Posted on 08/18/2005 5:52:59 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Lions stalking deer in the stubble of a Nebraska cornfield. Elephants trumpeting across Colorado’s high plains. Cheetah slouching through the West Texas scrub.
Prominent ecologists are floating an audacious plan that sounds like a “Jumanji” sequel — transplant African wildlife to the Great Plains of North America.
Their radical proposal is greeted with gasps and groans from other scientists and conservationists who recall previous efforts to relocate foreign species halfway around the world, often with disastrous results.
The authors contend it could help save Africa’s poster species from extinction, where protection is spotty and habitat is vanishing.
“We aren’t backing a truck up to some dump site in the dark and turning lose a bunch of elephants,” said Cornell University ecologist Harry W. Greene, one of the plan’s authors.
While most modern African species never lived on the American prairie, the scientists think today’s animals could duplicate the natural roles played by their departed, even larger cousins — mastodons, camels and saber-toothed cats — that roamed for more than 1 million years alongside antelope and bison.
But the scientists’ plan, which appears in today’s issue of the journal Nature, is triggering thunderclaps of criticism, with discouraging words such as “stupid” and “defeatist” raining down.
Critics point to Australia, which was overrun by rabbits and poisonous cane toads after misguided species relocations.
Some conservationists said the plan would further damage the prospects of African species on their native turf, as well as that continent’s hopes for sustainable economic development.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestate.com ...
Ivy league school in the Northeast corridor. Well if she has a good head on her shoulders & can understand that the closet communists that are teaching on campus are their because they couldnt get a job anywhere else she might just be alright .If she is studying something serious like electrical engineering or physics/serious science she should be just fine but any of the so-called "social sciences" thats a whole different story.
Actually, I entered grad. school in an Ivy league institution as a hard leftist kool-aid drinking believer in Proudhon and Kropotkin, and left as a libertarian conservative.
Sometimes the silliness drives you in the other direction. And sometimes you just grow up.
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.