Conservation Hypocrisy: Should We Reintroduce Lions to Europe?

Lions went extinct in Europe much earlier than the article suggests, not least because Turkey is not in Europe (except a very tiny bit).

But this still raises an interesting issue: Europe has been completely "tamed" with true wilderness and primal forests essentially all gone, and most large predators driven to extinction.

Today the very limited attempts to re-introduce wolves and bears to Western Europe are met with huge resistance from the farming industry and hunting associations.

Yet we seem to think that other should protect elephants, lions, tigers, etc. which are more dangerous and/or can cause more damage.

While I agree that elephants, lions, etc should be protected, we should really follow our own advice at home and work to protect and re-introduce our own fauna.

Locally we have been dealing with the resurgence of wild turkeys. There’s been some whining about it, even though turkeys are not especially dangerous, just a little inconvenient.