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There were smaller populations of humans, but not smaller populations of mammals in general.

With our skill at making meat, I wonder how true that is.

Bison are much better at making meat than we ever were, before we all but wiped them out. Google piles of bison skulls for a peek.

I think the comparison is hard more than it is obvious. There's an awful lot of humans, pets and livestock.

A quick google search shows around 5 billion goats, cows, pigs, and sheep, 1.5 billion cats and dogs, and 8 billion humans.

Compared to an estimated 130 billion wild mammals. That’s without the vast herds of herbivores that used to roam the plains of the world.

It does make one wonder about oral traditions of 'cursed' lands...

Something like 100 billion people have died in the last 50k years, and it doesn't really seem like prions from their corpses have been a problem.