. I have seen people attacked by families of monkeys and it isn't a pretty sight. So, I always gave families of monkeys a wide berth just like you should give families of Raccoons a wide berth so they won't attack you or your family and more likely your little dog at night here in the U.S.
Note: One fact I didn't share was that the rats came from the wooden ships that first visited Hawaii and they liked it there and stayed when the ships left. Remember, you only need one male rat and one female rat to overrun an island in the pacific and this happened starting in the early 1800s on the Hawaiian Islands. Then when they brought the mongoose from India to try to kill off the rats that didn't work either because the mongoose preferred the slower tropical birds who had no natural enemies at all on the islands. So, they quickly went extinct from the mongoose. So, the rat problem somewhat remains to this day on the islands along with the mongoose problems as well. The mongoose will still hang out in the jungles and rainforests of the islands and they like the city dumps and places like Mango Groves even today to hang out and to hunt for food. They are extremely quick and are faster than the King Cobras of India so people often keep them to keep away the Cobras from killing there children in India out in the country especially.
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