Reintroduce Megafauna to North America? 855
sneakers563 writes "A team of scientists is proposing reintroducing large mammals such as elephants, lions, cheetahs and wild horses to North America to replace populations lost 13,000 years ago. The scientists say that parks could be set up as breeding sanctuaries for species of large wild animals under threat in Africa and Asia, and that such ecological history parks could be major tourist attractions. 'Africa and parts of Asia are now the only places where megafauna are relatively intact, and the loss of many of these species within this century seems likely,' the team said."
The Wilds (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Wilds (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Wilds (Score:5, Interesting)
She went on to explain that, although they have paddocks with high electric fences to keep their current populations where they want them, they are inadequate for elephants. In other words, electric fence or not, elephants will just roll right on through. The investment, she said, needed to implement proper barriers to keep the elephants from just trampling into whatever area of the park they so desire (and to keep them from simply exiting the park) is too cost prohibitive to make any economic sense.
So, long story short, no elephants at the wilds. She did say they were considering getting some big cats. I don't know if she meant tigers or lions or what. Personally, I hope they get ligers. They're my favorite animal.
Re:The Wilds (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Wilds (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Wilds (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, a Liger is in many ways a sad, pathetic creature, bred solely for human amusement.
The folks at Turpentine Creek [tigers.tc], a big cat refuge near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, have a retired circus Liger named Jade [tigers.tc]. His story on the site is pretty cool, but when you visit in person, they'll tell you about the problems he has "fitting in". Lions and tigers just don't socialize together -- they commu
15 ft high wall? Like Palestine? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Wilds (Score:3, Insightful)
Breeding big cats isn't particularly difficult and if anything there's a huge excess of them in captivity. Most of them are mutts that are useless for conservation purposes.
Re:The Wilds (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it's also sad and depressing in a way. It's certainly better than seeing them cooped up in cages at a zoo, but at the same time, it is not a natural environment.
For true re-introduction of these species in North America, we would absolutely _have_ to provide an enourmous amount of space for a proper reserve to have any chance of these animals being able to exist 'in the wild'. IE, independant of reliance on humans to survive at the basic level.
Another point to be made is that we do have mega-fauna in North America that I would like to give this chance to well before I would want to see us importing animals from other continents. The North American mega-fauna that went extinct here is NOT the same as the mega-fauna that currently exists in other parts of the world.
It would be wonderful to have a massive wild reserve in North America where Grizzlies, Wolves, Buffalo and numerous other endangered North American species could actually exist in their natural state devoid of human pressure.
Re:The Wilds (Score:5, Funny)
We have such a place. We call it "Canada".
Yaz.
Re:The Wilds (Score:3, Funny)
Already been done (Score:5, Funny)
Help me out here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Help me out here (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Help me out here (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Help me out here (Score:5, Funny)
Both are very far from any known civilisation.
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Informative)
North America is no stranger to large, free roaming, wild cats. [wikipedia.org] Most of the time, we get along just fine (read: leave each other alone).
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Help me out here (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh man... I was working as a cereal chemist in the summer/fall while I was on 'summer' break between my freshman and sophomore year of university. One of the things was collecting grain samples during harvest since the U of MN started later than North Dakota State University.
So I was collecting barley and wheat samples where ND, SD, and MN meet. Talked to the farmer and he pointed out the grain bin I could snag a sample. Drive out, pull out my bags, look up... and see what looked like tiger... about 300 yards out. Scrambled for my camera, but it was gone by the time I had the lens off. (better judgment off) So after a few minutes of nothing I get out of the car, climb to the top of the bin, collect my samples, and look around. No tiger. A couple more stops and I would go home for the weekend.
Walking back to the car -*POW*- I find myself face down in the dirt with something on my back purring. The lowest rumble I've ever heard/felt. Role over and am face to face with a cougar. It let me up and it is still there purring like crazy. I scratched it behind the ears like a cat.
The farmer drives up and looks with a bit of surprise. He then tells me the cougar was a pet when it was young, but broke its leg when it slid off the kitchen table. It was declawed, but (amazingly) ended up getting to big for an indoor pet even with the stunted growth. They let it go on the property. The farmer tells me usually it hides from strangers, but one of its favorite games was pounce. He shows me. Turns his back on the cat, and watched that thing go into hunt mode. Took a bunch of pictures with the cat, loaded up my samples, and about five minutes down the road just stopped the car because I was shaking so bad. Nothing like almost finding yourself lower on the food chain. The stunned silence was something else when I called in and gave a status update on how things went. Well, I got jumped by a cougar today...
