Posted on 08/17/2005 10:56:34 AM PDT by 11th_VA
Elephants, lions, cheetahs and camels could one day roam the western US under a proposal to recreate North American landscapes as they existed more than 13,000 years ago, when humans first encountered them.
The plan, proposed in a commentary in Nature and co-authored by 13 ecologists and conservation biologists, would help enrich a North American ecosystem that was left almost devoid of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene period. It would also help preserve wildlife that faces the threat of extinction in Africa and Asia.
Between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, 97 of 150 genera of large mammals disappeared from around the world. Although a warming climate played its part, the consensus is that over-hunting by humans probably had a significant role.
In North America, by about 13,000 years ago, humans were leaving evidence of big-game hunting using sophisticated stone tools. This hunting probably helped to drive many animals to extinction, including North American mammoths and mastodons, lions, cheetahs, camelops (a relative of the modern camel), horses and asses.
50-year plan
Although those animals are gone forever, related African and Asian species could serve as proxies, the authors say. They propose introducing the animals over 50 years, starting with horses, asses and camels, working up to elephants, and finally bringing in the big cats.
Eventually, the animals could roam in preserves hundreds of thousands of hectares in size. The best place to create this “Pleistocene Park” would be in the North American Great Plains, where the human population is relatively low and the grazing animals would have a ready supply of food.
But other conservationists think it is a bad idea. Chris Haney, a conservation biologist at Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, DC, US, says that substituting modern equivalents of extinct species will not be the same as restoring the ancient ecosystem. And he thinks it would detract from more pressing and “realistic” goals, such as restoring wolves, grizzlies, elk and other animals to their historic North American ranges. Even those reintroductions have faced bitter opposition from ranchers, farmers, and residents.
"I need to work on wolves, not mastodons," agrees Douglas Inkley, senior science adviser to the National Wildlife Federation in Reston, Virginia, US.
Journal reference: Nature (vol 436, p 913)
Check out post 12.
Hey you! Screw! Get a damn job, ya leeches!
Just remember to go jogging or mountain biking with your trusty .357 Magnum...
I've heard of Buffalo hide. Every time a squaw has a papoose he runs off to Buffalo and hides.
Just another leftists scheme to limit the space available for man to develop. What if an elephant steps on some precious endangered grass or varmint? No problem, they didn't really care about them anyway. Stopping progress is the goal.
Why some may laugh and snicker at this proposal, the ones behind this a very serious. The over arching vision is called "Wildlands". These folks want to take the Great Plains and eliminate human occupancy restoring the area to it's natural state so the 'buffalo' can run free again.
Here's a link:
http://www.wildlandsprojectrevealed.org/htm/summary.htm
"hundreds of thousands of hectares..."
A hectare is 10,000 square meters or about 2.47 acres. IOW, they're talking about 2,470,000 acres (plus) depending upon how many hundreds of thousands involved.
Get serious about these guys. They're into Deep Ecology which is based upon the theory that a man is no more valuable than a flea. When I said they are out to remove man from the great plains, I meant that. They would like to remove all traces of man including towns, cities, farms, roads, etc. from the great plains, all for the buffalo, etc.
I carry a S&W Model 629 in 4" barrel loaded with PMC 240 gr JHP 44 magnum. Suitable for most things I'll encounter in the mountains south of Pocatello. I could heft around the S&W .500 Magnum or Ruger .454 Casull, but that is a lot more weight. Those two are really reserved when I'm intentionally operating as the predator. In that instance they are outfitted with a scope and more serious hunting cartridges.
How about we do this in New York, instead? Or maybe France?
Ditto to that.
They also want humans to live as they did 13,000 years ago.
A very few of us living in caves with a 30 year life expectency.
I recommend that we extend the habitat of the American CROCODILE to the Rio Grande. We only have about 70 and their all in the Everglades.
Insanity - death wishes of the nutjobs on parade here
Thanks for the link. Demonstrating again, that all you want to find about can pretty much be found here.
First time a lion eats one of my horses, I'm not going to shoot it, I'm going to shoot whoever put it there.
250 lb minimum....
you know, those tripod mounted siege crossbows from the late middle ages.
I wonder how many freezers I'd need to handle all the meat from a bagged elephant??
Even more, I wonder what elephant steak tastes like??
(Shoot, shovel and shut up won't work here, unless you have a spare front end loader).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.