"An Australian biology professor is causing a rumble in the academic jungle by suggesting that his country should import elephants and other foreign species into its wild interior."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16843096

I've always wondered why more places didn't do that. If you've got an ecological niche that's destroyed or a invasive species with no natural predator, why not bring in another species to help balance things out?

You'd want to test it in a controlled area or something first if possible, but I like the idea of swallowing the spider to catch the fly.

quixotecoyote wrote:I've always wondered why more places didn't do that. If you've got an ecological niche that's destroyed or a invasive species with no natural predator, why not bring in another species to help balance things out?

You'd want to test it in a controlled area or something first if possible, but I like the idea of swallowing the spider to catch the fly.

Right-oh. Cane toads should get rid of the introduced beetles eating the sugar cane, don't you think?

It's intresting that this guy say's introducing the Komodo may be a "step too far", when it's recently been shown that Komodos (unlike the other animals he's talking about) did once used to live in Australia.

Can anyone else see how this could have horrible repercussions?

You would have thought, that given the history of the introduction of non-native species in Australia, that he would have done well to keep his mouth shut. Even re-introduction of locally extinct species is fraught with difficulties, just look at the British Isles. The Sea Eagle and the European Beaver to Scotland. The Red Kite in parts of England. Even the accidental re-introduction of the Wild Boar in Southern England has not been greeted with unalloyed joy. And don't even mention the Wolf!

But a re-introduction which has been successful even if greeted with outrage by a lot of locals was the Timber Wolf in Yellowstone Park in the USA.