Re:Help me out here (Score:5, Funny)
That actually happened to me a few weeks ago. It was my friends bachelor party, and I was just standing there with a Labatt's in my hand... and all of a sudden... BAM!
She made me breakfast in the morning.
Tiger & Big Cat Sanctuary - Arkansas (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Informative)
Cougars and mountain lions are regional names for the same animal, Felix concolor. Also, "panther".
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Informative)
Where I'm from, several people have lost pets to those things. While it's true that pumas (we call them mountian lions here) are generally afraid of humans, the ones that live close to populated areas tend to get too used to humans and lose there natural fear of humans. This is when they can become dangerous. Several people in Colorado have been attacked by them over the years.
Re:Help me out here (Score:5, Interesting)
About a month ago I encountered a cougar that was crouched along the edge of a nearby forest (about forty feet from the nearest building). I see all sorts of other animals in that area, but the cougar was a real surprise; I was in the area, about twenty-five feet from the cougar, for about five minutes before I noticed that the forest line didn't look quite right. Stared at it for a bit and finally made out the head and ears. It was just watching me, apparently waiting for me to leave so it could continue on it's merry way. It noticed that I had seen it and froze with a wide-eyed "oh shit!" look and since I didn't want him to panic I backed out of the area and left. I wasn't concerned since mountain lion attacks are extremely rare, and when they do happen it's almost always when the animal has the element of surprise, which this one clearly didn't.
Haven't seen him since, but that doesn't mean he isn't around. There've been fewer deer coming by so I think he's still in the general area. In any event, it's common for cougars to be near and for people to walk right by them without noticing them because they're so good at remaining hidden. Nothing to be alarmed about.
Max
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, here in Europe, forests are growing back and reclaiming abandoned farmland that it is no longer profitable to keep in use. People are moving into the cities, and population growth rates are negative in many countries. The changes are vast, and wolves and other larger animals that were made extinct in western Europe long ago have moved back in.
Environmentalists are not all amused, however. A lot of adapted wildlife will go bye bye along with the farmland, as new-
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Interesting)
Horse manure (Score:3, Informative)
Belief is nice, but often facts smack it upside the ass. North America had mammoths, mastodons, sabre-toothed tigers [google.com], camels, and -- yes -- horses [plosjournals.org]. In fact, horses evolved in North America [humboldt.edu] and only later spread to Eurasia. The locals went extict 11,000 years ago.
As far as we know, native North American horses were never domesticated. The domesticable wild mustangs were just feral horses brought over by the c
I wonder which of these is most likely? (Score:5, Funny)
vs
It's coming right for us! Quick Ned, shoot it
Re:I wonder which of these is most likely? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I wonder which of these is most likely? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I wonder which of these is most likely? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really (Score:3, Insightful)
Enough! (Score:2, Insightful)
Those animals are dwindling in numbers for a reason and should remain as such. Believe it or not that's the nature of the Earth. Superior animals control populations of other animals and sometimes entire populations die creating chain reactions.
I am thrilled that we have advanced enough
What?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What?! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What?! (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, anything that eats lawyers is fine with me.
Re:What?! (Score:4, Funny)
Kirby
Re:What?! (Score:3, Insightful)
These are apes, not dinosaurs. (Score:4, Funny)
How could apes and nuclear war be bad? There's plenty of planet for everyone.
Dumb idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Let us not forget all of the other misguided attempts at relocation. (Rabbits and cane toads in oz, anyone?)
Lets not forget how far south the North American winter pushes - sure, I can totally see a lion in Nebraska... with 50mph north winds and horizontally falling snow.
A Little Late (Score:5, Interesting)
So 13,000 years after relatives of these megafauna disappeared from North America, they want to import their cousins?
Seems the continent has had 13,000 years for it's ecosystems to adapt to the current state of things, why screw it up with sudden introduction of species that weren't actually here in the first place? And if so why stop there? I'm sure Velociraptors wandered Texas long ago.
Now if they wanted to bring back to vast herds of buffalo, sure.
Re:A Little Late (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems the continent has had 13,000 years for it's ecosystems to adapt to the current state of things, why screw it up with sudden introduction of species that weren't actually here in the first place?
Maybe because in most places the ecosystem has not adapted very well at all. For the last several hundred years pretty much every large predator in North America has been brought to the brink of extinction except one, humans. Sure there are some mountain lions here or there, and a few wolves (that are mostly wolf coyote hybrids now), but they are all endangered species. The life of the typical wild herd animal, like deer, usually ends with being killed by a human or by dying slowly of disease or starvation. I can't tell you how many game animals I've disposed of because half their face was rotted away by some disease and there are no predators left to kill the sick ones.
