Archaeological evidence shows that, in a manner similar to Easter Island, the first settlers cleared forests by burning them and feasted on the birds, fish, turtles, and bats. The archaeological middens (trash piles) show that they extirpated numerous species of plants, birds, and bats; that the fish and shellfish numbers declined dramatically; and that the average sizes of these organisms was drastically reduced. By the end of the first thousand years of residency, the initial food resources were gone and Tikopians began to raise pigs as a major protein source. Suddenly, about 500 years later, the people killed every pig on the island. This is most likely because ________.
A) they were having a huge celebration of some event, such as a victory over an enemy
B) they realized they were better off eating vegetables than feeding vegetables to pigs and eating pigs
C) they had a serious problem, such as a prolonged drought, and sacrificed the pigs to their gods
D) they were tired of pork
E) their chiefs made it taboo to eat pork