Human eco-impact on prehistoric Australia

"A shifting diet of two flightless birds inhabiting Australia tens of thousands of years ago is the best evidence yet that early humans may have altered the continent's interior with fire, changing it from a mosaic of trees, shrubs and grasses to the desert scrub evident today, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team ...

"The earliest human colonizers in Australia are believed to have arrived by sea from Indonesia about 50,000 years ago, using fire as a tool to hunt, clear paths, signal each other and promote the growth of certain plants ...

"More than 85 percent of Australia's large mammals, birds and reptiles weighing more than 100 pounds went extinct shortly after humans arrived, including 19 species of marsupials, a 25-foot-long lizard and a Volkswagen-sized tortoise ..."
Source: Science Daily