With decreasing space for animals to live, the overcrowding and resultant disease and starvation is getting much worse. Now this proposal to introduce large foreign species may or may not help the situation. What really needs to happen is a reduction in human overpopulation, but I don't see that happening anytime soon either.
Re:A Little Late (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Little Late (Score:3)
The human unwillingness to fulful the role of the missing predators is.
This is partially true, but it is coupled with the fact that we are removing more and more habitat suitable for them and they are being forced to live in the burbs. One of the reasons humans are unwilling to fulfill that role is because it is illegal (and dangerous to other humans) to hunt in the areas where many of these animals live. City parks are holding special goose hunting days in an effort to stem part of the problem. People
Re:A Little Late (Score:4, Insightful)
But, these scientists really don't have a clue what kind of buzz saw they would face trying to introduce foreign predators in to the U.S. Farmers and ranchers who have substantial political clout, especially with the current administration, would fight it to the death unless its in heavily fenced parks more like zoos. They need to look no further than the massive resistance there has been to protecting and reintroducing the grizzly and wolves.
I saw on the news a week or so ago states around Yellowstone are probably going to resume hunting the formerly endangered grizzly bear if they are foolish enough to wander outside the bounds of the park. Ranchers have zero tolerance for predators, and they control most of the land not in parks.
One reason elephants are endangered is they don't mesh well with farmers or any kind of civilization because its nearly impossible to stop them from demolishing farms, unless you put them in small areas with major, expensive, fencing.
Even the scope of a buffalo commons is too huge (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you, this makes little sense. Importing cheetahs isn't going to necessarily result in their preying on pronghorn -- whose natural predators we don't really understand. (They're an evolutionary backwater: pronghorn are way fast, can run forever unlike cheet
Re:A Little Late (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A Little Late (Score:3, Informative)
European explorers gave the American bison the name of buffalo. They thought they looked like cattle. The French called them les boeufs. English explorers mispronounced that as "labuff" or "buffle." Eventually, everyone's just calling them Buffalo.
Where I live (South Dakota) there are at least 4 major herds in the relatively near vicinity.
Re:A Little Late (Score:3, Informative)
Buffalo are "Bubalus arnee", Bison are "Bison bison". They're both bovines, but that's where their similarity ends. It'd be like calling a cow a buffalo.
Buffalo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/ 3 3/Indonesia-Bull.jpg/180px-Indonesia-Bull.jpg [wikimedia.org]
Bison: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8 d/American_bison.jpg/200px-American_bison.jpg [wikimedia.org]
As you can see, they don't look anything alike.
Re:A Little Late (Score:3, Insightful)
You say buffalo, I say tomato..... (Score:4, Funny)
A moot point. I bet they both taste like chicken...
Re:A Little Late (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, those wild places like iowa [theiowachannel.com]
If only... (Score:2, Insightful)
Futurama (Score:2)
How about have them privately owned (Score:2)
Tigers, oh my! (Score:2)
Still, it would be cool to go RVing to a park in this country and see live elephants. Maby even make a "fan-documentary" of roaming herds of elephants.
Old news, really (Score:3, Informative)
I'd Google for more references, but I have a plane to catch...
Climate (Score:3, Informative)
Elephants may be able to handle it through sheer size, but lions have no adaptations for cold. Nor do cheetahs.
Zoos and free-animal parks provide shelter that wild animals wouldn't have.
I say "Go for it!"... (Score:4, Interesting)
Then we can just let Darwin take care of the rest.
Because, you know, some people out there actually think this might be a good idea.
Perhaps there was a reason they all died (Score:2, Insightful)
I like elephants, lions, ligers, and tions as much as the next guy. Nonetheless, I'd rather have a nuclear plant near me then a wild animal preserve. I'd definately be a lot safer! I've heard some of those creatures can even do magic.
CNN's AP story (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/08/17/wild.am erica.ap/index.html [cnn.com]
The AP story ends with this memorable quote:
Donlan concedes that lions would be a tough sell to Americans.
"Lions eat people," he said. "There has to be a pretty serious attitude shift on how you view predators."
Re:CNN's AP story (Score:5, Funny)
That, my friend, is what I call a selling point.
I'm picturing a service, we'll call it Rent-A-Lion, where in you hire the services of a lion for the afternoon. Now, say you have a boss who's a prick or you just know an asshole who needs a good eatin', you just park this lion in their house and wait.
Brilliant I tell you. As an added bonus, there's always the possibility that the lion would eat the evidence.
