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Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

This is tangental....

I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe.

Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephants. Declines notwithstanding, it's amazing that such a population still exists. Consider how much impact a herd of elephants have on human interests.. agriculture or whatnot. Imagine how hard it would be to get buy-in for a dozen elephants in spain. The african savannah's megafaunal systems still exist! They really are an amazing thing to still have. It's the system we came from.. most of our most ancient art is about them. The first famous french painting features extinct and extirpated megafauna, lions for example.

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One theory I've seen is that African megafauna evolved alongside tool using bipeds so they never had a period where they didn't have a fear instinct.

Yup: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hunters-killed-of...

Humans became adept hunters in the African context— when they went elsewhere in the world, the native megafauna were unprepared.

I agree, it seems like this might have something to do with it. I recently heard some speculative but reasonable (I thought) theory about early Levant humans.^ Basically, elephants were these people's primary prey until populations dwindled and the lifestyle died out.

We often note that our bodies are so weak relative to animals' but that really understates how game changing the human species must have been. First, bodies have all sort of potential that most people never experience because we don't grow up outside and chase elephants. More importantly, people are is good at figuring things out. We're impressed by inquisitive animals, bears or honey badgers, relentlessly try to get what they want by trying everything. That's nothing compared to humans.

A hippo-or-walrus-like thing might avoid getting eaten by a cat-or-bear-like thing by having really thick skin. Humans can't be deterred that way. We don't need to wait until we evolve longer teeth.

Real people must have been a holy terror.

^Fascinating old human stomping grounds... Early Sapiens predate neanderthals in the region. A rare situation where they displace "us," or at least people with skeletons similar to ours.

It's crazy that we're talking about genetically re-engineering mammoths to help revitalize cold climates when we have such trouble preserving these elephant populations.

erm... Idk. I see this as similar to the "we need to solve poverty before we can go to mars" issues. Things just work independently of one another.

On one hand we have conservation, on the continent with the biggest poverty and governance issues. Wilderness, land-use & habitat issues are key issues. Outside of the artic, there just aren't many habits to support those kinds of far ranging species. African land tracts are unique.

Elsewhere we have rewilding, in its infancy. The US seems to be transitioning from one to the other. Europe is very slowly opening up to the idea.

Elsewhere we have some eccentric ideas about engineered hybrids using paleo-genetics, like the idea of bringing back mammoths. The ecological implications are complete unknowns. It's more of a genetics science project, with futuristic zoo implications. It's far from being a wilderness question at all. Resources don't compete.

Projects like the Russian Pleistocene Park don't really need mammoths. They've had a lot success using "closest available substitute" species instead of extinct ones. Maybe African or Asian elephants can (or can be bred to) tolerate that kind of cold and eat local plants.

Some of the decline in elephant population is attributable with competition with humans - we grow crops, elephants like to eat them.

I'd imagine a mammoth eating sedge in Siberia wouldn't be in as direct competition for resources as an elephant.

Probably easier for Canada and the US and the Nordic countries to protect these reintroduced species than some of the more desperate and developing areas of the world. Russia, well I'm not sure. They'd probably benefit the most from the reintroduction of these species but I'm not familiar enough with Russian attitudes towards this sort of project.

It would be amazing to be able to see the megafauna in the wild though, along with protecting the wildlife we currently have.

Every mention of rewilding Scotland I've come across has been talking of reintroducing extinct native species such as Lynx and Wolf. That's along with smaller animals and reducing deer numbers.

Yep... Every serious discussion. All sorts of eccentricity on the less serious end. Technically though, there are a lot of animals most wouldn't see as native to Britain which went extinct at some point in the last 60ky.

Lynx and more raptors are the two on the immediate agenda. Wokf and moose (elk) may be at some point relatively soon. Wolves would likely be big game changers for red deer population dynamics, and livestock farming.

There are solid arguments that it could have positive environmental consequences too: https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl...

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