send more elephants

There are a group of people who want to re-establish our long-lost megafauna to the North American continent, because human beings owe it to them for having wiped them out in the first place (leaving climate change aside, of course). How does one do this? By establishing preserves full of elephants, cheetahs, African lions, Przewalski's horses, etc., of course. Pretending for the moment that of course all these animals would behave analogously to their extinct counterparts, there's the non-trivial fact that these animals are not adapted to the North American climate, and that there is in fact controversy about keeping elephants in zoos in northern climes, where at least they have heated stables for shelter. And never mind the fact that even the animals that do live here now that most resemble these animals that they'd like to introduce--bison, mountain lions, elk, etc.--are not doing so well as it is. If bison can't migrate, how on earth are elephants supposed to? If there is already conflict between suburbanites and mountain lions, why add bigger and stronger lions, who by the way might drive the native ones into extinction through competition?

If people would put half the energy into sensible things that they do into ridiculous things, the world would be a much improved place. Anyway, the Reuters article about this project is below the cut, for anyone who cares to read it.

( re-wilding of North American sites carries global conservation implications )

Idiots.