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Reintroduce Megafauna to North America?
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."
I would have thought that they might lose some of their ability to handle the effects of megafauna...
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
Think of the logistics involved in maintaining a herd of elephants. Where are you going to put them?
Besides, species die out all the time regardless of human behaviour. Let's stop meddling with nature.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
The Wilds in Cumberland, OH has 10,000 acres with African, Asian, and North American animals.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Sounds like a zoo to me...
This sounds great in theory, but where in the US are we going to put free roaming lions so they will be no danger to persistantly encroaching civilization?
I, for one, welcome our new megafaunic overlords.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
parks could be set up as breeding sanctuaries
vs
It's coming right for us! Quick Ned, shoot it
I can see it now. A kid living in a ranch coming home from school might say, "Mom, this elephant followed me from the bus stop. Can we keep him?"
Or worse, large African felines would make for pretty demanding neighborhood cats if they're not fed what they want and on schedule!
Do they not think that they would affect what is currently inhabiting those parks? I see that this can be a real problem. Not to mention the law suits that might come if some kids tries to feed a lion and winds up being a meal.
Reintroducing the modern relatives of the Late Pleistocene losers to North America could spark fresh interest in conservation, contribute to biodiversity and begin to put right some of the wrongs caused by human activities.
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 scientifically to help with animal populations but I really think that we should just let it go and let the Earth work the way it has for billions of years.
Shit happens -- let's work with the way the world works rather than trying to recreate how it was all the time.
Elephants, cheetahs, and horses, oh my!
Has nobody seen Jurassic Park?!
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Now we can all hunt something other than nerd.
Excellent.
More proof that being "educated" means squat.
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.
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.
Think of the children!
Zoom Player Lead Dev.
we had facilities where we could breed and look over endangered species here in North America.
Politics, Life, and More on my Aspiring for the Future
Am I missing something, or does this sound alot like a zoo? Or are we actually trying to breed these animals in this country to stop their possible extinction?
I dont really see the point in doing this if it means taking them to a biome where they are not native. I am all for the protection of species, but not introducing them into environments they werent built for.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Hmm. 198 billion babies in a few weeks. We'll need an army of super-virile men scoring 'round the clock! I'll do my part. Kif, clear my schedule.
Reconciliation - Economics And The Environment
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.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
I'd Google for more references, but I have a plane to catch...
No one is going to try to steal stuff from your house if it's protected by a guard panther.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Chris
"You can drive out Nature with a pitchfork, but It always comes roaring back again." - Tom Waits
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.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
What makes these different from Safari Parks?
It's a nice idea and all, and I support it, but it isn't as if it is an amazing idea.
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.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Why is introducing biodiversity where it doesn't exist (and hasn't for generations) a good idea? Apart from the feel good part of the plan, the very real dangers involved as well as the cost make this seem like a waste of time.
Great idea, completely impractical, and potentially irresponsible.
If they all died out 13000 years ago it can't exactly be blamed on modern man. Even men of 13000 years ago wouldn't have been likely to systematically kill several species. There weren't that many people and they were still roaming around in small groups.
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.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/08/17/wild.am erica.ap/index.html
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."
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
Before adding to the North American wildlife, they might want to read Best in the Garden. Sure, they might try to contain these creatures in parks, but they will escape and learn to live with (or on) humans.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
They'll bait and steal the panther to sell it to some collector somewhere. *THEN* they'll steal the rest of your stuff. :/
Don't they know the next big ice age is just around the corner and they'll all just freeze to death??? Geez! ;)
...the Pirates of the Carribean don't eat the tourists." Hasn't this debate already been played out? Besides- the critters they're planning to "reintroduce" haven't really been here before. Sure, we used to have mammoths, wooly rhinos, and sabre-toothed cats in North America, but you can hardly call modern elephants, etc. the same thing. Why would anyone expect a different creature to adapt to the physical (and meteorological) environments that exist here today? Leave them where they are, and tell USAID to sponsor a higher bounty on the poachers than the poachers get for the threatened animals. The invisible hand will do the rest...
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
This is a horrible idea. These non-indigenous megafauna will compete with our own native megafauna , and could have the same deletorious effect we see in so many other ecosystems. Our big guys may be down, but they're not out yet. Mike Moore deserves this last chance, people. Let's not bring in a bunch of elephants to make it even harder on him.
Cattle ranchers in the western United States were already not very happy with the re-introduction of wolves to certain areas, so I don't think they'll be giving this idea a very warm welcome. And what about elephants? They eat a lot and they're so big that they pretty much go where they want. The farmers will be worried about that.
Forthermore, nobody really knows why the North American megafauna disappeared. Scientists used to think that the woolly mammoth went extinct because of human encroachment, but later studies indicated that it probably had more to do with climate change. Could that also be the case for their North American counterparts? There weren't many people around back then and eradicating all lions and elephants from the continent would seem like a pretty tall order.
I want my condos, strip malls, golf courses, air strips and every other fricken huge structure out there. I want it all and I want it in my back yard.
I haven't got any room left for a flock/herd of animals that were kicked off the continent 13000 years ago.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
If the elephants and lions and wild horses are smart enough to stop fucking the members of the herd that are obviously diseased and dying, then I say more goddamned power to them, welcome to the country, here's a slab of ribs to gnaw on.
And it's not "US imposed intellectual property laws" that are keeping those people from effective drugs, it's the fact that there AREN'T any effective drugs. HIV/AIDS will end when the people who have it finally STOP FUCKING HEALTHY PEOPLE and all die. Easy, quick, and morally unambiguous, ain't it? Then we can go back to spending money on diseases that people just randomly wake up with, as opposed to ones that we know exactly how the fuck to AVOID getting.
...rising obesity in the North American population.
Imagine being chased by leopards on your commute.
provide some information on how this may affect existing species?
I know how this may affect one existing species:
"Until next time, enjoy our 'Wild MegafaunAmerica'!"
The Buffalo Commons is a proposal by Karl Popper and others to reintroduce buffalo on a large scale in a belt of counties that are depopulating from Texas to Montana/North Dakota. There are hundreds of counties here where 50% of income is either farm subsidies or social security.
They, for one, might welcome the new megafauna theme park overlords.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...
OK, so according to one place in the article, they are proposing that these animals are placed in a wildlife preserve-like setting. However, in another, it talks about free-roaming cheetahs becoming an ecotourism alternative for ranchers. Many ranchers, and a significant portion of the general population, have put up a big fight against reintroducing wolves into their native habitat in North America. If they can't get people to agree to let overgrown dogs (over-simplification) roam around, how in the world do they think they'll get people to accept lions and cheetahs?
Does your application handle + characters in e-mail addresses? (RFC2822)
Haven't you been paying attention? ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
So what you're telling me is that major extinctions happen without human intervention? Who knew? (Just don't tell the endangered species people.)
everything's bigger in Texas... we could have Gigafauna there!
www.weberseite.at
I wonder what the big dent on my hood from a deer would look like if it was from a lion or giraffe or elephant?
Not those species lost only 13,000 years ago, let's go back a million or two! Let's get some dinosaur DNA from fossils, stick it into frog eggs, grow some dino-clones and then set them loose in north america!
I just thought of this idea in the spur of the moment...but it seems strangely familiar somehow...
Sounds like a thoroughly thought out plan.
Oh wait, what do the lions and elephants do during North American winters?
Won't this end up with legions of folks screaming
"Dingoes ate me baby"
Or lions or whatever. Sure they could release them all in Nebraska but there is a reason people won't live there I suspect a lion is plenty smart enough to head to Kansas City.
The woods is chock full of lunatics who keep their personal visions of the veldt alive in rural Murka. Sometimes in the urbs, or even suburbs, not to mention municipally sanctioned zoological gardens which preserve the DNA, but not the survival skills, of endangered species. The idea of transplanting elephants onto turf God made for bison (yeah, yeah, I know... that's "intelligent design" for ya) is just species imperialism. If you ask me, somebody just wants to play safari with their 8 ga. shotguns.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
"Fox is running one of those new reality shows at 8:00... Fast animals, slow children"
-everphilski-
This just sounds like a bad idea. We already have problems with non-native species. Asian Longhorn Beetles (I guess that they should now be called Asian Vista Beetles) were a huge problem a few years ago because they have no natural predators here. Imagine the problems with mega-fauna chomping away and reproducing with no predators to keep their numbers in check.
The only thing I hate more than hypocrites are people who hate hypocrites.
I, for one, welcome our North American Lion overlords.
On second thought, how is this restoring anything? Did lions ever live in North America? I thought the coolest animal we ever had was the giant sloth.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
get on a plane, and go and see the stuff where it's supposed to be.
The locals will welcome you with open arms, and shower you with their praises for your enlightened foreign policy that enhances their lives..
On second thoughts, you're probably right and'll be safer with a Lion in your back garden.
More white trash overcrowding another national park. If these parks are created, then either make them off limits to humans or keep attendance restricted to a few thousands visitors per year. Ever se the miles of traffic and horrible air pollution caused at nat'l parks across the US in the summer?
Instead of taking the animals out of their natural habitat and watching them die here in the US, the US should invest money in Africa to set up zoos like this over there, and increase the popularity of Africa as a tourist destination.
Ok, there are studies that show the impact of introduced wolf packs are having a positive impact on some areas in Canada.
..... (you get the picture)
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.
ACK
they'd need to bring across the "smaller support" creatures like the dung beetle as well. These cool little guys keep Africa from being submerged in 2 feet of elephant poo.
SAVE THE DUNG BEETLE!!!
