At Slate, C. Josh Donlan suggests we “rewild” America. He begins:
As the first Americans strolled onto their open real estate 13,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, their continent quickly lost much of its grandeur. More than 60 North American species weighing over 100 pounds went extinct, including the continent’s own elephants, lions, camels, and cheetahs. The cause was likely overhunting; the result was elephants trotting in the circus ring rather than roaming the land. Meanwhile, most of the Earth’s remaining large wild animals in Africa and Asia are threatened with extinction in the coming century.
“Rewilding”—bringing elephants, cheetahs, and lions out of captivity to run free in parts of North America—could help save these megafauna from global extinction. More important, it would restore to the continent biological functions lost millenniums ago. The big guys would help stop the march of the pests and weeds—rats and dandelions—that will otherwise take over the landscape. And they would promote the natural processes that generate biodiversity. For example, for more than 4 million years before its extinction, the American cheetah preyed on the deerlike pronghorn, a relationship that helped engender the pronghorn’s astonishing speed.
My god, people go crazy now when some poor bear wanders down from the mountains. Can you imagine the reaction to an elephant?