Re:CNN's AP story (Score:3, Funny)
Beast in the Garden (Score:3)
What about wolves, bison, eagles? (Score:5, Interesting)
We have enough problems keeping the native species alive. Yes, it's important to save these animals, but should we be putting more effort into saving the animals than we put into bringing animals here from half a world away? I'd be more interested in seeing them hunting free/tamper free zones for native animals.
Re:What about wolves, bison, eagles? (Score:3, Interesting)
Eagles are too high in the area 99% of the time to attract tourists.
Bison look like hairy cows with dreadlocks. They are slow moving, typically boring, and will eat hay out of your hand if you stick it through the fence. Not much fun for tourists.
Wolves a
Extinction (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're telling me is that major extinctions happen without human intervention? Who knew? (Just don't tell the endangered species people.)
Megafauna might mean mega-problems (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, it seems like every time we introduce a non-native bit of flora and fauna to the North American landscape we end up with those jumping fish in the Mississippi river or kudzu all over everything in the South or
Outside of a very restricted park environment I can see a serious potential for tragedy here.
Species reintroductions elsewhere (Score:3, Informative)
Er - what's the problem with wolves? (Score:3, Funny)
Good heavens, educated people a hundred years ago knew wolves were no threat to people. And Bergen Evans, writing in the middle of the last century, could not find a single authenticated case of a wolf attacking a human being in the wild.
However, I hope to Hell they don't introduce those w
Great idea! (Score:4, Funny)
Quick reality check (Score:5, Funny)
Is this the same crew who was pushing for reanimation of that wooly mammoth a while back?
If these animals died out 13,000 years ago, doesn't the secular world view this as a mistake on the part of natural selection? Are we really going to second-guess that?
'Cause if we are, I'm gonna lobby for bigger guns and trample-insurance.
Ya know, there needs to be just one "idiot" packaged with all these overeducated intellectuals to put the brakes on now and then. Remember GM corn- how the scientists thought 200 yards was far enough away from natural corn to be safe....while forgetting that the typical native honeybee has a cruising range of over five miles?
Ya never see these people trying to reanimate the sabre-tooth tiger....wouldn't that be earnest, thoughtful re-instatement of missing species? Hey! Let's make a dragon!....
Re:Quick reality check (Score:5, Funny)
If these animals died out 13,000 years ago, doesn't the secular world view this as a mistake on the part of natural selection? Are we really going to second-guess that?
You see, the thing you forget is that the mammoth was killed off by overhunting from pre-historic men. Since men aren't natural, expecially the prehistoric type, we have to undo anything they've done. The world has to exist as if men were never here, because men are evil and vile.
Death to the human race (except for me, of course) so that the world can be a natural place!!
Re:Quick reality check (Score:3, Insightful)
See, the problem is that nobody can ever agree on what it means to be "natural," and whether "nature" is a desirable goal in itself.
A friend's comment: (Score:5, Funny)
Solution if it gets out of hand... (Score:3, Funny)
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Who are these "scientists"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Too many times the word "scientist" is banterred about to try to bring legitimacy to some wild claim. I'm no biologist, ecologist, etc, but I do know that just about every time we've intentionally or accidentally introduced species that aren't native to an area it's been a disaster. If you want examples, look no further than jack rabbits in Australia, zebra mussles in the great lakes, invasive algae in the mediteranean, and countless other examples.
About the only thing we have introduced to an area that hasn't been a disaster are the crops we farm. I suspect the only reason is that human influenced crops aren't hardy enough to survive on their own without us looking after them very carefully. Wild corn, or wild chickens don't seem to be taking over anywhere for instance.
Could the so-called scientists present some credentials please? This sounds more like media garbage than actual science.
Re:Can anybody... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can anybody... (Score:3, Interesting)
Animals out of their natural habitat can only lead to chaos in my (Somewhat educated, vey biased) opinion.
Re:Can anybody... (Score:2, Funny)
The existing species haven't lost their ability to handle firearms, so megafauna have no chance.
Re:Can anybody... (Score:3, Funny)
Am I the only person here who's never heard of "megafauna" before, and thinks it's a funny word?
Re:Can anybody... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can anybody... (Score:2)
Re:Can anybody... (Score:5, Funny)
Not nearly enough to justify the inevitable media outrage, but hopefully enough to severely reduce the number of stupid people in the country.
Re:Can anybody... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can anybody... (Score:5, Funny)
So basically you're planning on turning the Bible Belt into a wild animal sanctuary?
I'm down with that! 8)=
Re:Can anybody... (Score:5, Funny)
(We're being held hostage -- help!)
Re:Can anybody... (Score:3, Funny)
That would certianly be a step up from the current mushroom farm.