Did these people ever stop to think why these species died out 13,000 years ago??? The thing that I find most disturbing about these kinds of movements, is they intend to correct things that have 'gone wrong', only to screw things up in the process. If elephants, lions, cheetahs, etc. are reintroduced into North America, what will keep the ecosystem balance? In speaking with wildlife officials in Yellowstone National Park, they are having quite a problem with wolves. They mention that before we as humans started wiping out the wolf populations, there was some semblance of ecosystem balance. However, with the rite of reintroduction of the wolf population, things are out of balance again, because the ecosystem has postured itself to continue without wolves. Now, because of protection, there's nothing stopping the wolf population from getting out of control! Just imagine having a wild elephant stomping down your house, and not having the ability to take it down 1. because you don't have an adequate gun to do it, and 2. because they'll be just as protected as other 'endangered' species.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
I know bush sees oil in everything, but this is a new level.
1) Obtain elephants.
2) Place elephants states with open oil wells(tar pits)
3) Twiddle thumbs as they fall in, and turn into oil.
4) Profit.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Apparently you've never been to South Dakota... yes, there's room.
-everphilski-
In Scotland, there's a scheme in the offing to reintroduce bison, wild board and wolves to a reserve. ISTR bears may have been mentioned as well. The reserve will be protected by a 50 foot fence, but ramblers will be allowed free access! I hope they put CCTV cameras up so we can watch ramblers vs wolves in realtime :).
Oh no... it's the future.
But until they start carrying guns, I'm not worried. I say, bring 'em on.
By putting the lions in Crawford (at a specific ranch), there would be an active reduction in the dangers to civilization.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Yes, some of these animals are on the verge of extinction, but what makes scientists think that they'll do better off in America (were elephants even native to America?) than in Africa?
We have a much wider spread of urbanization, with much less open land that isn't crossed by at least a highway or three.
We already have reservations; what land isn't already a reservation but still open is either desert, plateus (which I don't believe is the right environment), or farmland.
Don't count on less poaching, either, one of the bigger threats. Now we're just bringing the animals here, so the rich/eccentric who get kicks out of hunting them will just drive their SUV for two or three days to where they know to find the area; it's easy to find, because there will only be a medium sized plot of land easily marked with signs and fences, and probably on maps, as well. If they're 'lucky', they could bag a lion and be back all over the course of a week.
And then we have the possibility of these animals escaping and running lose over the country. Could you imagine a lion in New York City? (Disregard Madagascar, the movie wasn't that great.) Not only would it have an endless supply of food, what with stray cats, dogs, and the uncommon bum, but if it was a smart lion it would have lots of places to hide. (I can see water as being a potential problem.)
And let's not forget pollution that make adversly affect the animals.
Not FTA: "What we mean by 'introduce' is that we'll be randomly sending them into people's basements to route out their infestations of useless parasites" Get a grip.
you still have monkeys roaming free right ?
One of the nice things about inland North America is that there isn't a large amount of large predators. Sure there is the occasional mountain lion, and the odd bear when you get in the north and west areas, but mostly, no large predators.
The idea of bringing large (huge) predator cats is insane. First we don't have a food supply that's large enough for them so we have to bring their food supply here, then, bring them here. Then, they will probably eat us occasionally. I can just see lone Telco trucks out in the middle of no where fixing some broken circuit being eaten by a few lions.
What about farmers/ranchers/cattle movers?
Screw the tigers/lions. Bring back the buffalo, horses, & wild turkeys.
People only think its fun to watch videos in Florida when people find big ass aligators in their yard. Try getting a full grown male elephant out of your back yard.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
to the USA poachers. This could be good for the economy!
It's just me.
Im all for it - it will keep more American tourists at home where they belong. On a serious note - this could seriously impact tourist revenues in Africa
In Salina KS, not far from my home, we already have one. http://www.rollinghillswildlife.com/
A rich businessman decided to raise rare and endangered species on his huge ranch. They have several species that I had never seen, even at the Topeka Zoo. They have several of each type of rhino, including some born from the San Diego Zoo's breeding program & a super rare India Rhino. They house several types of elephants, giraffes, aardvaarks, ant-eaters, a pack of wild dingos, some very large tortoises, the list goes on and on.
If any place on earth has room for elephants, its here in Kansas.
Shouldn't we try to repopulate with the little we still have first to see if it'll work?
As overheard at Joe Bob's Megafauna Ranch and Barbecue in Cornhole, Nebraska in 2012:
... are those WALRUS tusks? Speaking of strings, those fake beaks you put on the turkeys do not make them dodos. Contrary to popular belief, Neanderthals did not look like Quasimodo, and were, never, I repeat, NEVER, in North America!"
"Hey that mammoth is just an elephant with it's ears bobbed that someone threw a big sheepskin coat over. How many sheepskins did you have to sew together? Besides they don't even match. And it's not a sabertooth dog. It's a sabertooth cat. Besides you can see the string holding the
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
You ask the Australians if they think its a good idea... bullfrogs, rabbits etc...
Introducing alien animals into the wild will cause native animals to die out. American zoologists arn't stupid. I smell a big corporation thinking it can make a quick buck, whilst appearing to be environmentally friendly.
Mac Zoo "Drive Thru": Order your gun at window number one. Pay at window two. Pick Gun up at window number three - lets go shoot me a MacElephant burger!
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
But "megafauna" sounds like Dave Mustaine is coming out of retirement and starting up a new band.
Looking at the increasing size of the average American I'd say that we're practically already there.
If we're re-introducing extinct fauna to America, why don't we try re-introducing liberals?
As recently as the 1930s the liberal was found in great herds across the continent, even throughout Texas. This good-natured creature was sadly unable to adapt to defend itself against a new species of vicious and ruthless predator. Nowadays the liberal is all but extinct, surviving only in a few isolated colonies such as Berkeley, Cambridge and Austin.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Global warming does NOT preclude winter.
Global warming can cause greater extremes in weather, i.e hotter summers, colder winters.
There is also some thought that warmer temps may cause an ice age.
So climate difference, among other issues, is definitely a concern.
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
If it wasn't for Bush's political agenda and big oil the animals wouldn't have died out in the first place.
there's plenty of room for all god's creatures... right next to the mashed potatoes.
"A team of history ignorning crack-pots are proposing reintroducing large mammals such as elephants, lions, cheetahs and wild horses to North America to replace populations lost 13,000 years ago ."
They died off for a reason and it most likely wasn't man's fault. Even if it was man's fault, it's still a stupid idea.
(Unless you count Landstuhl, Germany.)
And no doubt you are correct about pro/anti Global Warming attitudes being a function of latitude! Around here, things are quite warm enough already, thank you very much.
Of course, with enough warming (more than the 1-2 degrees Celsius some are predicting for the next half century to century), the lions and tigers should like Wisconsin just fine! (The bears are already comfortable there, no doubt.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Fuck yeah! This is a great idea. Scientists kick ass! Hell with the sanctuaries, though. Set them loose across the midwest. Elephants running down the middle of highways, lions climbing the St Louis Arch. It'll give us something to shoot at with our guns.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Reminds me of that old joke about two lions escaping from the zoo. They met up a few weeks later. The first lion was gaunt, ribs showing, a hunted look in his eyes. The second was fat, sleek, and glossy. The first lion said, "It's horrible out there! I tried to eat one person and I've had men with guns and nets chasing me for weeks. How are you doing so well?" The second lion said, "I just sit outside of IBM and eat managers. So far no one's missed them."
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I live in Florida. And judging from the tourist themselves, I'd say we have plenty of megafauna in North America.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
http://tinyurl.com/drvu5
The biggest Dickweeds.
The biggest pricks.
It's the biggest haven for corrupt politicians.
Is the biggest user of federal funds procured by fraudulent means.
The biggest AIDS population.
The biggest Hepatitus population.
The biggest women,(hungry hungry hippos).
The biggest gay population.
The biggest sex offender,(pedophile),population.
The biggest substandard educational system.
The biggest potholes.
The biggest weenies,(no, not the happy stick kind).
The biggest liars.
The biggest cheats.
The biggest imaginations,(pertaining to the size of their happy sticks).
The biggest pot-bellies.
The biggest annexation of Mexico,(contrary to what you have read, there are no illegal immigrants here, only deep south citizens that like to swim back and forth to work).
yay texas.
... or you stop trying to fuck Africa by stealing the one industry it can turn into a cash cow (tourism), and instead encourage development of ecotourism which will see the conservation of these species in their natural habitat.
There are dozens of public and private initiatives throughout Africa to save various endangered species, but most are cash strapped. Instead of supporting actual people doing actual work, these "scientists" are creaming themselves over a pet experiment that has no basis in reality.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Call it trite, but I actually like this idea, at least in part. Because man, baby Elephants are so cute! Romping around, rolling in the dirt, squirting each other, chasing attractive French girls... ever seen Hatari? :)
Nice try, but the real answer is reduction in human population. Both Africa and Asia have seen an explosion in their populations which have stressed animal habitats to the point of crowding species out. Oh by the way, did I mention that this would be good for global warming too?
The real question people don't bring up is whether you would like more lion or human babies this year. Every time we create more humans we're effectively saying that we don't give a shit about the lions. That's pretty much what it boils down to, lower quality of life for everyone.
I must say, this is one of the greatest ideas I've heard in a long time!
Now, I've spent a good few minutes thinking about this, and these are the conclusions I've come to:
1) This is the most HUMANE version of a zoo, which is always a plus for animal activists. While animals really SHOULD be able to roam wherever they please, this is all one can really expect of America right now.
2) It will keep development in the areas reserved for them non-existant, which is always a plus for anarchists.
3) Revunues generated from the safaris can can be used to upkeep the reserve, which is always a plus for environmentalists.
See!? Everyone is happy!
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Especially considering how well they are managing the nature wildlife such as deer in my area (NJ). I can hardly wait until I have hordes of Elephants eating my garden.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
McDonald's has already been working on it.
SuperSize Me!
Early in this comment thread some people have mentioned the possibilities of human deaths. That is EXACTLY the point. We are quickly approaching Earth's maximum estimated carrying capacity (think of it as the biological equivalent of how many amps an electrical circuit can carry before the breaker shuts off) for human living conditions in it's current form. What happens after that? Mass famine. Die offs. Wars. We're already seeing some of this but it only affect those who are further down the socioeconomic ladder so many of us don't think it's an issue.
