A couple of days ago the New York Times had an interview with Dr. Ullas Karanth, a wildlife biologist/conservationist from India who is desperately trying to save the tiger from extinction (thanks for the tip Yamini):
Dr. Karanth, 57, was in New York on a recent summer afternoon to attend a conference at the Bronx Zoo, a subsidiary of the conservation society, on the future of tigers in the wild. In a break in the proceedings, he spoke of his favorite feline.Q. Do we know how many wild tigers still exist in India?
A. We don’t. The government claims that there are over 3,000. But that figure is based on a flawed counting method that officials developed for themselves. There are preservation groups who claim the number is more like 1,000. It’s probably not that low.
We believe that if India is to have tigers, these wildlife reserves must be rigorously protected.
Josh Dolan of Cornell University publishes a paper in this week’s Nature (paid subscription required) that proposes a solution for animals faced with the same prospects as the tigers in India:
North America lost most of its large vertebrate species — its megafauna — some 13,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene. And now Africa’s large mammals are dying, stranded on a continent where wars are waging over scarce resources. However much we would wish otherwise, humans will continue to cause extinctions, change ecosystems and alter the course of evolution. Here, we outline a bold plan for preserving some of our global megafaunal heritage…Our vision begins immediately, spans the coming century, and is justified on ecological, evolutionary, economic, aesthetic and ethical grounds. The idea is to actively promote the restoration of large wild vertebrates into North America in preference to the ‘pests and weeds’ (rats and dandelions) that will otherwise come to dominate the landscape. This ‘Pleistocene re-wilding’ would be achieved through a series of carefully managed ecosystem manipulations using closely related species as proxies for extinct large vertebrates…
Bold plan? Are you kidding me! You guys get what he is saying? They want to reintroduce lions and tigers and…elephants from Africa into North America so that they have a chance to survive the seemingly inevitable extinction they face in Africa (and most likely India). This is just ballsy. There are a dozen reasons why this is a very very bad idea but I like big thinkers.
An article at CNN provides the reality check:
Others wonder whether people would support African lions making a home on the range, given the opposition to the reintroduction of native wolves in the rural West.“Just when you think the world has gotten as weird as it can get, something like this comes along,” said Steve Pilcher, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.
“I wonder how many calves or lambs it would take to feed a family of lions for a month?” Pilcher mused. “We sort of know what it takes for wolves, but something tells me we would be in a whole new ball game.”
Some wildlife conservationists said the idea would further damage the prospects of both threatened species and Africa’s hopes for sustainable economic development.
I think this is a great idea, especially since most of the states that would be ideal for these animals are “Red States.” Plus this plan has echos of Star Trek IV all over it. For real though, who else has driven across Kansas? I’ve driven the entire length four times. It is mind-numbingly boring. Can you imagine what a few Indian tigers would do for the drive?
Others wonder whether people would support African lions making a home on the range, given the opposition to the reintroduction of native wolves in the rural West.
look, cougars have been eating cats, dogs and the occassional 3 year old and jogger in boulder, CO, for several years. there are places where this could work because there are blue “close to nature” areas in large parts of the west. the western montana area around missoula might be another.
and the fact is that it isn’t a distant hypothetical that the asian lion is going to go extinct in india, it has been on the precipice for years. i don’t buy this “the natives will kill them argument!” because liberal environmentalists weren’t that discouraged when people offered the same point in the case of the wolf.
this is a case, in my opinion, of the liberal precautionary principle. with conservatives, if two guys get it on, the horror!. with liberals, any shift in the idyll of nature is so sacriligious. but there is not ideal equilibrium, north america has been subject to pulses of faunal invasion from eurasia for millions of years now with the expansion and retreat of ice sheets around beringia. bison and grey wolves are relative newcomers themselves.
India and Africa are going to outsource animals to the U.S.–maybe we can get a tiger to eat Lou Dobbs
Can you imagine what a few Indian tigers would do for the drive?
tigers are forest (at least scrubland) creatures. you mean lions.
