Reintroduce long dead species - Scientists

aidan_walsh

Elephants, lions to roam North America once more?

Scientists are 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 not only could large tracts of North America act as breeding sanctuaries for species of large wild animals under threat in Africa and Asia, but that such ecological history parks could be major tourist attractions.

In cruelly timed other news:

Tiger Kills Kansas Teen

Siberian tiger attacked and killed a teenage girl who was posing for a picture at an animal sanctuary Thursday morning, authorities said.

The Labette County Sheriff's office identified the victim as Haley R. Hilderbrand, 17, of Altamont. Hilderbrand was at the Lost Creek Animal Sanctuary posing for a photo with the 7-year-old tiger, which was being restrained by its handler, when the animal turned and attacked her.

angelofdeath

i thought the title meant the scientists were the lond dead species... weird

Victor

aidan_walsh wrote:

Scientists are proposing reintroducing large mammals such as elephants, lions, cheetahs and wild horses to North America to replace populations lost 13,000 years ago.

Wild horses? Ever hear of mustangs?

Le Rack

angelofdeath wrote:

i thought the title meant the scientists were the lond dead species... weird

I thought they had done a Jurassic Park on it!

Victor

Naw, they saved some scientists from being eaten by keeping them on another island.

Kazaanova

angelofdeath wrote:

i thought the title meant the scientists were the lond dead species... weird

Me too. They havent been up to much lately.

sceptre

Le Rack wrote:

I thought they had done a Jurassic Park on it!

I vote for nothing bigger or scarier than the dodo when they do. No birds with extra pointy toes.

Yes, I'm aware that there's almost certainly no usable dodo DNA lying around anywhere, nor is there likely to be. Pity that

MorningStar

Victor wrote:

Wild horses? Ever hear of mustangs?

You mean the introduced species of horse in the US. They aren't native and are only wild by nature not bred. Unlike pigs they don't actually become "wild" AFIK.

Victor

sceptre wrote:

I vote for nothing bigger or scarier than the dodo when they do. No birds with extra pointy toes. Yes, I'm aware that there's almost certainly no usable dodo DNA lying around anywhere, nor is there likely to be. Pity that

Actually there would be samples, but I'm not sure how usable they would be.

Dodos would have little use - merely curiousities, they have little or no agricultural, ecological or other use. Unless there are big cats about.

wtfpwned

yeah that's a great idea: bring hundreds of giant, rare south african mammals to the US so they can be exterminated almost immediatly

great idea guys, can't wait till i turn on the tv and see "little johnnys parents sue after he is consumed by a giraffe"

Draupnir

Giraffe's are herbivorous

Doper Than U

MorningStar wrote:

Re: Mustangs? You mean the introduced species of horse in the US. They aren't native and are only wild by nature not bred. Unlike pigs they don't actually become "wild" AFIK.

Indeed. North America never had wild horses.. well, not in recent history. And by recent I mean between 10,000 and 1 million or so years ago (give or take). The beasts that roamed the plains during this time died out due to massive extinction events, not human intervention. Like Jeff Goldblum said "They had their shot, and they blew it" so to speak. Re-introducing them will be a futile and dangerous experiment. A far better way of spending all that money and effort would be to plant some of the many billions of trees they cut down each year, and perhaps a couple hundred thousand of the buffalo that western settlers slaughtered for fun.

And any animal reintroduced to the wild from domestication will always be a feral animal, I wasn't aware that pigs were an exception (would love to see an explanation of this if there's one floating about). Horses will become as wild as their ancestors in terms of behaviour if released for a few generations, but they will always be considered feral.

Sleepy

What's the difference between wild and feral?

entropi

Scientists are 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 not only could large tracts of North America act as breeding sanctuaries for species of large wild animals....

Would the now overly bulky population of America already be contributing to this by imitating large mammals already ?? and wouldn't these so called " breeding sanctuaries " have a name like Mc Donalds ??

StupidLikeAFox

why bother introducing them though, something to look at?

MorningStar

Doper Than U wrote:

And any animal reintroduced to the wild from domestication will always be a feral animal, I wasn't aware that pigs were an exception (would love to see an explanation of this if there's one floating about). Horses will become as wild as their ancestors in terms of behaviour if released for a few generations, but they will always be considered feral.

Not sure what the story is with pigs but there are three wild bores down the country somewhere here. Not sure but they actually phsyically change for sure hence there are razor backs in Australia. It isn't even a generational thing.

Feral tends to mean wild natured but can often be domesticated.

Wild animals can't be domesticated e.g. wolves and wild dogs.