However, there are some people way up high on the socioeconomic ladder who are well aware of this and have created think tanks (Project for the New American Century, for example) that ARE addressing this issue. However, they aren't addressing it in the most humanitarian way. They are taking the pragmatic route that a good chunk of the human population needs to die in order to restore some balance and protect their own interests. This is why wars are being encouraged, and people are being recruited from the poorest neighborhoods in America. What easier way to rid the planet of extra people than throwing them into the meat grinder? More to the point, who better to get rid of than those who are a burden on society rather than contributors? Will you ever hear this outright? No. It's too awful to comprehend, but it's their view.
The humanitarian view would be this: Establish worldwide controls to cut down on excessive use of resources for everyone. This means that YOU would have to give up your car, your computer, your cell phone, all of your electronic entertainment. It would mean that YOU would have to use mass transit if you live more than ten miles away from where you work. It would mean that YOU have to WALK to work if you live within ten miles of your job. It would mean that the internet would have to be pared down greatly in terms of bandwidth, processing power and electricity usage. It would mean that we would have to audit all natural resource usage to verify that it is, in fact, justified and heavily tax anything that isn't. It would mean that we would have to pack more people into living spaces than we currently do, likely in communal fashion.
Based on those two approaches being the only options, the people who currently stand to lose a lot are more likely to be in favor of the approach that impacts them the least, and so war it is. In large part, YOU did this. And so did I. It doesn't matter if you are pro-war or pro-peace, if you drive a car, YOU did this. If you use more electrical appliances than you really should or even most electrical appliances, YOU did this. If you eat out at big box restaurants, YOU did this. If you pay more than $2.00 a month on your electric bill, YOU did this. So where do we go from here? There is already one group who has decided what to do to solve this problem. What do we do on our part?
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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 wild boards you mentioned. The idea of Halliburton's execs, or Enron's, being allowed loose in the wild is truly frightening. Or did you mean savage roaming packs of 2 by 4s?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
...And Titor is playing Bruce Willis' charater...
Esta es una firma en Espanol.
HIV isn't a passively transmitted disease. You have to do something to get the disease (unless you are raped, but how frequent is that?).
Rape is actually quite common in all cultures, especially in cultures that do not have a legal system with strong controls on sexual crimes or the ability to enforce them. Women are usually the victims of rape, partly due to culture and partly due to their lack of physical strength compared to men.
Condoms aren't so new and complex as to have currently active patents on them.
Unfortunately, in many cultures, condoms are strictly taboo. This is true even in some cultures in the United States.
HAIL ELEPHANTS!
What? This isn't about Kudzu? bah!!
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The only reaosn I can see for introducing Elephants into the USA is to make the growing (in both senses) population of humungous McDonalds-inflated USAians not feel quite so big.
Next time someone points at them and laughs because they are wider than they are tall, they can reply back that "at least I'm smaller than that Elephant over there... barely. OK, well I'm smaller than two of them".
Or maybe they're just wanting to farm them, since whole cow steaks aren't filling the between breakfast and lunch snack break any more. An entire elephant would be much more filling.
Once they get the Martian climate straightened out, send all the endangered animals up there.
No need to import megafauna. Just keep chomping those Big Macs.
Well in the parts of the world where HIV/AIDS is endemic, there are thousands who believe that raping a virgin will cure their illness, so they are quickly running out of virgins and of individuals who aren't infected.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
FYI: I remember reading on BBC News (a few years ago) that there are around 50000 reported cases of women being raped in South Africa each year. I might not have the exact figure but it was definitely that order of magnitude.
South Africa has quite a problem with HIV (the South African Department of Health Study estimates that 29.5% of pregnant women were living with HIV in 2004 according to this site).
It could be fairly likely that rape cases provided a non-negligible contribution to the spread of HIV, at least in SA.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Listen, I haven't seen an elephant in years, and you know what?
I don't care.
Nobody needs the stupid elephants anyways, they can just stay their ass in Africa.
"Megafauna" can "mega blow me".
(p.s. i love lions, cheetahs, and wild horses though!)
The Bible Belt?
The introduction of foreign wildlife into countries, be it animal or plant, has proven to be disastrous in many cases. Look at Australia, which has been ravaged by rabbits, foxes, feral pigs, has more wild cats than Kangaroos, and whose indigenous plant life has been supplanted on every corner by blackberries, pear cactus and a host of other invaders. Sometimes this was intentional, but more often these populations came about because of escapes and accidental releases.
Elephants, lions, cheetahs and everything else that died out on the continent did so because of natural selection, disease, a balance to the ecosystem and whatever other natural phenomenon deemed it should be so. This is just pure arrogance and ego-stroking; these are the kinds of clowns that would actually try and put a Velociraptor back on terra firma, and never once suspect that something might go wrong.
-----
I don't think shaking a stick at the morons is helping...
Just the other day, I was joking with my friends about Kansas, Ohio and Pennsylvania needing more lions...
Depending upon what area of the country you're in, of course.
Here in the upper midwest (MN, WI, MI, even northern IL) the timber wolf (aka grey wolf, aka canis lupus) population has been recovering quite nicely after they were hunted to frightfully low numbers in the early part of the 20th century when states like MN and WI (MI too?) offered bounties on them.
Some say the wolves have actually reached their sustainable and manageable population now. There have been several car-kills of timber wolves in the aforementioned states in the last few years, and DNR numbers indicate pretty good stability.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
This is fscking ridiculous. They just passed laws (thanks to ranchers) bitching about wild horses consuming resources on the PUBLIC land that they get to graze their cattle. Incidentally, the cost of this land use is a pittance that they pay, but that's another matter altogether. These laws permit capture and transport with intention to slaughter horses of a certain age. So this idiot has this great idea to let roam, on public lands, more of these great herbivores, that will do just as much damage if not more, as the wild horses? Reality check! Think the rancher lobby is gonna permit that? Er, no.
Another excuse to stay in your SUVs!
If were going to introduce "megafauna", why screw around with wimpy cheetahs and elephants.
http://www.jurassicpark.com/maingate_flash.html
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
Well in the parts of the world where HIV/AIDS is endemic, there are thousands who believe that raping a virgin will cure their illness, so they are quickly running out of virgins and of individuals who aren't infected.
Makes me glad I don't live in Africa.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
> why screw it up with sudden introduction of species that weren't actually here in the first place?
You're absolutely right. The animal species in North America evolved separately from those in Africa for millions of years. And they weren't the same.
That's why the North America fawna was killed off so easily, while similar species in Africa have managed to survive. The North America species evolved without man, and had no defenses when man came, in other words, they weren't smart enough, or viscious enough. The African animals, on the other hand, evolved with man, and thus evolved to become more ferocious toward man, thus ensuring their survival (though, obviously, modern man could easily kill them off).
If you want to repopulate North America with lost animal species, then please use cloning techniques to restore the real North American species. And if we can't do that yet, then wait.
If we want to save species you have to change how we live, not artificially try to manipulate nature. Furthermore there isnt scientfic proof that these species would have died out regardless of human behavior - just because something in their habitat changed doesnt prove that its the cause of their downfall, even if it does add plausiblity to such a theory. IMHO manipulating nature ourselves is just as dangerous as doing nothing at all - we should attempt to be in balance in nature, not destroy or manipulate it.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Oh what the hell. If we can export Jacko to Germany, what's a couple hundred regular predators here?
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Does anyone else here see an inherent contradiction between the terms "sanctuaries" and "tourist attractions"?
Nothing But Flowers
by Talking Heads
Here we stand/ Like an Adam and an Eve/ Waterfalls/ The Garden of Eden/ Two fools in love/ So beautiful and strong/ The birds in the trees/ Are smiling upon them/ From the age of the dinosaurs/ Cars have run on gasoline/ Where, Where have they gone?/ Now, it's nothing but flowers/
There was a factory/ Now there are mountains and rivers/
We caught a rattlesnake/ Now we got something for dinner/
There was a shopping mall/ Now it's all covered with flowers/
If this is paradise/ I wish I had a lawnmower/
Years ago/ I was an angry young man/ I'd pretend/ That I was a billboard/ Standing tall/ By the side of the road/ I fell in love/ With a beautiful highway/ This used to be real estate/ Now it's only fields and trees/ Where, where is the town/ Now, it's nothing but flowers/ The highways and cars/ Were sacrificed for agriculture/ I thought that we'd start over/ But I guess I was wrong/
Once there were parking lots/ Now it's a peaceful oasis/
This was a Pizza Hut/ Now it's all covered with daisies/
I miss the honky tonks,/ Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens/
And as things fell apart/ Nobody paid much attention/
I dream of cherry pies,/ Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies/
We used to microwave/ Now we just eat nuts and berries/
This was a discount store,/ Now it's turned into a cornfield/
Don't leave me stranded here/ I can't get used to this lifestyle/
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
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!....
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Megafauna dissappeared around the same time as human occupation in many places including North America.
TFA says that the magafauna extinction happened 13,000 years ago. Everybody knows that the world was created 6,000 years ago. Humans can't be blamed for species extinction that predate the creation of the world.
Duh, you tree-huggers don't make sense.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
that would be cool.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Lions do NOT eat people. Except when the lion is close to starving, or if they find an already dead carcass.
Now -tigers- OTOH... those would be fun.
read: $$$$
Perl Programmer for hire
I think it's a cool idea, personally. But I grew up in Montana and ranchers turn into gibbering madmen everytime the subject of reintroducing native species like wolves or bison is raised (wolves kill cows, bison infect cows with bucellosis).
On the other hand, if we can convince the ranchers it's easier to grow steaks in a vat while being able to hunt big game, serengetti style, without leaving 'merica, perhaps this could work.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
North America is a temperate zone. Elephants are tropical.
(And they aren't migratory.)