No dude, there is some TALL grass along the highway. Besides, tiger can adapt. Life of Pi taught me that.
look what’s in today’s headlines: Tiger kills teen during photo pose
yeah, i’ve been through kansas. but tigers like mixed woodlands at best. they aren’t open savannah creatures. remember, they are the one cat that loves bodies of water, especially still ponds in glens. from what i remember the paleontological evidence is clear that in india tigers and lions were sharply differentiated by ecology, that this might have been the cause of their speciation in the first place. some of the tiger-lion hybrids are actually fertile (ligers), so that suggests some level of ecological allopatry.
Yeah Razib, I’m half joking but keep in mind the original intent of these guys. They are trying to re-introduce tigers to North America. Saber-tooth cats and tigers are pretty close and there is plenty of evidence of big cats in North America. They aren’t looking to necessarily mimic the cats old home but have them acclimate to a new one.
Anyone watch Grizzly Man, the recent movie about a nature lover who lives with the grizzlies bears in Alaska. In spite of spending a lot of time and becoming ‘close’ to grizzlies, Mr Nature lover and girlfriend end up as breakfast for Mr Cuddles. Also, it is true that african lions absolutely detest human flesh, it is the last thing they will eat. I got to know this gem from William Goldman the screenwriting guy.
smilodon is pretty far out on the phylogeny actually. but the evidence of morphological convergence of the ‘american cheetah’ (which seems to be a close relative of the puma) and eurasian-african cheetah strongly suggests that there are ecological niches that are very cognate.
i’m just saying, this isn’t that freaky. there are 500,000 camels is australia. the biggest red deer in the world (and the best hunting) is in new zealand.
additionally, a lot of american flora have seed forms which seem to suggest they’re hanging around for a giant ground sloth to come around. i think that depicting this is some bizarro freak show is kind of oversimplifying.
How about asian/african elephants? They aren’t predators and their survival is at risk too.
The environment in the southern US would suit them pretty well, I wonder how they would do? Elephants do have some bad habits though.
i think elphants are a sketchy possibility, they wreak havoc on agriculture. i mean, they like to “raid” fields now and then in packs, especially at night. it is a big problem in parts of africa.
So, I read this thing and saw the value of trying to save a species but then couldn’t help but wonder about the ethical issue of reintroducing animals into habitats that had already made them extinct… I mean, its not like the U.S. Army shot mastodons and saber-tooths and put them on reservations to die, these species left the earth via “nature”… Of course, it’s not Jurassic Park and we have no problem trying to duplicate eco-systems in unintended places, but isn’t someone trying to present an argument against this idea based on the aged thoughts of Darwin?
They didn’t all leave because of ‘nature’, many were hunted into extinction or were squeezed out by human expansion.
I guess the feeling here is that we have learned from the mistakes of the past and can create an environment where we can live in conjunction with these and other animals. I know this is only half serious but with species from the other continents there are way too many unknowns for this to work flawlessly. Some unaccounted for factor (like, lions developing a taste for squirrels or something) will bring about all kinds of problems and we’ll cull the animal and say ‘my bad’ and go on with our lives.
In the case of the wolves, they were brought in from western Canada so there was some understanding of how they would behave in the similar environment of the US northwest. The environs of south asia and africa don’t match up with the states as evenly.
the multisyallbic southie is very right, it was people!!!
I know this is only half serious but with species from the other continents there are way too many unknowns for this to work flawlessly. Some unaccounted for factor (like, lions developing a taste for squirrels or something) will bring about all kinds of problems and we’ll cull the animal and say ‘my bad’ and go on with our lives.
1) the culling would work, lions don’t breed fast, unlike say rabbits, so that analogy is false.
