Final answer:
The Cenozoic dodo and the moas of New Zealand were exterminated due to human activities such as overhunting and the introduction of invasive species, not by natural events like meteorite impacts or volcanic eruptions.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Cenozoic dodo and the moas of New Zealand were large flightless birds that were exterminated by human activities. This extinction occurred as a result of the overhunting by humans, and the introduction of invasive species by human travelers, which greatly impacted the ecology of these birds. The moa birds, for instance, were hunted to extinction within a few hundred years after humans arrived in New Zealand.
Contrastingly, mass extinctions such as the one at the end of the Cretaceous period, which marked the demise of the dinosaurs, were caused by a meteorite impact. Such cosmic and geological events had previously been responsible for rapid changes in Earth's ecosystems and the mass extinction of species. However, the extinction of the dodo and moas can be directly linked to human interference rather than such natural events.