Read any good sonnets lately?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
13000 year ago is before human become a environmental problem. This essental tell us that these animals simply disappeared because they are out compete by the current natives in US. Introduction of these foreign animals will affect our ecosystem in way that scientists may not expected. Ecosystem is complicated issue. We should try to lower our influence on it but should not mess with anything else.
Yea, we can throw the communists and socialists in with them.......should fix about 75% of the world's problems right there!
Hitting a deer is pretty bad, depending on your speed, but mostly non-fatal. Hitting a moose is much, much worse, most cars are too low and just take out the legs (and then the body takes out the occupants).
But wait, there's more! Now you can look forward to hitting A FRIGGIN ELEPHANT! Anyone see a problem here.
...Man plays god
It's simply that the climate changed. Temperate climates don't support huge animals as easily as glacial climates. That bison, african elephants, and asian elepants happened to survive is that they merely were able satisfy an ecological niche. No complicated conspiracy theories about it.
While we're at it, why don't we re-introduce timber wolves, bears, and bison to Europe, since those megafauna used to be there too. I guess wild sanglier don't count as megafauna either.
"Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The Queen is their slave."
But the ecosystem as a whole is in danger and partly due to these big mammals. Elephants are causing great damages the forest and use an enormous amount of water.
The human population is rapidly increasing and for traditional reasons people are investing in cattle, big consumer of water too.
Desertification in wide parts of Africa is the real danger. Exporting some animals to another continent won't stop any extinction beyond what can be done in a zoo.
a+
Jurassic Park involves dinosaurs. This involves moving modern mammals, no doubt including large numbers of apes, to the U.S. in an era when Bush has decided to restart nuclear weapons research and countries like Iran would rather put up with the sanctions than be denied the one sure thing that stops the U.S. deciding you're evil and invading.
How could apes and nuclear war be bad? There's plenty of planet for everyone.
Simpsons quotes: Yes. Obligatory.
Futurama: Encouraged.
Family Guy: Purely optional.
And then all the Americans, just to be sure.
First kill all the wild mustangs. they were brought over by eavl white invaders. next drain the Salton Sea. because that was a result of a industrial accident by evle white railroad barons in the 1900
What's the point? Really large reptiles all pretty much couldn't hang with how things were, so they died out. Now large predators can't deal with the environment and they are dying out.
I'm so happy they're bringing it back! Thanks to the fans!
So which animal's going to morph to form the head? No spoilers though, please!
Peter: I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-everphilski-
"Just like rabbits in Australia -- but bigger! And carnivorous!"
Bison aren't doing too bad either, especially out in South Dakota. Took a family vacation out to the Black Hills several years ago, saw hundreads of the beasts without making any attempt to do so. There even a few that felt like grazing in front of the cabin we were staying in. Couldn't go 20 feet without stepping on a buffalo chip.
Wolf numbers are looking good, but there still aren't near enough of 'em. The damn deer are breeding faster than we can shoot them. They come and eat the berries out of my garden then get depressed and throw themselves in front of my neighbor's car. I'm all for letting some lions and tigers loose if they'll help eat the damn deer.
You can never be really sure unless you also include all of the Eurotrash in there too.
And if so why stop there? I'm sure Velociraptors wandered Texas long ago.
I heard this on NPR, last night. My question is related. Why 13,000 years ago? What makes that time period the best target? Why not attempt to emulate 100,000,000 years ago or the summer of '69? What makes 13K YA the standout snapshot period?
Also, I notice that the scientist that they quote is from New York. I'm from Oklahoma. Somehow, I get the feeling that one of the two of us is going to be closer to those cheetahs than the other.
SharkJumper
thare is a reason these animals are going extinct
large animals dount have a place in todays ecosystem
bringing them back will just screw the enviroment up even more
Actually, there have been two documented cases of an elephant killed as a direct result of being shot with a .22 long rifle rimfire. I mean actually killed within minutes by the injury, too, not succumbing weeks later to an infection or some such complication. The first was an accident. The second was done by the same guy just to prove it could be done.
In both cases, the shot was precisely placed in the front armpit (where the skin is about the thinnest on the whole animal) and along a path that led to the heart. In both cases, the bullet managed to penetrate just far enough to poke a .22 caliber hole in the aorta and death resulted in just a few minutes.
In fact, the whole "amazing one-shot-kill" genre is full of similarly documented cases. For a long time, the NYC police were enamored beyond all reason with the 9mm. It's a good round, but they kept it even when the .40S&W was taking over police armories all over the country. Why? Because of a legendary case where a kid had fallen into a cage in the zoo and was being menaced by a bear, polar, iirc. The responding officer fired a single shot that miraculously found some point (I don't remember which) in the central nervous system. The animal dropped like a sack of potatos and the 9mm instantly became some sort of magic sword in the minds of NYC police officials.
There are a million similar stories out there, a surprising number of them quite true. Also true are the opposite cases, especially where Cape Buff are concerned. Those things have been known to absorb enough lead to stop a tank and still kill the hunter. They have a wonderful habit, too, of re-killing anything that pisses them off enough to make them charge. They've been observed to kill a hunter, then stand next to the carcass and fall over on it, dropping their one-ton plus weight on the body, then rolling back and forth like a pig wallowing in mud. Left to their own devices, an angry cape buff will happily turn a careless hunter into something that looks like a large, smelly puddle of moldy breakfast cereal. I'm not a sport hunter and have always said I would only hunt for meat - but if someone offered me a chance at one of those marvelous beasts, I'd be on board in a heartbeat.
If elephants and big cats get reintroduced to the wilds of North America, I say bring some cape buffalo, too.
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
Go hug some trees.
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 cheetahs who only sprint... and it's unclear what they were avoiding. Mostly they lose fawns to coyotes and that kind of thing now, but they didn't develop into such a keen little athlete surviving against coyotes or wolves. They're more than an order of magnitude faster.)
In the US, we plant a lot of Honeylocust trees. You don't see too many female specimens (they're dioecious) in people's back yard, because they have long seed pods that people regard as a mess. (Suburban nature-as-a-carpeted-living-room values -- this is how we got golf courses.)
In Africa, related species of tree have their seed spread around by elephants, mainly, but there's nothing living here to reach and munch on those pods while they're tasty. Without elephants, or mammoths or whatever, to eat them, the trees' seeds don't spread in the same way at all. They tend to stay in riverbottoms and that kind of thing, spreading just by falling, instead of traveling with herds. Or people plant them in yards -- all males. Weird.
Even just restoring that one type of tree, honeylocusts, to its original spot would have all sorts of indirect challenges and consequences. Maybe we can wishfully hope elephants would put it all right again, but no way is that true.
These people would do better to concentrate on something like the American Chestnut -- the most important non-mast species of tree, in terms of wildlife, in the eastern US, an ideal lumber, and it's been wiped out by the blight people brought over on asiatic chestnuts for their gardens. That we could fix in real life. This is a fun premise for SciFi and Discover Magazine articles.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Of course, it would be funny hearing a trailer park resident describing what the herd of elephants sounded like as they destroyed the area....
Didn't the king of SIAM send a herd of Elephants to the US for this very purpose?
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
because if we've showed anything in the past 1000 years or so, it's that we know how to ensure a proper balance of animals in nature (NOT)
This is total deja vue (sp?) of the dinner scene in Jurrasic Park.
In any case, the animals on Sable Island, which is only about 40 Km long and a couple of Km wide, were not native. There are about 250 of them at present, and they run wild and do their own thing and generally get alone very well.
Perhaps some elephants would be interesting.
Terraforming begins at home.
-FL
Wait until the Chinese invade! Then all or most of the native north american human population will either be eliminated as a class or severely reduced in numbers. All effective military capable individuals to be destroyed first. This includes all US citizens, Mexican citizens, Salvadoran citizens, etc. North america will be a new home for an expanding Chinese population, with the introduction of 500 million Chinese to permanently rule here. O we will have a kind of 'self governance' like that of the Nazi camps with Chinese appointed 'presidents' whose main job will be to pick out native americans to go as test subjects for Chinese 'research'.......how much pain can a human stand....are human dog or pig crossbreeds viable.....will this drug increase docility....as nauseum
Consider: so much agricultural land has been converted to industrial use for factories that have stolen the jobs of Americans, that what remains cannot feed the growing Chinese population; so much power does this new industrial plant consume that the price of energy has been driven to historic levels due to foolish deregulation and even more foolish free trade agreements--and that is why you pay so much for gasoline and why food which relies on truck transoport is higher and why you are paying again for the jobs that you allowed to be exported by your foolish voting habits and apathetic nature; the birth control programs of the former Chinese governments are now an acknowledged failure so the problem to the government is now not only to obtain new agricultural land, but also to obtain new living space for future Chinese generations. No government is going to allow this invasion and displacement to happen if they can prevent it. Russia is our friend, but it cannot ignore the monster on its border and will be tempted to make a faustian bargain in order to at least defer the day the old maps showing all of Russia east of the Ural mountains as Chinese territory, due to the conquests of Ghengis Khan whose descendants became a Chinese dynasty, from becoming tomorrow's reality. It will only be a temporary solution for them, as when the dragon consumes all the others, it will then come for them. Vietnam will be among the first victims after Taiwan, the 'cassus belli' of it all, is consumed in an ostentatious show of Chinese 'shock and awe'. The Viet-Namese export rice. Lots of it. The Chinese will need this to feed their masses for a few years before moving on to India at its back door. China cannot afford to leave a back door on its road to conquest. Somewhere after that will come the middle east for its oil resources. China does not now and will not in the future need this as it is building its own breeder reactor program using plans stolen from the United States and parts resold on the black market from the disassembly and scrapping of our Clinch River breeder plant that was closed and sold during the Carter administration. What China will want with the oil is to cripple the rest of the world prior to invasion and reduction of first Japan and Korea through proxies, then invasion and reduction of the United States, then finally accepting the pathetic surrender without a shot of the European Union. The only place they will not want is probably Africa. That can be used as a dumping ground for rejects from its 'new society' and surrounded by barriers to keep those thus dumped from ever escaping. The rise of any nation there can be dealt with by a ring of ICBMs.