-
Re:We should slaughter the ones we have left! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's the other way around, but whatever. And there isn't much point of being at the top of the food chain if we keep making the food chain smaller and smaller by eliminating other species, which even if we don't eat can hurt us by starving species that we eat which in turn would eat the extinct animals, etc etc
Re:We should slaughter the ones we have left! (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez. I have mod points and I have to give up moderating in order to respond to this. Thanks.
So, based on the fact that Mountain Lions can kill people, should we also go after dogs? According to this site [tchester.org], in the U.S. between 1979 and the late 1990s, over 300 people were killed by dogs. That means your family dog is much more likely to kill you than any "wild animal".
Mountain lions are moving in next door to everybody.Not me. I live in the suburbs. People can choose to live wherever they want. If you choose to live in a hurricane zone, you will have hurricanes. If you choose to live in an earthquake zone, you will have earthquakes. If you choose to live in an area where Mountain Lions, Bobcats and Alligators live, you will see those animals (BTW, there are relatives of the Mountain Lion in Florida).
If people can't handle living in an area where wild animals live, either people should learn to deal with the results of their choice in living arrangements...or they should move.
For the record, I think bringing elephants and lions here to the US is a bad idea.
Re:We should slaughter the ones we have left! (Score:3, Informative)
And there are very, very few relatives of mountain lions in Florida. They're called panthers, and they're just about extinct. Count yourself very luck to see one, ever. However, there are alligators all over. Check out the University of Florida's campus sometime. Over 40k resident students and you'll still see alligator
Re:We should slaughter the ones we have left! (Score:4, Insightful)
No it doesn't. There are more than 300 times as many dogs in the United States than there are moutain lions. Dogs are more dangerous because there are more of them, not because they are more dangerous per animal. Your family dog is not more likely to kill you than a mountain lion.
Now that we've gotten past that part it would be safe to say that it would be very extremely unlikely to be killed by either a dog or a mountain lion.
Re:Can anybody... (Score:5, Funny)
Funny how you failed to point out the reason:
As is often the case, the problem is simple -- though by no means necessarily easy to solve: control the pigs. What's really "funny" is that as the supposedly most intelligent species on the planet, humans actually create a problem (indirectly or not) then fail to address it. Let's hope that they can control pigs.
Sorry but I got to say it: the Tanzanians have made their beds, now they have to lion them.
Re:Can it even work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is great for wiping up species when conditions change. If conditions change back then the survivors may find that they are not very well adapted to the n
Re:Can it even work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's stop the ecological guessing games.
Re:Can it even work? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think we might need the cure a bit sooner than that
Re:Can it even work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is great for wiping up species when conditions change. If conditions change back then the survivors may find that they are not very well adapted to the new conditions.
Evolution doesn't wipe out anything. Changing conditions or better competitors coming along does.
If conditions change back new spcies will evolve to fill the new conditions.
Re:Why don't (Score:5, Insightful)
What gets to me is that this is the shotgun method of protecting wildlife. Reproduce it en masse and numbers will take care of it. Not going to happen. Impact on wildlife will be made less when we stop chowing up the countryside to put in homes because we want not only new houses but new land too. We've got plenty of cities and suburbs chock full of disused and underused land where new buildings could easily replace old, where we can easily with modern technology put in efficient dense housing that won't become slums if we truly don't want them to...
Instead we demolish farmland and forest, put in subdivisions, subdivide the properties over the decades and make it denser, then leave it behind as too old and we chow up some other forest or farm and put in another subdivision. In CT in the USA, the woods in the western hills are being sliced through at an alarming rate for the middle exec level wealthy who work in the white collar city jobs and commute home to $1M+ homes that are built up into the woods and across former farms. Meanwhile the cities they work in are falling apart and full of six-family apartments that are boarded up and with a little investment and hard work could be made into fairly spacious single-family townhouses right there.
Most of these people will as they and their kids get older simply move on the ever "newer" developments, fleeing from the cities while continuing to work in them or in office parks on the immediate periphery, fueling the developers who keep grinding the countryside up and leaving us with decreasing space for the wildlife.
Here, that is the major issue. That is what is destroying the environment. Clearing of wild places to put in expensive houses, all the societal support things that go with them, roads to get there, etc. Meanwhile we're wrongly concerned with old things like mining and so on. Those are fanciful targets of the usual socialist suspects. I'm not, I live in a city, and there's plenty of good space still here just waiting to be improved on for the good of anyone living here. But people refuse to even consider it, leave it to the poor, and move on to their formaly wild now suburban confines comfortably far from the "old places" but still near enough to make money off of them.