2) cats are a much bigger problem for squirrels than lions will ever be. these are animals on the top of the food chain who reproduce slowly. i think you need to take that into account, they aren’t really in a complex part of a ecological network, they are an isolated node way at the top. the problem with introducing mongoose to kill rats and having them go for native birds was a function of the fact that native birds on islands are relatively easy for continental predators to get at.
In the case of the wolves, they were brought in from western Canada so there was some understanding of how they would behave in the similar environment of the US northwest. The environs of south asia and africa don’t match up with the states as evenly.
look at the distribution of the eurasian wolf before you continue on that line of thought! granted, there are many subspecies, but as those of you versed in lewontin’s 85 vs. 15 fallacy will note, there is a lot of overlap between subspecies and special sample biasing could help acclimitization (bigger lions for colder climates). note also that lions lived in the highlands of the atlas and elborz mountains in morocco and iran until very recently. animals are always naked remember, they are more resilient than us to a chill.
past and present distribution of tiger.
also:
Prior to 10,000 years ago the lion (Panthera leo) ranged from the Cape of Good Hope to the Isthmus of Panama (1). At the beginning of the Holocene, the lion became extinct in North America, Europe and Russia (1), and until the 18th century P. leo still roamed over Africa, Arabia and India. Continuous persecution over the next 300 years with ever more sophisticated weaponry has led to the present day distribution of lions only in Sub-Saharan Africa and a remnant population in the Gir forest of India (2). The end-Pleistocene distribution of lions represents the greatest geographic range of any mammalian species, except man, and makes it an ideal group for a phylogeographic study.
i wonder what killed off most of the eurasian lions about 10,000 years ago? hm…..
The lion/squirrel thing was a joke (so laugh), I was just trying to make a point about unexpected consequences of introducing a species into a new environment.
I’m not really concerned so much with the animals’ ability to survive in the wild, just their ability to survive alongside humans.
So wolves might be wolves might be wolves, but wolves have existed in and around developing parts of Canada forever, so we know how to deal with them effectively. We can’t conclusively say the same things about lions and tigers. We could hypothesize, but we wouldnt be sure, and thats where the risk would be.
A perspective from slate online
We could hypothesize, but we wouldnt be sure, and thats where the risk would be.
sure, i’m just saying that many people using the precautionary principle as dialogue stoppers. conservatives use it for their own pet social issues, while liberals use it for environmental issues. the fact is that we live in a profoundly engineered and ‘unnatural’ world. so of course we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, we won’t until we do it. that’s the nature of predictive science and engineering, but we estimate probabilities and assume parameters.
the key here is, i think, that
1) we already have a medium sized ambush cat in north america (puma).
2) lions at least, are plains creatures, so they aren’t going to really hang out in parks like pumas (though tigers might).
3) top of the line predators are not the same order of variability in terms of their effect as say, superfast breeding generalist herbivores (or insects). we see them, we observe them, we know how they behave and what they eat.
Hmm. NRA would say this will be yet another reason for those in the red states to own guns.
my bad razib, you made that point in your first reply and i missed it
I would just prefer that we avoided this type of environmental engineering because i don’t have faith in our ability to account for all contingencies. If we try it and fail it could mean the death of the new species (however small their population) or worse, do we have the right to do that?
Anyways, considering the way things are going for some endangered species in south asia, it might become a necessity to try to introduce them to new habitats. Maybe then i would be more willing to support it, but as it stands i think we should spend more time trying to find a way for them to coexist with the humans they live with now.