I've always wondered why most of the world's megafauna has vanished. Why were lifeforms so much bigger in ages past? Dinosaurs, giant sloths, giant sharks, giant plants... all gone, and replaced by what are essentially miniatures. Why the tendency towards smaller sizes? Is it just a question of population density, or is there more involved here?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Many current specifies of native American animals are facing extinction.
This is happening because these animal live on range and other lands increasingly being used for cattle production.
Studies have show where there land is taken out of cattle production ( grazing or no longer being used to grow grain for cattle -> the number 1 use of range land ) that native plants and fauna recover in that area.
The trouble is Americans are eating more meat and making more Americans than they used to.
Much grazing/range land is owned by the American people which the federal government leases to cattle farmers ( the big corporations, not the little guys ) for a fraction of the going rate.
So, you the tax payer are paying to subsidize a private industry's profits that are destroying your environment.
If you want to save the environment and native fauna cut down on your meat consumption. You don't have to quit, just eat less.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/04111 8104010.htm
And other websites put the date at which Humans came to North America to about 50,000 years ago.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I love stuff like this. 99% of all species that ever existed are gone. One day man will be added to that list. I love how man somehow thinks they can change the course of evolution or hold back the constant change in nature. If a species can't adapt to the environment they go extinct. Welcome to evolution.
After we bring Elephants and tigers and lions to the world, we'll start bringing back dinosaurs and terror birds. Then the global Caliphate will send out an army of cybernetic monsters to destroy the Jews. Then the biosphere becomes self-aware and everything goes to hell.
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, 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.
From an article in the Washington Times this morning (8/18/2005). (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050818-1248 38-8998r.htm)
Josh Donlan, a graduate student at Cornell University and one of the plan's co-authors, concedes that skeptics may worry more about the people on the Great Plains who could become extinct at the mercy of the lions.
"Obviously, gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue, especially when you talk about reintroducing predators. There are going to have to be some major attitude shifts. That includes realizing predation is a natural role, and that people are going to have to take precautions."
None of those animals were ever native to North America. Ever.
That's what those alligators and mountain lions must have been thinking.
So we've got the global warming crowd shouting about how we're ruining the planet by warming it up... but there are peat bogs in Alaska and evidence that the planet was, at one time, much warmer in currently cold areas. Bringing back this 'warmness' is bad and evil -- regardless of the fact that it once was.
Now we've got scientists (no doubt some of the very same that are on the global warming band wagon) wanting to repopulate North America with long departed species because... well... that's the way it used to be!!!!
What a crock the whole way around.
But then, once their animals have been shipped to the states, you fill the ecological gap with HIV-resistent crocodiles.
Australia would then be compensated for their lack of crocs with hairdressers, bricklayers and mechanics, and everyone's happy!
Just because lions are now predominantly found in warm weather climates does not mean that they have no adaptations for cold weather climates. It could be the case that lions no longer inhabit colder regions for other reasons, such as being crowded out of their habitats by other species or being hunted to extinction.
Do note that many big cats, mountain lions and siberian tigers for example, inhabit cold regions. And in fact, lions ranged over most of eastern Europe and Asia up until the 2nd century AD. And cheetahs were once found as far north as northern Iran. The US certainly has some geographical areas with more temperate zones than along the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Lions and Tigers eat Bears... oh my!
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Whatever happened to Natural Selection?
Alligators drag children and dogs, and even adults to their deaths
I am all to forbid alligators from playing video games. Think of the children for god sake!!
How many of you have seen kudzu? Yeah, there's an example of what happens when you take living creatures from their environment without thinking the whole thing through.
Just WHO is going to pay to purchase all the land and create the entire environment which is native for these animals? What happens when they get hit with a "native" organism for which they have no defense? Cough, cough, dutch elm disease, cough, cough, asian bugs from shipping crates (yeah, that was brilliant, "save" money by using wodden shipping crates on cheap products from China then spend billions trying to wipe out the bugs they sneak over...)
All it takes is watching one shoe on Animal Planet about large predators to see just how much land is necessary for each of them and all the other animals, bugs, plants, weather and soil composition must support them.
This is a stupid idea unless the goal is really to get money from people with big hearts and small brains.
Hey, want some megafauna, anyone? It's reeeaally good....
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Selected quotes from http://www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu/ "Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Soil Conservation Service promoted kudzu for erosion control. Hundreds of young men were given work planting kudzu through the Civilian Conservation Corps. Farmers were paid as much as eight dollars an acre as incentive to plant fields of the vines in the 1940s. The problem is that it just grows too well! The climate of the Southeastern U.S. is perfect for kudzu. The vines grow as much as a foot per day during summer months, climbing trees, power poles, and anything else they contact. Under ideal conditions kudzu vines can grow sixty feet each year. While they help prevent erosion, the vines can also destroy valuable forests by preventing trees from getting sunlight. This problem led Dr. James H. Miller of the U.S. Forest Service in Auburn, Alabama to research methods for killing kudzu. In eighteen years of research, he has found that one herbicide actually makes kudzu grow better while many have little effect. Miller recommends repeated herbicide treatments for at least four years, but some kudzu plants may take as long as ten years to kill, even with the most effective herbicides." Great job security move, guys...introduce a solution that will require yet another solution that will require... How much harder is it to eliminate giant prehistoric elephant herds that grow out of control, and how is this going to effect the ecosystem of the North American continent.
Mountain lions have moved into San Jose. You know, that wilderness just outside Milpitas and Mountain View. Coyotes have been seen in San Francisco. Nature has this habit of adapting.
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 alligators in the ponds. Even with the rampant drunkenness, people manage not to be killed.
These animals rarely cause problems. They're afraid of people. We're fairly large, loud, and travel in packs. You only need to worry when you're alone, physically hurt, or obviously frightened (before you see the animal).
Wild pigs, on the other hand, are aggressive. They're non-native, invasive, and damned yummy. Whee!
Reporter: What do you think of western civilization?
Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
Well I don't know about the lions, but you could ride an elephant to work. Just add some cup-holders and you have a nice SUE (Sport Utility Elephant).
My immediate response would be that the SUE leaks a lot more crap than the SUV, but then I thought of my co-workers' auto-repair habits and changed my mind.
Problem is, an SUE would have a top speed of, what, 15 MPH and can only maintain it for so long? On, the other hand, it has killer z-displacement!
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I think a major reduction in world population in a non-violent way would be an extremely good thing.
So, go ahead and volunteer to reduce the human population. No one's stopping you from following your beliefs.
Or are you too important to actually follow through?
Or maybe you're just a stupid fucking hypocrite.
North America already has a big cat population and several sanctuarys for African big cats that have been sold as pets.
Wild horses would get caught and sold (again)
Elephants. While interesting, very impractical.
We didnt want them here 13,000 years ago , either , that pretty much why we killed them off and didnt selectivley breed them here.
.....
You were also talking about DISTINCTLY different subspecies, as in MAMMOTH !=ELEPANT and TIGER != SABRE TOOTH TIGER
I can just see the next step in 25 years when certain species become overpopulated at a given sanctuary, "REAL IMAITATION AFRICAN SAFARI's Only $5000 a person, (NO MALARIA !)"
He said Asian asses . . . . heh heh heh
This whole thing sounds like a jump-to-conclusions mat of Federal proportions.
And I don't believe the United States ever had wild horses: I think they were all brought here.
Belief is nice, but often facts smack it upside the ass. North America had mammoths, mastodons, sabre-toothed tigers, camels, and -- yes -- horses. In fact, horses evolved in North America 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 conquistadors.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
If a wolf can get up to 30 mph, that means the pronghorn runs more than 300 mph?
Hot darn. Any way to camouflage one of those as a greyhound? I spot a "4: Profit" here.
Regards,
--
*Art
Bring back Galton!!!!
Control the population, breed us better stronger then before.... Ha ha ha cackle cackle hack cough....
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Wild Horses Oregon and Washington
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Zookeeper: Animals, attack.
[He blows a silent whistle and animal exhibits come to life and break out of the glass cases. They run rampage.]
Tour Guide: Please to not feed the animals!
[An elephant picks her up and eats her.]
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
This is one of the most idiotic ideas I have ever heard. The phenotypes of Lions and Elephants are adapted to the environments where they evolved. We have enough trouble with Kudzu, Scotch Broom, escaped Piranas, etc to know that flora and fauna out of it's native habitat is trouble. Are they thinking about the long term consequences of this at all?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Lions were common in Greece, Persia, and India until the time of the Roman Empire. North African lions just recently went extinct in the wild.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
From the article: "Free-roaming, managed cheetahs in the southwestern United States could save the fastest carnivore from extinction, restore what must have been strong interactions with pronghorn and facilitate ecotourism as an alternative for ranchers.
That could solve some of the problems along the Mexican border too.
'Same speed C but faster'
Mom: "Leave it alone, and it will leave you alone. It's more scared of you than you are of it."
...
...
Billy: "OK, Mom."
Suzie: "Mommy, Billy's being mauled by a lion!"
Mom & Suzie: "GASP!"
We Are Crazy Americans! I don't think our culture or society can handle a reintroduction of these megafauna, unless they are on a closed reserve. Like http://www.wildlifesafari.org/Wildlife Safari in Oregon or other small, closed reserves. They already have lions and elephants, and more!
When I read the title I thought somebody was talking about introducing dinasours into North America, Elephants aren't very mega and cheetas certainly aren't.
I'll go back to bed now.
As the cost of diesel fuel continues to rise, we could see renewed interest --yes, even here-- in large horses and elephants as tractors and cranes.
I think they called them "Perfectly Normal Beasts".:)
The Food
"And so the Sandwich Maker sang as he worked.
