Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Like, why not a genetic super tree that breaths in a gak ton of carbon monoxide?

Well they've tried things like that before.

The result is something like myxomatosis which is now a global (far as I'm aware) threat against rabbits in general
Or you can look at any one of a number of high performance plants which can out-compete local flora very quickly. A "Supertree" that can function far better than regular trees could easily spread and suddenly you've lost control over them; with them popping up and out-competing other trees.

At least when you deal with species that were once part of an ecosystem, the system itself has the vestigial elements that were compatible with that species. There's a greater chance of balance. With totally non native or artificial creations you've always a high chance of things going wrong.


Asides I'd wager a tree that respires far more efficiently might well require far more nutrients to survive. So now its range is limited or you have to enrich the soils; then deal with washout and runoff pollution.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Honestly?

I fear we don’t really, like really really understand the ecosystem for this sort of thing.

There's also the fact that reintroducing a species that has been completely wiped out, especially one that doesn't have a current analog, is going to face major behavioral hurdles. You can bring some of these animals back, but how do you teach them to live without any continuity of species? There are a lot of big hurdles beyond just being able to get a living specimen.

This is why any attempt to bring back passenger pigeons, at least in anything remotely resembling how the species originally was, is doomed to failure. That's why the early attempts to save the species failed, because the Passenger's social and reproductive behaviors were based around flocks of millions of birds, and by the time any tried to do anything there were only a few left.

 Frazzled wrote:

North America used to have Cheetahs. If Cheetahs were reintroduced they would not have the pressure from the rest of Africa's large predators(one of the major reasons for declining cheetah population is because they lose most of their kills to Lions, Hyenas, and Leopards) and they would have plenty of prey like Pronghorn and Deer. Its a possible lifeline for the species.

Mammoths could restore a lost part of the tundra ecosystem. Much like how Elephants shape the terrain in Africa, Mammoths used to do the same in the Tundra.

Our mountain lions, wolves, chupacabra, and bears would be displeased. Also the first time a cheetah kills a person, well thats it for this company.

I don’t think anybody has actually ever been killed by a cheetah.

I couldn't state with certainty than nobody in the history of our species has ever been attacked by a cheetah, but I'd bet money that it's extraordinarily rare. They were partially domesticated and used as hunting animals akin to falcons historically, so I guess it's possible, but we are categorically not on their menu.

In other news Tasmanian devils have been reintroduced into the Australian mainland after being hunted to extinction by dingos 3000 years ago.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don’t think anybody has actually ever been killed by a cheetah.

I was going to post that exact same thing, but I googled it, and it's only mostly right. There have been at least 2 known Cheetah fatalities, and neither was from a wild Cheetah. One was on a tiger-king kinda situation where a toddler was exposed to a loose Cheetah by drunken zookeepers (good job, guys). The other was a wacko who got into a Cheetah pen.

So, today we learned, I guess. Even the least dangerous big cat is a little tiny bit dangerous.

Well yeah, I wouldn't count it if its not from a wild cheetah. Certainly having them in North America wouldn't be hazardous to anybody here. Not when we got mountain lions, bears, rattlers, etc...

The benefits to the Cheetahs would be fairly significant though. The areas inhabited by Pronghorn, the main potential prey, are not infested by many predators that could chase a cheetah off a kill. Bears aren't common on the plains. Bobcats and coyotes aren't going to be a threat to a cheetah. Wolves are also rare on the plains where the Pronghorn are.

Any animal is a threat. The issue with wild animals is when the wilderness is encroached on by man resulting in increased human-animal contact. Almost no matter the species, if its physically capable of harming a person; then the more you encroach into its land the more you increase the chance of an encounter and that increases the chance of a negative result.

Of course a human being killed has repercussions and can very quickly lead to persecution of the species. Even just one or two events could turn a population against them and if that population has guns and hunting experience, they can do phenomenal damage.



If interactions are low though then people can almost ignore them. There's a good population of wild board in certain regions of the UK now. You very rarely if never hear about them and they are dangerous to people if encountered and antagonised. But because the interactions are so small you don't get any fear/backlash even though there's ripe potential. Of course they aren't widely distributed.


And negative connections can be purely ignorance. When they were reintroducing the beavers they had issues that major individuals in the fishing industry were still convinced that beavers would eat all their fish. Even very late into negotiations when it had been regularly presented to them that beavers do not eat fish. It's akin to opposing the introduction of cows in case they'd eat your chickens. It's totally blind "fear" and ignorant and yet it persists (even the wiki page starts out stating that many think they eat fish). That can take generations of education programs to shift such attitudes.

This just in: cows feed upon chickens, this is why beef costs more than chicken and milk has chicken hormones in it. Overread uncovered proof, and I will be taking it to the press!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
This just in: cows feed upon chickens, this is why beef costs more than chicken and milk has chicken hormones in it. Overread uncovered proof, and I will be taking it to the press!

Darn it I told you to wait until we make the blockbuster film THEN to go the press! Darn it we won't make anything off this if you blunder it to the public too soon!