The Russians are the only people who have managed to domesticticate a wild animal in recent history but it took over 50 generations of selective breeding of a mink like animal. Saw it on Discovery a while ago basically the animal stays with a undeveloped brain is what they found.

aidan_walsh

Thats pretty much it, as far as I can gather. They seem to have gotten the bright idea that since there was once populations of animals like them native to America, then they should be reintroduced into the wild.

wtfpwned wrote:

so they can be exterminated almost immediatly

I'm presuming the plan would be to have them under the protection of the national parks authority.

What strikes me though is that they seem to be under the impression that reintroducing an animal that has been around there for 13,000 years would "spark fresh interest in conservation, contribute to biodiversity and begin to put right some of the wrongs caused by human activities." In the short term perhaps, but is it likely to last? And what of the damage that would be caused by this reintroduction to the natove populations?

Doper Than U

MorningStar wrote:

Not sure what the story is with pigs but there are three wild bores down the country somewhere here. Not sure but they actually phsyically change for sure hence there are razor backs in Australia. It isn't even a generational thing.

Feral tends to mean wild natured but can often be domesticated.

Wild animals can't be domesticated e.g. wolves and wild dogs.

The Russians are the only people who have managed to domesticticate a wild animal in recent history but it took over 50 generations of selective breeding of a mink like animal. Saw it on Discovery a while ago basically the animal stays with a undeveloped brain is what they found.

Feral typically means having returned to the wild from domestication. The name "Wild Boar" may be a bit of a misnomer, in that the feral boar is running wild or.. that we simply still have a small wild boar population. I know true Wild Boars still exist across europe alright. But plenty of pigs escape from abbatoirs and pig farms over here, they'll never be true Wild Boars as it's a different breed altogether from the domesticated meat pig. I must look into it further, it would be great to think there are actually true Wild Boars around. (I can't understand the physical changes you mention, but I'll look into that aswell, sounds fascinating)

I would agree wholeheartedly that true wild animals cannot be domesticated. People have funny ideas about "Man, the animal tamer"... pffft. Please. Evolution dictates the domestication of a species (or rather.. evolutionary strategy).

aidan walsh wrote:

begin to put right some of the wrongs caused by human activities

Like I said, bullsh*t. Most of the larger North American beasts have become extinct due to Extinction Events. Man had feck all to do with it. They should be working on reintroducing wolves, buffalo, mountain lion, coyote (all of whose popluations have been decimated directly because of human interference). I'll stand by my trees idea too. More of those please, especially the rarer ones America is destroying in Brazil.

Capt'n Midnight

sceptre wrote:

I vote for nothing bigger or scarier than the dodo when they do. No birds with extra pointy toes.

So much for
Thunderbirds are go !

Dogs and Horses originated in the americas and later expanded into asia via the bearing strait land bridge. Apart from africa most of the megafauna (things bigger than a cow) were wiped out at roughly the same time humans arrived.

our species has been on the earth at the same time as sharks about 10 times the size of great whites, tortoises roughly the same size as a VW Beetle, Rocs Moas and really nasty birds, ground sloths as big as elephants, camels in texas, human sized lemurs, and stellers sea cow, and komodo dragons the size of crocs , wombats the size of hippos and kangeroos that were as big as any bouncer could ever get.

MorningStar

Doper Than U wrote:

Feral typically means having returned to the wild from domestication. The name "Wild Boar" may be a bit of a misnomer, in that the feral boar is running wild or.. that we simply still have a small wild boar population.

I know it may sound nuts put the pigs that get loose are physically different after being in the wild. They actually become wild and not ferral. THe skin colour changes as does the jaw and general nature. I saw it on a show at it wasn't april 1st.

Doper Than U

MorningStar wrote:

I know it may sound nuts put the pigs that get loose are physically different after being in the wild. They actually become wild and not ferral. THe skin colour changes as does the jaw and general nature. I saw it on a show at it wasn't april 1st.

Can you remember the name of the show, or what channel it was on? I'd love to see it. It sounds fascinating, even though I just can't believe it. This is one of those things I have to see to believe.. it sounds too cool to be true.

Gazza22

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

our species has been on the earth at the same time as sharks about 10 times the size of great whites, tortoises roughly the same size as a VW Beetle, Rocs Moas and really nasty birds, ground sloths as big as elephants, camels in texas, human sized lemurs, and stellers sea cow, and komodo dragons the size of crocs , wombats the size of hippos and kangeroos that were as big as any bouncer could ever get.

Now that would have been an exciting world!