Moving some of Africa's megafauna to the U.S.

[Azi Tohak]

Dang skippy its good! Tender and not nearly as much fat as cow. As far as I know, the only problem is actually growing bison. There is very little that will keep a bison in a pen. They go right through barbed wire... Too bad though, I would love to have some here.

Azi

[Louis VI the Fat]

"If they want to preserve these animals, they should help Africa set up animal conservation sanctuaries in Africa itself, not America."

Let's believe what everybody quoted in that article has to say.
i.e. the Africans want to keep the animals in Africa because they need to protect their tourism industry. And America does not understand how to conserve African game.
And that the only concern of the Americans is wildlife preservation.

Then the easy solution is to just buy a chunk of land in Africa the size of the entire Midwest.

They get to keep those tourist-magnet animals for themselves. Land and park ranger wages in Africa are much cheaper than in America, so the Americans can save more animals per buck.

[Louis VI the Fat]

So before you go ripping on the Africans, ask yourself this, where is our megafauna? Most of it is dead or extinct and has been so for a long time. Ditto for Europe where the larger species became extinct centuries ago.

American megafauna disappeared when the native Americans colonized the America's twelve thousand years ago.

Native Americans were definately not 'in balance with nature' as their present day image suggests.

Ditto for Europe again. Megafauna disapeared at the end of the last ice-age, when the continent was ready for major human colonization. Australian megafauna was wiped out 40.000 years ago by the ancestors of the aboriginals, not in the 18th/19th century. Same for New Zealand, 1500 years ago.
It was not the arrival of 'whites' or modern man that has caused most mass extinctions of megafauna. It was the arrival of man period.
Only Africa escaped this fate because it's megafauna got a few million years to adapt to man and evolve alongside us.

Clicky.

[Samurai Waki]

Buffalo is a lot greasier than Beef. Having that said. they do taste quite a bit alike (buffalo are a bit more lean, and therefore a tad more gamier).

[Aenlic]

Nah, I think we should go ahead and play with the ecosystem some more.

Look at all of the brilliant examples.

There was the bright guy who decided to import every species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare to the United States. The European starlings, with no natural enemies except jet engines, are still a problem around airports and military bases today.

The gypsy moth was introduced into New England from France in 1869 by an entymologist who hoped to establish a new textile trade by interbreeding them with silk moths. They escaped, of course, and nearly defoliated New England.

There was the idea to raise rabbits in Australia.

There was the idea to introduce foxes to control the horrible result of the rabbits idea.

There was the idea to introduce bush-tailed opposum from Australia into New Zealand to establish a new fur trade.

There was the idea to import kudzu vine from Japan to shade mansions in the southern U.S. in the 1876. Ask a farmer in the south about that one.

There was South American water hyacinth transplanted to the U.S. for it's beauty.

And let's not forget the experiment to "africanize" the Brazilian honey bee.

How about the Nile perch introduced in 1962 into Lake Victoria to establish a fishing industry. It's estimated that over 300 species of indigenous fish in the lake are now extinct as a result, including the species most favored for flavor by the local fishermen.

There is the American cane toad, a poisonous species that no native species will eat, introduced into Queensland in the 1930's to protect cane fields. Extinctions of native species continue as the frog expands it's territory some 17 miles/year in all directions.

That's a short list of just a few of the intentional exotic species introductions. The unintenional list, which is much longer, includes such lovely species as the zebra mussel and Asian clam introduced from ships' ballast, the poisonous Indian Ocean/Pacific lionfish now being seen off the coast of North Carolina, and everyone's personal favorite in the U.S. southeast, the fire ant.

I say we do more with less understanding! It's the human way!

[Red Harvest]

That might have been true 30 years ago, but today we are constantly taking species off the endangered species list, especially the big predators.

The only reason we have brought the bison back is because we dont want to. They arent as tasty and profitable as beef. There are thousands of bison herds around the country - ive hunted them, they arent near extinction - and if there was enough of a movement to bring them back, we could.

Americans are very good at conservation - when we want to be. Apparently the africans are not, or there wouldnt be a movement to take such a drastic step to save them.

Only in your mind PJ. The Africans scoffed at the suggestion. It was proposed by Americans according to the article, so your whole basis is bass ackwards.

As it is, the big predators and such were driven out of their ranges here long ago. Your prejudiced sense of superiority doesn't fit too well with the way things have happened. Considering their relative poverty, African conservation efforts have been commendable. In our past when subsistence living and population density rose the species disappeared from all those ranges. That's one reason so many species differed from states in the 1920's as my grandparents attest--much of their meet came from subsistence hunting. Get some perspective.

That woodpecker that was rediscovered? The last time it had been spotted, governors of 4 different states tried to halt the Chicago Mill Co. from cutting off its habitat. The company response was, and I quote, "We are just money grubbers."