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Group proposes putting
African wild animals in the USA
Aug. 18, 2005
Courtesy Cornell University
and World Science staff
If a group of researchers have their way, cheetahs, lions, elephants, camels and other large wild animals may soon roam parts of North America.
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Could this be the Great Plains in 100 years? Artist Carl Buell provided this fanciful depiction of a rewilding scene.
(Carl Buell for Cornell University/Nature)
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“If we only have 10 minutes to present this idea, people think we’re nuts,” said Harry Greene, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at
Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. “But if people hear the one-hour version, they realize they haven’t thought about this as much as we
have.”
Greene and a number of other ecologists have authored a paper, published in the
today’s issue of the research journal Nature, advocating the establishment of vast ecological history parks with large mammals, mostly from
Africa.
The animals chosen for the
project would be relatives or counterparts to extinct animals that once roamed the Great Plains.
The plan, called Pleistocene rewilding, is meant as a proactive approach to conservation,
revitalizing ecosystems compromised by the extinction of many of the continent’s large mammals, many of them predators. It would also offer ecotourism and land-management jobs to help the struggling economies in rural areas of the Great Plains and
Southwest, researchers say.
During the Pleistocene era — between 1.8 million to about 10,000 years ago — North America’s ecosystems were much more
diverse, the researchers argued. As animals became extinct, many gaps developed in the web of interactions that makes up a healthy ecosystem. These gaps could be filled by restoring animals that are counterparts to the extinct Pleistocene-period animals, the researchers said.
For example, 4 million years of being hunted by the now extinct American cheetah
was probably why the pronghorn — an antelopelike animal found throughout the deserts of the American Southwest — developed such blinding speed,
up to around 60 miles an hour.
Introducing free-ranging African cheetahs back to the Southwest, the scientists assert, could restore strong interactions with pronghorns and provide endangered cheetahs with new habitat.
Other living species that the scientists suggested as possible counterparts to Pleistocene-era animals in North America include feral horses, wild
asses, Bactrian camels, Asian and African elephants, and lions.
“Obviously, gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue, especially when you talk about reintroducing predators,” said the paper’s lead author, Josh Donlan, a graduate student in Cornell’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology. He pointed to a controversy that raged when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995.
“There are going to have to be some major attitude shifts. That includes realizing predation is a natural role, and that people are going to have to take precautions.”
He said that large tracts of private land are probably the most promising places to start, with each step carefully guided by the fossil record and the involvement of experts and research. “We are not advocating backing up a van and letting elephants and cheetahs out into the landscape,” said Donlan. “All of this would be science-driven.”
A pilot study will test the rewilding notion by releasing the endangered Bolson tortoise on a private ranch in New Mexico. The tortoise, which can weigh up to 100 pounds and once thrived in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, now only survives in a small area of northern Mexico.
Evidence shows that animals near the top of the food chain play important roles in structuring ecological systems and maintaining biodiversity, according to the paper. These keystone species — animals that contribute to diversity of life and which the rewilding researchers would like to reintroduce — play a disproportionate role in an ecosystem. Extinction of a keystone species can lead to homogenous landscapes with less biodiversity and different species proliferating and dominating the ecosystem.
For example, when humans almost wiped out wolves and grizzly bears in the United
States, the species dynamics shifted, according to the researchers. The loss of wolves and grizzlies allowed elk populations to soar. Elk, in turn, ate willows, a favorite food of beavers.
As a result, the
researchers added, along winter elk ranges in Colorado, beaver populations have declined by 80 to 90 percent. With fewer beavers to create dams that raise water tables, fewer wetlands developed to support willows. Today, there are 60 percent fewer willows in parts of Colorado where beavers have declined.
Similarly, the researchers continued after major predators became extinct in Montana and Wyoming, the number of moose, which eat willows, increased
around Yellowstone National Park. The loss of willows has negatively impacted the numbers of nesting migrant songbirds.
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