Though a sitting duck, this bird died off slowly

It's California's archaeological equivalent of the dodo bird, and the fate of this all-but-forgotten flightless duck that disappeared 2,500 years ago is reviving debate over the theory that prehistoric hunters drove to extinction woolly mammoths and other large creatures that once roamed the North American continent, according to a new study.

The legacy of this land-bound bird also serves to remind modern humans how best to protect imperiled species still in our midst, added Brian Codding, an archaeology Ph.D. student at Stanford University who contributed to the study published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study describes solid evidence that prehistoric people, like their modern counterparts, pushed other species over the brink. said Terry Jones, the lead author and an anthropolo

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