He was using the last of the year's salted meat. It was a little past its best now, but still the rich savour of Perfectly Normal Beast meat was something unsurpassed in any of the Sandwich Maker's previous experience. Next week it was anticipated that the Perfectly Normal Beasts would appear again for their regular migration, whereupon the whole village would once again be plunged into frenetic action: hunting the Beasts, killing perhaps six, maybe even seven dozen of the thousands that thundered past. Then the Beasts must be rapidly butchered and cleaned, with most of the meat salted to keep it through the winter months until the return migration in the spring, which would replenish their supplies.
The very best of the meat would be roasted straight away for the feast that marked the Autumn Passage. The celebrations would last for three days of sheer exuberance, dancing and stories that Old Thrashbarg would tell of how the hunt had gone, stories that he would have been busy sitting making up in his hut while the rest of the village was out doing the actual hunting.
And then the very, very best of the meat would be saved from the feast and delivered cold to the Sandwich Maker. And the Sandwich Maker would exercise on it the skills that he had brought to them from the gods, and make the exquisite Sandwiches of the Third Season, of which the whole village would partake before beginning, the next day, to prepare themselves for the rigours of the coming winter.
Today he was just making ordinary sandwiches, if such delicacies, so lovingly crafted, could ever be called ordinary. Today his assistant was away so the Sandwich Maker was applying his own garnish, which he was happy to do. He was happy with just about everything in fact.
He sliced, he sang. He flipped each slice of meat neatly on to a slice of bread, trimmed it and assembled all the trimmings into their jigsaw. A little salad, a little sauce, another slice of bread, another sandwich, another verse of Yellow Submarine."
The Habits
"It was a sight that Arthur never quite got used to, or tired of. He and Ford had tracked their way swiftly along the side of the small river that flowed down along the bed of the valley, and when at last they reached the margin of the plains they pulled themselves up into the branches of a large tree to get a better view of one of the stranger and more wonderful visions that the Galaxy has to offer.
The great thunderous herd of thousand upon thousand of Perfectly Normal Beasts was sweeping in magnificent array across the Anhondo Plain. In the early pale light of the morning, as the great animals charged through the fine steam of the sweat of their bodies mingled with the muddy mist churned up by their pounding hooves, their appearance seemed a little unreal and ghostly anyway, but what was heart-stopping about them was where they came from and where they went to, which appeared to be, simply, nowhere.
They formed a solid, charging phalanx roughly a hundred yards wide and half a mile long. The phalanx never moved, except that it exhibited a slight gradual drift sideways and backwards for the eight or nine days that it regularly appeared for. But though the phalanx stayed more or less constant, the great beasts of which it was composed charged steadily at upwards of twenty miles an hour, appearing suddenly from thin air at one end of the plain, and disappearing equally abruptly at the other end.
No one knew where they came from, no one knew where they went. They were so important to the lives of the Lamuellans, it was almost as if nobody liked to ask. Old Thrashbarg had said on one occasion that some times if you received an answer, the question might be taken away. Some of the villagers had privately said that this was the only properly wise thing they'd ever heard Thrashbarg say, and after a short debate on the matter, had put it down to chance."
As long as you ignore the awful bits, Mostly Harmless is a very fine book.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid /14002/newsDate/11-Jan-2002/story.htm
There have been a number of comments about aboriginal Americans overhunting megafauna on the North American Continent and I shall assume that those interested in re-introducing these animals to the wilds in North American preserves would not also want to re-introduce hunting-to-extinction.
But as Tim Flannery points out in his book The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples the North American continent is unique in its mountains are oriented largely north-south, which creates extremes of temperatures in the interior, while most other continents have east-west oriented mountains, which prevent the same extremes.
As someone who grew up in Kansas with 110 degree heat in the summer and -20 degree cold in the winter, I wonder if those who wish to re-introduce these animals into America also have plans to construct warmed and cooled shelters.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
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".
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.
North America still has significant wild megafauna.
I just got back from Denali National Park where I saw several moose, caribou, Dall sheep, and four grizzly bears - all in one day.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
Your family dog is not much more likely to kill you than any wild animal, because your family dog has been domesticated. Dogs that do kill people have been maltreated and trained to be aggressive, a problem in some southwestern cities, such that some municipalities have outlawed certain breeds. Furthermore, there is much more contact between humans and dogs than between humans and pumas. I venture to say that if they level of contact was the same, more deaths would occur because of pumas than because of dogs. It is true that one is more likely to die by dog than by puma, but it's not because dogs are more deadly as pumas. Shoot, I'm confident that I could take most dogs in a head-to-head (incidentally, the fact that wild dogs hunt in packs whereas pumas hunt alone says something about the relative lethality of the two), but a puma? Forget about it!
How did this become a +5? Oh right, you're a mod. I think I should get your mod points. ^^
As you can see, they don't look anything alike.
A moot point. I bet they both taste like chicken...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Nothing like almost finding yourself lower on the food chain.
Just thought it was worth repeating.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Or perhaps they should hunt the dangerous animals down and kill them. I'm sure they'd be curious why some chump from the suburbs feels he has input on their decision.
No. It means no such thing. Please tell me you don't believe what you're saying...
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Why can't people make jokes without one of you fscking neocon fanatics jumping in with your hysterics!? Shut the fsck up.
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.
They do. They kill the wild animals and make it safe. That's dealing with it. The only reason you don't grasp this is because you live in a place where it was done for you long ago. Your argument sounds a lot like "Move to the suburbs and graze at the supermarket, God put these ecosystems here for us to live in, stop being a terrorist." Why don't you try stepping back to the real world for a minute.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
People can choose to live wherever they want.
Unless all the affordable real estate is in dangerous areas.
Could animals survive our climate? Most of the places in the US that would have room for herds of large animals also have nasty winters.
Granted, we were largely responsible for the bison reduction, but those are making a comeback. I don't think the settlers in the 1800's were responsbile for any woolly mammoth deaths, and the Native Americans before them weren't prone to over-hunting anything to the point of extinction.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Ooh, cougars. When our family visited Turpentine Creek, a tiger and big cat sanctuary near Eureka Springs, *all* the big cats looked at my 8-year-old son like a housecat looks at a catnip mouse. But the cougars... they looked at him like a barn cat looks at a *real* mouse. No playful chasing along the fence for them -- they crouch, slink, and prepare to pounce. He caused one minor fight among the cougars, when one cougar in a stealthy slink ran into another cougar, who was also considering making a meal of my son.
He loved the place, by the way, though he much prefered the tigers' semi-playful chasing to the cougars' dead-serious stalking. The Bed & Breakfast stay is the best way to visit -- $100 a night is cheap for a B&B, and where else do you get woken up in the morning to lions roaring?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Also, make each of those elephants carry some solar panels and affix windmills to lions - bang! - you also solve the energy crisis.
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/0
I saw the National Geographic special on the subject recently and the terror experienced by villagers when 100 or more of these beasts invades their fields is incredible.
More articles at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/20628
and
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld
The decision by the Canadian "Wilds" park that electrified fences were not a reliable deterrent to elephants was an intelligent one.
Imagine if the nightly news reported 1 or 2 people killed by elephants in every broadcast of every night of the year.
Canada is banning Pit Bulls and considering banning Rottweilers (do the Google search yourself,) but would permit roaming Elephants?
I think not.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
But I hope that wouldn't happen. It would be great to have these animals back.
As a peculiar side note, the islands of Hawaii are currently being over-run with wild pigs which do tremendous damage to the forests there. The pigs were introduced by the early Tahitian settlers. It's almost impossible for humans to cut down on the pig population because they're so hard to hunt. I think we should introduce the Asian tiger to some of the smaller islands. These tigers would be happy to hunt pigs, and they probably wouldn't cause any collateral damage.
They seem to think there are no large mammals in North America. There are large populations (booming even) of large prey animals like deer, elk, and moose (ok, deer tend to be much more successful than the others I think). And we certainly have no lack of large, native predators that are doing well...wolves, coyotes, mountain lions (a "big cat"...which for some odd reason they seem to think doesn't exist in North America...), bears (also doing well). And non mammal species like alligators are doing very well too, from near extinction to very strong comeback. They are certainly large too.
I don't get it, where is this lack of megafauna they are talking about? And for all the talk of "reintroducing species" it seems more like they want to introduce species completely non-native to N. America...like the cheetah. That's just asking for a pest-species problem.
If these guys are so hot about reintroducing species, why aren't they talking about reintroducing megafauna to Europe? There used to be Lions in Europe until the Romans killed them all for religious reasons, yet I don't hear anyone suggesting that they reintroduce the Lion to Europe. Although...everyone knows that Europe could use a rebuilding of it's wild lands, America on the other hand, has plenty!
So a bunch of people think its a good idea to 'bring back animals' that have been extinct for thousands of years in the environment.
A bad idea on so many levels, where to start?
First, there is no seperaton between man-made, and natural. One is a subset of the other. There is no 'special' status granted to humans that is 'above' the rest of nature. Obviously, these creatures were not able to be supported by the resources available to them, and then died off. So the only reason anyone would want to bring them back is either because; a) they think they know more about nature than nature does, or b) they are so selfish and wish to create whatever world around them that they like and consequences be damned!
Second, we cant even predict what will happen from a SMALL creature that has been indtroduced to an environment that it did not exist in before. For example, right now in chicagoland alone, there are numerous problems with these types of 'transplants'. One being a mollusk in the great lakes that has no natural predators that was probably brought in through the bilge tanks of large foreign ships. Second is the asian longhorn beetle that has decimated large parts of the cities tree population, and thrid is a fish that is creeping up the riverways to the great lakes that the Army corp of engineers is trying everything to keep it out of the great lakes, including ELECTRIFYING the rivers.
So now you tell me about some cute idea where you want to DELIBERATELY bring in a species that hasnt been there for thousands of years to let it breed?
Sure... bad ideas exist everywhere, even science.
