Re: NANFA-L-- Could Elephants Become an Envasive Species?

dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:28:20 -0500

Many species of African and some Asian antelopes are established in
Texas. The Aoudad (Barbary sheep) is also common now in parts of
Texas. African elephants do well outdoors in Texas and even much more
northerly climes. Texas is-in-generally the same lattitude north as
much of southern Africa is south, and elephants range over much of
southern Africa.

The authors of the notion to introduce all these African things
to "restore" the pleistocene fauna are friends of some powerful people,
among them Ted Turner, who owns millions of acres in western N.A. If
Texans think blackbuck, impala, Axis deer, .......... belong in Texas
(and these and many more are widely introduced on Texs "hunting
ranches)" why does anyone think this proposal won't have stayng power?

A part of its danger is that it now has the imprimatur of "ecology,"
given the credentials of the authors, and the prestige of the journal
Nature.

Now, why is the pleistocene any more important than any other time in
geological history? And why would we not, if we want to bring back a
megafauna to the American Great Plains, work with those that were here
more recently, like elk, bison, grizzlies, lobos, instead of elephants,
lions, and so on?

Dave

David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm

"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"
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