Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Scientists want to bring 24 animals back from extinction.

This reminds me of my old thread on bringing back extinct animals.

Just found this cool animation of various critters, including bison antiquus, modern bison might still have some of it's genes:




Wooly mammoth animation:

I am (barely) smarter than that! Tho I do have a mild itch to try it on moose - it's legal, and there have been times when the range was right!

Besides, non-Natives can't hunt 'em in US, nor import remains from elsewhere.

Heck, I don't even have a hunt-usable bow anymore. Until it becomes season advantageous I won't, tho it's a heck of a lot of fun. Too much trouble/expense for too little return..... at least at my skill level. Rifle works just fine, even at archery ranges.

I'm also a big fan of the gill-net for fishing.

Nah, I'm ready with my 500 Jeffery.

Personnally, I'd be tickled to death to see'um bring back such critters, especially the Sabre Tooth, and that nasty wolf, as long as they were released in down town DC, or even NYC, well maybe a few in FairyVille (SF). Could ya imagine how durn hilarius it would be, to have Nancy Palosy come out her front door and find a Bison Antiguus grazein' on her lawn??
Twink

I like it

You should sell that screen play to Hollywood. I'd buy a ticket!

best,

bhtr

The District of Columbia need a few hundred Saber-Tooth Tigers brought back to life and released.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/

Alaska would be a good place to possibly release several "un-extincted" species like mammoths and latifrons bison. Alaska has had some success with reintroducing woodland bison and has the space.



While we are waiting for scientist to successfully clone extinct species though there are species currently going extinct that could be given a new lease by being reintroduced into Alaska like the saiga antelope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiga_antelope and possibly even lions. Bear gun lion gun - what's the difference.

I am not sure whether the short faced bears or passenger pigeons scare me more. Our grandcestors might have killed both off for good reasons(?)

So what extinct animals should we bring back? How about the giant cave bears or maybe the prehistoric elk?

The original American moose (replaced by its Asian cousin after the Pleistocene die-off)

The Irish Elk.

The Stellar Sea Cow hunted to extinction by early Russian explorers in Alaska.

The great auk (northern penguin)

Along with the latifrons bison above, these are a few of my pet choices for resurrection.

We're about to release wood bison!

I heard they were trying to bring back the "honest politician", but they couldn't find enough DNA.

We have to keep our goals realistic.

Ironbender - I accidentally sat through the Legislative hearing on the new woodland bison introduction. There was an impressive variety of support for the project.

How would you all feel about reintroducing endangered or un-extincted predators into the Alaska wilderness? These might include: lions, dire wolves, short-faced bear, giant sloth (pseudo-predator), and various sabre-toothed cats. We already have to be on guard for bears and other dangers but can someone assume the responsibility for almost inevitable encounters with reintroduced predators?

Have you all seen "Blue Babe" in the UAF museum? This is a rare latifrons bison mummy. It was originally killed near Fairbanks by lions.

I am not really aware of any empty ecosystems which need filling at this time. Every species needs a place to live and reproduce, When one introduces a new species, it displaces something which is already there.

I am not real familiar with Alaska, but I would be surprised if introducing another invasive species would be a good idea.

That was old school thinking even here once. The main difference is that this would not be introducing new invasive species but rather reintroducing species that seem to have been prematurely killed off by something.
When the first bison herd was reintroduced we actually had missions to fly helicopters out to chase the moose away from the bison because they were attempting to fornicate with them. Eventually the hippies overly concerned biologist gave up protecting the bisons' virtue and the bison started doing even better. This caused more study into grazers and browsers having a beneficial relationship. This has spawned some theories about how the Pleistocene was able to support such a tremendous number of mega-fauna especially in Beringia. Basically the theory (that I like at least) is that there were different seasonal grazers as well as high and low browsers whose fairly constant migrations tilled and fertilized the now tundra soil supporting grasslands and trees where they cannot grow today due to moss taking over in the absence of grasses. The real invasive species was the tundra moss. Some people even suggest that this could reverse "global warming." http://www.beg.utexas.edu/indassoc/...ms/Cretaceous_climate_workshop_sched.pdf
Intentional and accidental species reintroductions "seem" to be working pretty well for the most part here and in the Yukon like the wild horses taking up where their extinct grandcestors used to live:

Some critters seem to be trying to fill these unoccupied niches in the ecosystem like: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=26

I am hoping scientist become extinct

This is like "real world" Jurassic Park....

I don't think we should be tinkering with DNA from extinct animals. The current platette of flora and fauna seems to be perfectly capable of maintaining a population balance of predator/prey.

We have positioned ourselves, vis a vis Governmental Regulated Game Management, as the determinant prey population authority. WE are the determining predators and I don't think we need any additional hep by re-introducing an already extinct species.

Their time is past - not current.

Too funny!!!!! My questioning wouldn't stop at "enough" DNA- rather ANY honest DNA....