Mammoth Extinction: Wild and Woolly?

The Woolly mammoth once roamed across vast areas 0f Ice-Age Europe; Asia and even the fringes of North America. The global climate, however, started warming about 12,000 years ago. Human hunters also became a serious threat. This resulted, about 10,000 years ago, in Woolly mammoth dying out on all mainland areas. Rising sea levels, however, had resulted in a 'pocket population' being cut off on the Arctic's Wrangel Island. Remarkably, the Woolly mammoth survived in this location for another 6000 years. This isolated population, of course, had been subject to a 'bottlenecking' event, resulting in inbreeding and low genetic diversity. It had generally been assumed that 'genomic meltdown' alone, caused the final Woolly mammoth extinction on Wrangel Island. A new genetic analysis suggests, however, that a freak event must also have been involved. This could have been the arrival of a new pathogen or an extreme storm. Low genetic diversity wouldn't have helped the animals deal with new challenges. The population was, however, doing quite well, until it suddenly disappeared. Multiple factors, consequently, seem to be implicated in this extinction event.