Long ago animals that are now found only on the African and Asian continents once roamed North America. As Rosemary explains, some scientists want to bring them back.
Did you know that once upon a time, lions, cheetahs, elephants, camels and other seemingly exotic animals roamed North America? Way back in the Pleistocene era, these animals were part of a landscape that was much more diverse than we have now. When the first humans arrived on the scene, they hunted many of these mammals to extinction. Since then, the overall loss of these wild residents, combined with the effect of glaciers has drastically altered our continent.
The plains of North America could again be graced with such animals as elephants and lions, if some scientists have their way.
Today relatively few big animals remain. Many close relatives of these original four-footed North Americans, however, do live on in other parts of the world, like Asia and Africa.
But that could change. There’s a group of biologists who have come up with the idea of “Pleistocene Re-wilding.” Basically, they want to reintroduce the closest relatives of the original wildlife back into our landscape. They claim that since the middle of the country is emptying out from lack of jobs, there could be room for big parks — filled with big animals. And, since many of the big cats, elephants, and other candidate creatures are struggling for survival in their present day ranges, this “rewilding” could help them from going extinct.
And the biologists believe that the right balance of predator and prey could revitalize landscapes that have been impoverished by their absence.
This idea has provoked a lot of controversy as you can imagine. There’s obviously many obstacles before rewilding could ever becoming reality. It certainly is a very original idea for preserving our planet’s biodiversity.
Right now, it’s all just food for thought — but in the future? Who knows? Pachyderms in Peoria? Sloths in Sante Fe? Cheetahs in Cheyenne?
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