#36447: covington — 08/19  at  12:49 PM
With all the alien species issues we're having between snakeheads and kudzu, rabbits in australia and rats in Hawaii, etc, I'm not sure we're got a good handle on long term impacts of introducing/reintroducing any species.

Anyway, if we start restocking megafauna here in the US, how long until their heads are all mounted on some redneck's wall?

#36450: chris at organicmatter — 08/19  at  01:13 PM
There's plenty of anti-introduction at Organic Matter (post the first and post the second) and Worldchanging. I'd love to plug my own blog, but I've got to admit that Jamais' info is way awesome by comparison to my own. Besides, my hosting has been crappy today.

#36451: — 08/19  at  01:17 PM
Lets definitely get the wolves and ferrets back.

Also, did wolverines ever inhabit the plains? I saw one in Glacier Nat. Park about 15 years ago, and I was told I was extremely lucky to have come across one.

#36452: — 08/19  at  01:18 PM
Check out this week's randi.org column. Phil Plait sounds off about some anti-science (non)religious Discovery Institute badness. He also gives their famous (religiously neutral) Wedge Document some more well deserved exposure.

#36458: rob loftis — 08/19  at  01:43 PM
I want the original North American megafauna! I want mastodons! Sloths the size of volkswagans!

Maybe we can genetically engineer them? Implant mammath clone fetuses in elephants?:

#36472: Cameron — 08/19  at  02:57 PM
I'll all for the cheetah's. I actually wrote the Game & Fish (jokingly) in Wyoming a few years ago about introducing cheetah to the south of the state. If you've ever had to make the drive from Rock Springs to Laramie, you'd appreciate the spectacle of watching cheetah chase pronghorn. Otherwise, it's a lonely road.

#36478: — 08/19  at  03:33 PM

Sloths the size of volkswagans!

There were about 2 years at the end of college when my buddy and I would constantly turn to each other and (drunkenly) shout, "Bison-sized gerbils!!!" - in reference to the very same NA megafauna.

Thanks for the reminder!

#36499: Dan S. — 08/19  at  05:03 PM
Tim Flannery wants to restock the plains with African/South American wildlife too, he mentions it at the end of "The Eternal Frontier . . .
(the argument again being that the extinction of almost all the original megafauna messed stuff up). He claims that ecological disruption is unlikely because "new large mammal immigrants have rarely if ever caused extinctions" in North America (with one exception, of course), and after all, they'd be close relatives of the vanished creatures . . .

I'm extremely dubious. Agreed - let's try to help restock the known Contact-era species, for starters, anyway . . .

Although cheetahs . . . that would be great. Otherwise, pronghorn just seem like absurdly over-efficient relics of an ancient arms race . . .

I want mammoths and mastodons too! A few years back I had the incredible privilege of helping (just a little bit) excavate a mastodon skeleton that had been found in a back yard in Hyde Park, NY. Talk about giants in the earth! Now if we could just clone 'em all . . .
http://www.priweb.org/mastodon/HP_mast/HP_mast_main.html

Why can't I find a mastodon in my back yard? The broken china and old marbles are all right, but . . .

Anyway, the introduction question is just silly at this point . . .

#36502: — 08/19  at  05:17 PM
Regnery, of course, which is fast becoming the imprimatur of right-wing garbage

?

At Any Cost: How Gore Tried to Steal the Election

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

The Bible Is History

Brighter than the Baghdad Sun: Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Threat to United States

Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Undermines America's Security

Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security

The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House

Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption Into the Catholic Church

Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton
Barbara Olsen's previous book

High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton
Ann Coulter, 1998

Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?

In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror 

Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power

Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot

The Official Handbook of the Vast Right–Wing Conspiracy: The Arguments You Need to Defeat the Loony Left

Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges Are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage

Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity

The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery

The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators, and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry

Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security

Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror

Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN Are Subverting America

Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism
Bill Bennet...

Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash

#36507: — 08/19  at  05:45 PM
...help you tune up your baloney detector to expose the liberal, anti-religious propaganda we're being fed.

It would appear someone at Regnery read Demon-Haunted World and either totally missed Sagan's point or thinks they're being really clever. (Or, loved the book but writes PR for Regnery anyway, then goes home and self-flagellates.)

#36508: Ophelia Benson — 08/19  at  05:50 PM
Nah - probably someone at Regnery once sat on a bus two seats behind someone who had read Demon-Haunted World and used the phrase while talking to the person next to her.

#36522: — 08/19  at  07:32 PM
The author of this book is the redoubtable Tom Bethell, regular columnist for the _American Spectator_ and occasional contributor to _National Review_. Bethell has been pushing fringe scholarship for some thirty years now - in addition to ID and other antiDarwinian hypotheses, he's embraced Duesberg's "HIV does not cause AIDS" campaign and the late Petr Beckmann's quixotic crusade against the Special Theory of Relativity. Oh, he also thinks that Shakespeare's plays were written by the Earl of Oxford. All that's required is for him to latch onto Velikovsky (as J. P. Hogan has) and he'll be totally committed to Cloud Cuckoo-Land.

#36607: — 08/20  at  11:40 AM
Oh, he also thinks that Shakespeare's plays were written by the Earl of Oxford.

Can you prove they weren't?? Apart from the fact that DeVere's name doesn't appear on them -- no fair mentioning that. But beyond that, the case is solid.

#36626: jay denari — 08/20  at  03:15 PM
The idea of African megafauna on the US plains needs serious rethinking... but a lion stalking prey along NM's I-40 would be interesting to see.