Reuters - Wed Aug 17, 2:29 PM ET
Scientists are proposing reintroducing large mammals such as
elephants, lions, cheetahs and wild horses to North America to
replace populations lost 13,000 years ago. The scientists say that
not only could large tracts of North America act as breeding
sanctuaries for species of large wild animals under threat in
Africa and Asia, but that such ecological history parks could be
major tourist attractions. 'Africa and parts of Asia are now the
only places where megafauna are relatively intact, and the loss of
many of these species within this century seems likely,' the team,
led by Josh Donlan from New York's Cornell University, said. 'Given
this risk of further extinction, re-wilding of North American sites
carries global conservation implications,' the team wrote in
Wednesday's issue of the science journal Nature. It said large
mammals were common across all continents until the Late
Pleistocene wipeout that hit North America hardest and handed the
world to smaller species. The largest mammals in the United States
today are bison. The Pleistocene epoch lasted from about 1.65
million years ago to 10,000 years ago. An elephant on the plains of
Masai Mara Game Park in Kenya, August 18, 2003. (Antony
Njuguna/Reuters)
