Brave Old World
The debate over rewilding North America with ancient animals
By Eric Jaffe
For the first time in several thousand years, a lion’s roar reverberates through the Grand Canyon. California condors descend into that chasm as though sliding down a spiral staircase. Bolson tortoises creep through spiky yucca plants in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico. Nearby, camels and elephants munch woody shrubs. A cheetah, chasing a pronghorn toward a deep ravine, proves that you can in fact come home again.
If one group of conservation biologists has its way, this is how the western United States could look within the next century: filled with megafauna, including carnivores and herbivores imported from Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world. These animals would repopulate the area where they lived until about 13,000 years ago, when the arrival of people in the region caused them to go extinct.