If we try it and fail it could mean the death of the new species (however small their population) or worse, do we have the right to do that?
well, they wouldn’t really be a new species though. i mean, the there is a reason that horses and camels are considered “feral” in north america and australia, they are still the same species. i obviously don’t believe in god or nature’s god, so i don’t see how “right” has anything to do with it.
let me put it this way: i think there is an ineffable grandeur in megafauna. as a child in bangladesh i have vague memories of riding on the park elephants, those poor beasts who spend the day going round and round for human amusement. one of my favorite passtimes would be to go to zoo and grab the handle bars of the tiger cage as a four year old. the presence of large animals in north america, or any part of the world, is something that can’t be put down in simple utilitarian terms, because they aren’t a means to an end (we aren’t going to eat elephants or race cheetahs), they are the ends.
i don’t see it as a matter of “right” or “wrong.” the extinction of some of the old world megafauna seems inevitable with the growth in populations and further development. believe it or not, most demographers still consider africa a relatively underpopulated continent.
Just a heads up Babloo, that the Slate article you point to is already linked in my post. More importantly however it is written by the same person who wrote the article for Nature, rather than a Slate perspective.
I read Tim Flannery’s The Eternal Frontier (highly recommended if you like megafauna) — this a great idea. We’ve re-introduced wild horses to this continent, why not tigers, camels, cheetahs, and elephants. Especially elephants.
But if the goal is to save the Asian Lion (or what have you), there is another way. Let’s capture all the Indians around the Gir forest and let them loose in Kansas, leaving the original habitat safe for lions.
I’d love to do a Gujurati Safari through the plains. Please don’t feed the Gujurati. Do not roll down your windows.
Most megafauna became extinct in North America due to the introduction and expansion of a single species, homo sapiens. The problem with reitroducing similar megafauna today is that their same main pradator, homo sapiens, still exists in North America, in even greater numbers. You can pass laws protecting megafauna all you want, but it only takes a few rogue humans to clean them out. The human population of North America continues to grow (much from immigration) and human habitat continues to expand (suburban sprawl). Just look at what treehugging liberals do when they move to the “country” and then little Ashleigh gets threatened by a wolf or mountain lion. Suddenly those charismatic megafauna they once wanted to protect become the enemy.
Also, “The Eternal Frontier” is a great book, highly recommended!
while i understand the theory of evolution says only the strong survive, I can’t help feel that as humans we are so destructive in everything we do that this is our responsibility to try to help these majestic animals survive. As the only species that can truly think, I believe the challenge is to learn to live in harmony w/ nature, currently, we are the only species who does not do so. Not to mention it would be a good houselcleaning if a lion got loose in an Oklahoma trailer park.
But if the goal is to save the Asian Lion (or what have you), there is another way. Let’s capture all the Indians around the Gir forest and let them loose in Kansas, leaving the original habitat safe for lions.
this was too damn funny. Although I think this would cause civil war in Kansas w/ all the Amway vs Quixtar fights that would ensue
The 140 people who died at the jaws of the man-eating lions of Tsavo (in 1989) will disagree with that statement. And there have been several incidents of man eating lions since that time. and there is absolutely no evidence that in a new environment, not surrounded by its natural prey, that these lions would not attack humans or other domesticated livestock.
Leave them be where they are. They’re stunning in the wild.
ROTFL
This is one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. Also, if they can extract some dinosaur DNA from a million year old mosquito preserved in resin, they could recreate some diplodocus and tyrannosaurus and put them on an island and have, like, tours of the park and stuff.
After hunting the Tasmanian tiger to extinction, killing the Tasmanian Devil to near extinction, the Indian/Bengal tiger to near extinction etc. etc… hear comes the caucausian man to the rescue of the fine animals being driven to extinction in Asia and Africa.
No thanks! We would like our tigers and elephants to become extinct right here, if it were to come to that.
Btw, these are things where we score over Europe and North America, so may be it’s just a conspiracy 😉 At least America has bears, alligators, cougars and bison.
I can just see how this will be such wonderful fodder for all those ID proponents, when they look at the record after 10000 years.
Thousands of species from a completely different geographic location suddenly appear in a new distant land with no accompanying evolutionary fossil record? Hail the Jeebus!!!
First of all tigers weren’t even in the plan. secondly they said they were going to be in wilderness parks. Third of all they said it would roughly a 50 year time span to set this up.