"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."
It's all Bush's fault!
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Just take a look around any seven eleven, Mcdonalds or pizza hut, the Midwest is overrun with megafauna.
or are we bringing in the cheeatahs to deal with 'em?
"...but they never hunted elephants to extinction." ...Uh...there's a large number of ecologists around the world that might have a few things to say about that.
Human beings are the only species that we need to feel a moral responsibility to. Any ranton that survives will either have to be useful to us in some way or be to able to co-exist easily. If ranton cannot survive without our intervention then why keep him around?
There are situations where I should have input on where people live. That situation occurs when their choice of housing impacts me financially. Every time there is a hurricane, my tax dollars are spent to rebuild homes right back in the hurricane zone. Every time there is an earthquake, my tax dollars are spent to rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed.
Wild Animals? Well, wild animal attacks mean federal tax dollars are spent hunting, killing and/or relocating wild animals. The last time I checked, my tax dollars were used to pay the various Park Rangers that perform these tasks. I damn well do have a say. Either learn to deal with the situation you put yourself into or move.
No. It means no such thing. Please tell me you don't believe what you're saying...The number of attacks by Mountain Lion are so miniscule, you have a better chance of hitting the powerball tonight. My phrase was to point out that if you believe that Mountain Lions are truly a threat to your well being, then you better start being paranoid about alot more than just Mountain Lions.
First off, I'm sure it's occured to someone that the species living in Africa and Asia, aren't exactly the same as the ones that lived in North-America. You could bring them over, and they'd probably do alright in some places...but they'd be populations of african lions...not north-american lions.
Second, while we have seen a turn back from extinction for many species in the US, we are FAR from being able to declare that they are booming! Grizzly bears are not showing great improvement, and neither are the elk. Wolves are having major problems. Our efforts to re-introduce large herds of bison have seen minimal success at best.
And though off topic, our smaller wildlife, fish, and marine species, are going in the crapper faster than we can count.
In short, introducing new critters to North-America, no matter what their species history, is not the solution to the problem.
This is like having a bathtub with a hole in it. Instead of fixing the hole, we're just pouring in more water.
Maybe they should move some of these elephants to Palestine, since the Israelis have built a 2-foot thick - 15-foot high wall around the place already.
So what happens during the winter? Will they just act surprised when they freeze and get replacement animals?
Oh, wait. I guess they are still around in some places....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
So you're saying that elephants are extinct in Africa?!?!?! I better cancel my subscription to the Discovery channel then!
"Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The Queen is their slave."
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.
Farmers are traditionally the ones who cull the preditors, for obvious reasons. Whether a few rangers are paid to do it is trivia - nobody cares, it doesn't matter, if you stop paying the rangers to do it the debate still exists.
The political question has always been whether people ought to be allowed to hunt predators in their own state, or whether they'll be declared "endangered", which makes hunting them a federal crime. So explain to me why a kiddo in the suburbs ought to have a say in how a community in some other part of the country decides this question for themselves? If they fuck up the ecology in their state they'll certainly pay for it, and you can keep as many lions and tigers and bears in your state as you like.
Killing the predators is certainly one means of dealing with the situation. It works really well: no more predators, the prey are safe.
Those all support your (pigheaded) "it's my tax money" thing a lot better, since in those cases the issue does hingle on federal money being spent. The "wild animal" issue doesn't hinge on money, never has.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Lets bring them back. I'm sure they've weighed the unintended consequences of messing with an ecosystem already.
</sarcasm>
Specks
Batteries not included
Don't forget to note that a lot of commercial expansion happens because regulations - many environmental - make it easier for business to pick a new lot then renovation and clean up an old one.
Actually it's mostly fence as well. But you can also try Britain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and India to see if their walls will work.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
We had to wait 12,000 years until a bunch of fucking European assholes invaded the place to bring the horse back to North America. Living close to the land doesn't mean you're good for what's around you. It just means you're living in a tent and chasing animals all year long, and watching half your kids die in infancy. Not that the European way is much better - they developed industrial McBurger Death, exploited petroleum, bred like flies and are so far into population overshoot, their all going to die like flies when the oil gets too expensive to pump out of the ground to fertilise their drops or deliver their food or their fat asses to some soul sucking job.
Then, it will be back to living in tents, and chasing animals all year. But at least we'll have horses again. And this time we won't eat them all.
AC
Animal extinction is part of the cycle of
nature. It is *not* a bad thing. Elephants
in North America? Why? We already have a huge
continent, Africa, with lots of room and the
animals thrive there. In the U.S. we already
have mountain lions, moose, wild horses, and
grizzly bears (which already are a problem).
This just sounds like a bunch of crackpot radical
Earth First extremists masquerading as "scien-
tists" to further their agenda.
No, I'm saying that if ecologists and environmentalists around the globe had not done anything, yes, the elephants in Africa would be extinct.
The Department of the Interior manages over 1/5th the land of the United States. A good portion of that land (at least in the Continental US) comes into direct contact with private ranch and farm land. Many ranchers use federal land to provide grazing for their cattle. As I recall, that grazing is at a subsidized rate(firefox warning, that is a pdf file).
The rancher is upset because Mountain Lions do indeed pose a threat to cattle. But, many ranchers are using my tax subsidies to make a living. As a die-hard east coaster, I find it to be rather odd that many of the people that desire to kill wild animals depend upon my tax dollars for their jobs. If it wasn't for my tax support of their job, there wouldn't be a "debate" around whehter or not we should kill the mountain lion.
Therefore, I disagree with your premise that "The wild animal issue doesn't depend on money". It most definitely depends upon money.
As for my "pigheadedness"...Yes. It is a pigheaded point of view. But, there is nothing wrong with it. Most people in the U.S. are permitted to make a choice as to where they live. As long as their choice doesn't impact me, I don't care. But, whether it is a hurricane or a Mountain Lion, the Financial Impact of the issue gives me a right to be as pigheaded as I want.
Uh, the local zoo doesn't have too much trouble keeping the elephants under control. They have an approx. 1.5m deep by 2m wide concrete ditch surronding their enclosure. The walls are vertical, so it's a sheer drop and I guess the elephants know they can't make it across |_|. Seems to be a low cost solution.
I had to laugh when I read this. I went to Cornell. This is right up there with Carl Sagan's various capers, and it's a great example of the charming utopian out to lunchness that seems to define Cornell. Hey, I'm one of 'em and I'd love to see this happen on a large scale but I've lived in the real world too long to believe it could happen. Gotta get back to Ithaca one of these days, I guess...
Why not protect and preserve the species that are still there, along with their natural habitats?
The big reason why these species disappear is because they are sold in parts to western kapitalistic megalomaniacs, and because we otherwise manage to screw up the world in a fantastically shortsighted way. Putting up parks accross another ocean isn`t going to solve either of both, so what difference does it make?
With great power comes great electricity bills.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Wrong on so many levels.
Liberalism is the grand intellectual accomplishment of the enlightenement. It's fundamental essence was boiled down to one sentence:
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal."
It's no surprise that people who seek to benefit financially and criminally at the expense of others e.g. execs at GM, Monsanto etc. enjoy pushing that type of blind ignorant hatred of real American values, but how they manage to rope in those like yourself who are just more victims is amazing to me.
Keep in mind folks, anybody who decries Liberalism is shouting their utter contempt for the foundation of America.
Having lived on campus at UF, I can say definitively that the Alligators are in absolutely no way "Afraid of people".
They have learned over time where their territory is unlikely to be challenged (ponds), and where their claim would be challenged (streets, dorms).
There is a significant difference. Alligators do not fear humans. They recognize us for what we are: Food.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
The thing I want to know is what was so special about Africa that large species and predators survived there.
You would think the inhabitants of N. America had the same hunting tools 13000 years ago as everyone else on the planet.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Conservatism is intentional evil.
That sort of thing is never a one-way street. I think if you consider the hypothetical question "what would happen to me if the federal government and its impact in my life disappeared tomorrow?" you would find that it would impact you every bit as much as that rancher. Probably a whole heck of a lot more.
It seems to be an argument against large, central government that we all somehow get bitching rights about the way the other chooses to live and work, since we're all in some theoretical sense subsidizing one another. It just turns public life into a gigantic wankfest.
You know, they'd be farming or ranching or whatever without agriculture subsidies and other federal support. They'd be somewhat poorer. (or not, if you buy some of the more conservative views, which I mostly don't) They'd also by and large be very happy if there was NOT a federal presence in their lives or their business, which of course won't happen since a lot of the land still belongs to the US government...
Not really, no. I mean, of course you have that right, but not because of the way your money is being spent in this case.
Look, I'm with you on the hurricane/flood plain thing. It's dumb that people keep building in the same place over and over again and we keep bailing them out. It's not analogous to a situation where we impose an arbitrary value judgement on wildlife and the hunting thereof. The financial stake isn't there, it's disingenous to pretend that it is. Some people just don't like the idea of nice (or not so nice, really) little animals being hunted.
If you say to them "you can manage the predatory wildlife yourselves but I am not going to pay for it" their answer will be "okay, no problem." Count on it.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
...and anywhere else in the world, they're simply called Safari Parks.
This sounds like a terrible idea. I'm sure there were reasons why these species went extinct.
All those stories about hemp are not true...
oh,
wait a minute,
nevermind.
As we push back into the hills (I live up in the Santa Cruz Mtns), we get more and more into their territory, and as we initially knocked back their population, and then ended hunting of their prey (for all intents and purposes), now the deer population is rising, and with it, the cougar population. If you live along the edges of the hills in the South Bay, and you see deer, you've got cougars.
I've seen sign multiple times, and in 5 years, I've seen 3 total. They're around, but they don't make their prescence well known.
Wild pigs in my area are a serious menace. 400+ lbs, afraid of nothing, and they'll happily gore a person just because they were in the way.
LOL, sounds like a great place, given all the big, vicious, dumb animals already living there. I second the motion...
