A Real Life Jurassic Park

[painted wolf]

A similer plan is in the works to restore some of the 'lost' species to North America.
Lions, cheetas, camels, elephants, rhinos and a few other species that were here untill the end of the Plisteocine.
North Amercia as lost nearly as much of its origional biodevirsity as Australia.

Will it work, it would be nice to think so, but it will take a lot of work.

I'm sceptical that they will ever clone a Mammoth... but who knows. With global warming we could bring them back only to have them go extinct again due to global warming.
I do know I've always wanted to see one alive.
They must have been absolutely magestic creatures moving in herds accross the tundra, thier fur swaying and tusks swinging as they marched.

wa:do

[Scuba Pete]

I think ressurecting these beasts would be cool!

[Seyorni]

Resurrected charismatic megafauna are all well and good. They'll be lucrative draws at zoos and wildlife parks, but the idea of rewilding them is a stretch. The ecosystems needed to support them are mostly gone. We can't even maintain the fauna we have now.

We should concentrate first on slowing the rate of habitat destruction, perhaps later on restoration.

Perhaps someday when our human population is drastically reduced, the air, soil, rivers and oceans clean; when fish, plant and animal populations are rebounding and large tracts of wilderness are spreading over the land we can think about restoring what we previously destroyed.

[SoyLeche]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

Resurrected charismatic megafauna are all well and good. They'll be lucrative draws at zoos and wildlife parks, but the idea of rewilding them is a stretch. The ecosystems needed to support them are mostly gone. We can't even maintain the fauna we have now.

We should concentrate first on slowing the rate of habitat destruction, perhaps later on restoration.

Perhaps someday when our human population is drastically reduced, the air, soil, rivers and oceans clean; when fish, plant and animal populations are rebounding and large tracts of wilderness are spreading over the land we can think about restoring what we previously destroyed.

I have a hard time believing that a species that couldn't survive a couple million men with spears would thrive around a couple billion men with nuclear weapons.

[Seyorni]

I'm less worried about the nuclear weapons than about the chain saws, bulldozers, trawlers, mercury-spewing power plants, real-estate developers and miners.

[SoyLeche]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

I'm less worried about the nuclear weapons than about the chain saws, bulldozers, trawlers, mercury-spewing power plants, real-estate developers and miners.

Me too, I was just going for dramatics.

[Quoth The Raven]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

Resurrected charismatic megafauna are all well and good. They'll be lucrative draws at zoos and wildlife parks, but the idea of rewilding them is a stretch. The ecosystems needed to support them are mostly gone. We can't even maintain the fauna we have now.

We should concentrate first on slowing the rate of habitat destruction, perhaps later on restoration.

Perhaps someday when our human population is drastically reduced, the air, soil, rivers and oceans clean; when fish, plant and animal populations are rebounding and large tracts of wilderness are spreading over the land we can think about restoring what we previously destroyed.

I think it's a little silly to be thinking about cloning mammoths, when we can't even stop the animals that are still around dying out. It's exciting, and something to generate hype, but personally I'm more concerned with the species that only have 10 years left - even with intervention - than I am about ones that are already gone. If you can't stop things from dying out, how can you worry about bringing back stuff that's been dead and gone for so very long?

[painted wolf]

sadly eaven the ones with only 10 years and less than a hundred members are already gone.
The Californian condor is already extinct... I think the Panda is as well. However they are very charismatic and are great examples of why we need to preserve nature/natrual areas. In that respect eaven a handfull of members is good for the bennifit of all endangered species.

The mammoth if nothing elce can be an example of why we can't simply mass produce an already extinct species, if we let it go extinct in the first place then its gone from the wild for good. Tecnology isn't a magic wand to fix our mistakes.

wa:do