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."

Comments

Must....resist....

[GillBates0]

I, for one, welcome our new megafaunic overlords.

Re:Help me out here

[ds_job]

They'd have to introduce civilisation to North America first...

Active Reduction

[Bimo_Dude]

By putting the lions in Crawford (at a specific ranch), there would be an active reduction in the dangers to civilization.

Re:Active Reduction

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they might eat that Dumb Bitch(TM) and her friends protesting down there. If we loose in Iraq, then her son was a wasted life. When we win, he will have died for a Good Cause(TM).

Who cares? Fuck the elephants!

[OsirisX11]

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!)

Re:Cage the people

[stupid_is]

That's called a city - and it doesn't seem to work

Re:South Dakota

[Snar Bloot]

Here's a link to some of the public buffalo herds in South Dakota.

http://www.sd4history.com/Unit3/southdakotaherds.h tm

And the parent is right...I drive every weekend across the western half of the state...and there's vast amounts of room available for more buffalo (bison) herds. In fact, more and more ranchers seem to be getting into the bison business instead of cattle.

Re:Extinction

[ranton]

It's gonna be a really interesting world with just farm and domestic animals.

I agree with that statement completely, regardless of the fact that I know you said it sarcastically. How do lions and tigers living in Africa make the world more interesting? I find civilization far more interesting. I like zoos, but I like movies and dance clubs and computers far more.

How many people's lives would actually become less interesting if all of a sudden all elephants outside of zoos went extinct? And how much less interesting? Then factor in how much money and effort it would take to save the population of wild elephants. If that money would be better spent making people's lives more interesting in another way, then there is no reason to keep those animals around by your reasoning.

Human beings are the only species that we need to feel a moral responsibility to. Any animal that survives will either have to be useful to us in some way or be able to co-exist easily. If they cannot survive without our intervention then why keep them around?

Re:A Little Late

[arthax0r]

What really needs to happen is a reduction in human overpopulation, but I don't see that happening anytime soon either.

Are you blind or do you just not have any contact with the outside world other than /.? If you haven't noticed, the Masonic/Illuminati vision of getting the world to destroy the middle class and move into a slave/master world is coming, and soon. They are in the pre-phase of WWIII where they attempt to get the middle east to destroy itself and cause world-wide chaos where the only the strong will survive (and those weak they choose to keep around as slaves)

Re:The Wilds

[DjMd]

ha HA
Pot, Kettle
Kettle, pot


This is slashdot, you are a dork too, or lost, which makes yous stupid...

Re:Help me out here

[|/|/|||]

I don't know where the hell you live, but the whole west coast is spreading out into the countryside at an alarming rate. People want to live in big suburban subdivisions, and developers are converting forest into landscaping as fast as possible.

I like your positive attitude, but I'm afraid things aren't going as well as you think. We need to put the brakes on our population growth, stop building roads in National Forest, and start designating more wilderness.

Well, that's my opinion anyway. I'm pretty sure that we can develop the technology to survive without our natural environment, but I for one don't want to. I need to get away from civilization sometimes. I need to go where I can't tell that there are other humans on the planet. Maybe we'll pull back into cities and our population will decrease as you say, but it's certainly *not* happening right now.

Re:Help me out here

[DickeyWayne]

" They'd have to introduce civilisation to North America first..."

Someone please mod the parent up. Maybe not ALL that high, but it deserves better than "Troll."

Ghandi was once asked what he thought of western civilization. His answer: "I'd be in favor of it."

What about natural selection?

[hanshotfirst]

Didn't survival of the fittest deem this to be the wrong continent for megafauna, since they were unable adapt to the changing environment and competing species?

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.

Establishing Asian asses?

[Larthallor]

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!)