As if it was not hard enough looking out for deer crossings, what about an elephant crossing?
A group of prominent ecologists suggests relocating endangered African species to North America. Since protection is inconsistent at best within the African countries, the idea proposes creating a large wildlife preserve in the plains of the United States. While none of the species will be native to the area, scientists argue that it will help restore biodiversity closer to what it was 10,000 year ago before humans came to this continent.
August 19th, 2005 on 2:43 am
As much as I like the idea for protecting endangered spieces, there comes a point when everything becomes folly. Like, for example, when someone proposes a global-scale ecological tampering in order to help animals who aren’t well protected by African authorities.
But here’s an idea–why not leave the animals where they are and fix the problems through building better government.
The road to the future is paved with good intentions.
August 19th, 2005 on 10:52 am
Why do they need protection anyway? Where’s everyone’s faith in Darwin?
August 19th, 2005 on 5:21 pm
I agree, Jay. I used to work at the Cincinnati Zoo. One of the reasons I loved working there was for their massive preservation activities and efforts to work with African governments in saving the animal reserves. Their primary foci were on saving the rhinoceros, gorilla, and orangutan populations.
In a globalization class I took at Xavier, we discussed heavily the implications of losing our biodiversity. There are storage banks now which are trying to preserve the DNA of all of these endangered species in case they become extinct. Yet, is the DNA of a tiger still a tiger. Or is a tiger more than an animal, but an animal in a specific environment interacting with a multitude of other organisms? In that sense, transplanting these animals would not necessarily be preserving the biodiversity.
Not to mention the dramatic effects it would have on the environment here. It would be cool, however, to hop in my parents’ car in Omaha, NE, and take a little safari.