Environment be damned or don’t be damned. Because you like them or because you don’t like your neighbors … what animals would you like to see locally that are not there ?
polar bears. it’s the only animal that likes to eat people. daily life is just too safe and dull.
Can confirm … and once they know what a human is, that it is tasty, that it is weak, that it is vulnerable without weapons … it will chase after people like a dog chasing squirrels.
Or you know, babies
It wouldn’t really have to chase the babies.
If they could cut down on the deer population, too, that would be nice.
Without taking into account the environmental impact and viability: Sicilian dwarf elephants. Come on, 1m short elephants, hairier (i.e. fluffier) than their African and Asian counterparts? I want it!
Bonus points: capybaras are native where I live, and a common occurrence in parks. Now imagine those small elephants, plus some capybaras: chilling under the grey sky, taking a bath in the lake in warmer days, gathering together in colder days… come on, it’s cuteness overload!
I don’t understand why everything and everyone in the Mediterranean area (read: south Italy) is so hairy lol
In the case of those dwarf elephants it’s because they were smaller, so they got a bigger surface area per weight, and lost heat faster. Perhaps also because, while Sicily is hot in comparison with continental Europe, it’s still colder than Southeast Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa.
[I know that you’re joking, sorry for the serious answer.]
I would love to have a pet capybara, so a local source of wild capybaras would be cool. Also some orangutans. I’m in Utah, so it should probably be fine.
search up CBT (capybara therapy).
It would be awesome to get woolly mammoths back in the Alps.
If we are going with de-extinction, then the Haast Eagle. NZ is really far too safe, we need a genuine predator to keep us on our toes.
Squirrels.
Grew up in Chicago, currently in Phoenix. I miss squirrels.
All the lizards are pretty cool though. They’re like desert squirrels.
We’ve got ringtails, will that do?
Oh hell yes they will!
Capybaras! They are so chill
Guinea Bigs
Brontosaurus
In Minnesota… bison. Because it was their native habitat before we killed them all, and because watching jackasses in cars trying to negotiate with 1500lb bison everywhere would be hilarious.
Agreed, also I don’t think there’s enough here to fuck around and find out with. The scariest animal I’ve had to deal with up here is my neighbors always angry papillon getting loose. There’s a thrill about seeing an enormous reptile staring lazily at you from an apartment retention pond, I bet bison would be fun too.
I just moved from a place with raccoons to somewhere without them and I miss them. So raccoons. They’re funny as fuck.
Fireflies. I could sit on a porch watching fireflies every night of my life
You’ll not believe your eyes
6 to 8 fireflies?
That’s a believable number, go for something higher, like in millions, I would even say 10 million
They’re dying everywhere due to climate change and overuse of pesticides.
Sorry, my dude… :(
And we seem to like destroying their breeding grounds. I’m leaving some brush piles in place and starting to see few more of them
Meanwhile, people in my town seem to think that climate change is a librul hoax, when you can clearly track things if you’ve lived in town for 50 years.
Like, armadillos. They didn’t used to live here, because it got too cold. Now they do. Just six years ago I spotted the first (dead) one on an interstate that’s about 1500’ below where I live. This year I saw several that were about 500’ below where I live. That’s solid proof that their range is expanding, and in only six years.
Monarch butterflies are also dying off; the habitats for milkweed are shrinking.
It’s a lot of little things, and no one seems to remember them, because it’s feels so slow in terms of human perception, but so, so fast in terms of evolutionary epochs.
Zebras seem cool. I don’t think Texas has any zebras. They can hang out with the horses…? (Idk if they actually get along.)
And giraffes! I want a giraffe to come hang out in my yard and eat some tall leaves.
Zebras are evil though
Hey now, it can’t be that black and white
I’ve driven past Zebras and Giraffes (and more) in Africa and it’s absolutely beautiful watching those creatures chilling just doing what they do.
Leopards. There’s some faces that need eating here.
None. We’re still dealing with many other instances of people thinking it’s a good idea…
OP specified that it’s hypothetical and you can choose to ignore the consequences if you choose.
Fellow Aussie?
Hi!
I used to think “bloody poms with their rabbits and foxes”, but now I’m mostly angry at cats, bloody cats…
Keep your cats inside people, billions of wild animals are killed by cats every year in Australia, billions!
Beaver. Always beaver.
Australia is mostly degraded, channelised shallow creeks and erosion problems. Bam, beaver does all the work for us.
Can beavers survive in the subtropics?
I believe so. I think there was a big thing about European settlers introducing beavers to Peru or northern Chile and causing ecological havoc
There’s a cool beaver damn down the road from my camp in NW Florida. I’m seeing some maps that disagree, but that land in considered subtropical on all of them.
Beavers are absolutely insane. Nature’s engineers.
Needless to say, raccoons (in Southern Europe).
IIRC, USSR experimented with acclimating raccoons in Belarus.
What was the results of the experiment?
Raccoons now have a stable population in Pripyat Marshes, don’t know much more.
Wait they introduced the most mischievous animal in existence to the place where they’re trying to contain the worst nuclear accident in history?
They were introduced in 1960s, IIRC.
The USSR had 100s of nuclear reactors, yet the only meltdown was in the only nuclear plant that raccoons had access to.
There was also a very similar meltdown at Leningrad NPP in 1975, except there the situation was recognised earlier and the reactor was shut down before everything went to shit completely.