This is total ridiculous.
Elephants and cheetahs never lived in North America. Are they talking about Wolly Mammoth and Mastadons? Because if they are that's not the same thing.
Maybe we should just go to the zoo to see elephants, instead of dedicating land for them. Next thing you know the friends of the earth freaks will let 100 elephants loose near a major city and the spca will have to shoot them all.
Man what a great idea! And to think what worthy causes your tax dollars go to...
I was all excited for a moment, I thought someone had cloned a mastodon or a giant ground sloth from fossil DNA or something... Elephants etc. can surely only count as kilofauna?
What's funny here:
This is America. If you can convince others to stop having children of their own free will then more power to ya. If you try to get legislation passed forcing others to conform to your views of what the 'right' population of America should be, I'll be one of the members of the lynch mob who hangs you from the nearest flagpole.
Your answer to the relatively mild suggestion of a lawful tax disincentive to birthrate is met with public assasination and mutilation. Talk about forcing others to conform to your views.
Enjoy the irony.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Well into the twentieth century, Africa's animals and indigenous peoples lived in balance with the habitat. Natural controls kept the human and animal populations balanced. Each human male married/mated with several wives (Holy double bigamy, Batman!) and fathered many children by each woman. Most died in infancy or at toddler age. The idea was to have perhaps dozens of children so that one or two might survive to adulthood.
Then came the Western do-gooders with "humanitatian aid"--modern medicine, improved agricultural practices, abundant food. Eden had arrived.
The indigenous males continued to impregnate multiple females, but now most of the infants survived to adulthood, thanks to "umanitarian aid. The human population exploded--and humans have to live somewhere, and you have to produce enough food to feed them all.
Can you say "habitat loss"?
The answer--the only workable answer to saving Africa's wildlife and restoring the balance is rediculously simple: Stop ALL "humanitarian aid" to African countries. The balance will be restored, and Africa becomes the Eden it once was.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
We have a huge area of land, it's a bit cold, but that won't matter it's uninhabited by humans. One is called the White House, we have another one called Kahl-Fornia, another choice spot would be Canada, or Artica
All I ever seen mentioned is "the scientists". Who are these people, what training do they have? Do they have some agenda at hand beyond "conservation" (whatever that means these days). Do they have any legitimatacy, or are they just hacks?
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.
AccountKiller
Every time a dog kills someone, there are people who think we should ban whichever breed was at fault (despite the fact that it's often the owner at fault - train a dog to attack humans, and you shouldn't be surprised when it does)
i would humbly suggest that this project be put on HOLD. What the proposers have failed to consider is the potential for the introduction of new species into the North American ecosystems. Specifically, i am speaking about PARASITES.
For example, the trypanosome that causes African Sleeping Sickness is normally found in the bloodstream of African fauna. They are immune to it's effects. But people certainly are NOT. Not in Africa. Not in the US. And neither are North American animals immune to infection by the trypanosome.
And that's just 1 parasite system that could be transported to a new environment. There are perhaps hundreds of others.
IMHO - Bad idea.
What I don't understand is why extinction is a bad thing. Species are eliminated because they're not quite as suited to survive in their ecosystem as others are. So? Why should we interfere with natural selection? Why do we get all emotional because an animal ill-equipped to deal with recent circumstances dies (evolutionarily speaking) off?
Yo mama so fake, she failed the Turing Test.
And if nobody ever hears from hivebrain again... we all know why.
I guess this means I'll have to scrap my plan of sending Charleton Heston away in a space ship.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/18/tiger.attack.ap/i ndex.html
You sound defensive
NIMBY.
Elephants need very simple solutions to be cut off...a 3 meters long by 3 meters deep moat will stop any elephant from crossing.
Tat Tvam Asi
Slashdot chopped off the end of the topic.
c. 1600.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Establishing Asian asses and Przewalski's horse in North America might help...
I don't know about that Prze-whatchamacallit thing, but bring on some of that Asian ass!
What? Oh. Never mind.
(No, I'm not twelve. I'm twelve and a HALF, thank-you-very-much!)
either people should learn to deal with the results of their choice in living arrangements
That usually involves putting a bullet in the head of every predator encountered.the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
That's quite alot but I can definitely see where elephants could be a nuisance as they move onto cultivated lands. Also, it is important to consider how much of this 266,000 square miles is continuous?
Well within this century, nanotech and bioengineering will allow recreating virtually any species as long as relatively complete DNA is available - and certainly all the existing megafauna - and much fauna, mega or otherwise, that died out in recent centuries - will have recoverable DNA from one source or another.
And once nanotech accelerates humans to Transhumans, recreating any species will be trivial - assuming Transhumans care enough to bother. And with most humans out of the picture, repopulation of the megafauna will be rapid and unopposed.
In a few hundreds or thousands of years - an eyeblink in evolutionary and geological time - the Earth will look as it did thousands of years ago. Even long-term changes wrought by thousands of years of human existence can be reversed by nanotech mega-engineering projects - again, if deemed useful.
The proposed project does sound like fun, though.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You joke, but there was actually a fairly big court case here in South Africa earlier this year, where an employer did feed a recently-laid-off employee to the lions (with the help of a few other staff members they threw him over a fence into a lion enclosure, where the lions ate him). Don't remember the details but I think they were all charged with murder in the end.
Ah, here we go, found a link.
Then you would have exploding elephants to contend with!
The basics of the comparison is: Wolves run at 30 mph, taking your number. Pronghorn have been clocked at over sixty, and unlike cheetahs they can go for much long distances (albeit at a sort of cruising speed). What the heck predator did they evolve to avoid?
Cheetah did live in the Western hemisphere until the end of the Pleistocene. You wouldn't figure pronghorn needed to run marathons to get away from cheetahs, though.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
"Establishing Asian asses and Przewalski's horse in North America might help prevent the extinction of these endangered species..."
I'm sure the asian variety are wonderful creatures deserving of preservation, but speaking as an american who is suffering through the aftermath of our last presidental election, I'd have to say that we clearly have plenty of asses here already thank you very much.
That was a serious question! I was NOT trolling! Have you read the moderator guidelines?
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
If an alligator or croc should attempt to eat me I will not hesitate to eat them.
Fish....More than just sushi
all very cool, until someone loses a life.
This is a perfect blue state proposal. Liberals in blue states get their sensitive ecological consciences placated and the people of the red states get their children eaten. Let's move the lions tigers and bears to the blue states. When enough blue state people get their children eaten, maybe they will stop carring so much about their consciences and they will turn red.
The when you make links, you can do it like this:
<a href="http://www.url.org/stuff">some words describing the link</a>
I'm not sure if you actually need the quotes.
As a possible benefit, I have not seen slashcode mangle html links made "manually" like this.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
so when are they going to revive the saber tooth tiger and the giant bear that kept the american indians out before the end of the last ice age?
It's my understanding that Monte Verde, Chile, the oldest human settlement in the Americas, at the southern end of South America was built before the land bridge from Asia to the Americas even existed and therefore people were here before the last ice age. If I recall right the land bridge was there about 11,000 years ago whereas Monte Verde is dated around 12,000. But even if they were there at the same tyme it would of taken a long tyme before people emmigrated so far.
FalconShould there be a Law?
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).
You mean the Florida panther? Last I heard about 700 make their home in Florida. I don't recall who was doing it but there was a program to try to have Florida and Texas panthers "interbreed", swap genes, because the number of them in Florida was too low to keep a viable population of them.
If you choose to live in a hurricane zone, you will have hurricanes.
Though I moved from Florida 7 years ago I grew up there and friends of mine and I had this saying that you could tell the difference between a true Floridian and a transplant. When a hurricane comes along the Floridian says it's tyme to batten down the hatchs and transplants throw their arms up in the air and yell "let's get out of here". What really supprises and bothers me is that many people move there for the scenery and yet when they find an alligator in their back yard that was built in a swamp they get upset. As far as I'm concerned if you move somewhere where there's wildlife you get what you asked for.
For the record, I think bringing elephants and lions here to the US is a bad idea.
I don't know if it's a good or a bad idea, though it could be studied. What I'd really love to see is the buffalo and wolves that were from the area to be reintroduced, and to see a stop to farmers shooting, poisoning, and otherwise killing ferrets as well.
Falcon
Boy, I'm smacking my lips at the smell of gator tail, and wild boar.
Should there be a Law?
Wild pigs, on the other hand, are aggressive. They're non-native, invasive, and damned yummy. Whee!
Yeap! I can smell the bbq after going hunting in Hog Valley around Ocala now. Gator tail and frogs legs are something good to go with those wild boars. Growing up there we used to have bbqs almost every weekend through summer and early fall.
They're called panthers, and they're just about extinct.
Last I heard there's about 700 panthers left in Florida, things may of changed as it's been several years since I moved from there, but I consider myself as lucky having seen a couple in the wild.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Dogs that do kill people have been maltreated and trained to be aggressive, a problem in some southwestern cities, such that some municipalities have outlawed certain breeds.
Such as pit bulls! I knew or met some people who beat or otherwise mistreated their pit bulls saying they were making a good hunting dog. That's something I compleatly disagree with, you can treat a dog well and still have it be a good dog for hunting. In regards to pit bulls, the only thing that's really different about them is that their jaws can lock when they bite something and they won't let go. You have to use something like a bar to pry the jaws apart. Other than this they really aren't different than other dogs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What is currently a very small risk could become a not-so-small risk if the number of mountain lions (or big cats in general) dramatically increases. If it becomes a significant risk, such as it is in some areas in which humans coexist with megafauna, that would be undesirable.Mitigating the risk by avoiding the risky activity is never the right answer.
I believe this is totally wrong. As far as mitigating risks where you live, the best way to avoid the risks is by not moving where wildlife presents a risk. I have more sympathy for the cougar or aligator who finds their home territory being invaded by humans constructing building there than for the human who was attacked when they moved there.
FalconShould there be a Law?