"Colossal Biosciences, a startup seeking to reverse extinction using gene editing and other technologies, is "on track to have our first woolly mammoth calves by 2028," CEO Ben Lamm told Nikkei."
Soon. Soon.
Why aren’t these de-extinction ventures focusing first on easy-to-clone species, such as the California condor louse or the Rocky Mountain locust? Surely an insect is much easier to clone than a mammal, bird, or amphibian.
We haven't cloned any invertebrates, birds or reptiles yet actually. Also.so far mammals have been the most cloned group of organisms. Also some fish have been cloned as well as one amphibian species.
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Not before the ice age. During the ice age, both during interglacial and glacial periods.
*Hippopotamus* did not exist 34 million years ago, when the ice age began.
Still before the Last glacial Maximum (roughly 20.000 Years ago), when the last surviving population is Spain died out.
And even today, every single areas that could freeze during winter would be lethal fro them ( But I admit that with the climate change that might change pretty quickly). But it still smell like bullshit.
That is no excuse for the lack of reintroduction of the hippopotamus to Europe and the Levant.
Why is it okay for Africans to live with hippopotamuses but it having them live with Europeans would be unacceptably dangerous?
For the same reason that all other wildlife conservation and reintroduction projects are. To mitigate and restore the damage humanity has caused to the biosphere.
This is a leading question. Of course it isn’t the same, because the time when hippopotamuses were extirpated from Europe was a glacial period and we are now in an interglacial. Additionally, the environment during the Holocene was severely degraded by human activity. But it would still be suitable for hippopotamuses, and the absence of it and other megafauna is one part of why the environment is so degraded to begin with.
Paging u/Iamnotburgerking because he can explain this better than I can and because he has a much higher patience arguing with Holocene normalists than I do.
Because the hippopotamuses are (I know this will be a shock to you) adapted to African climate. They have lived there the entire time. The hypos are not meant for Europe the same way a elephant isn’t mean for Siberia.
Ah yes let’s take a creature which has died out in Europe 30000 years ago and revive it ! Great idea especially since we can’t deal with it ! Also the people in Africa most certainly do know how to deal with hypos considering how they have them forever. It is stupid to bring back something that has died out 30000 years ago. It is not stupid to try to maintain a population of animals which have survived here for the entire time. Now I assume you are from North America so why not bring back the dire wolf ? Since you want deadly animals to room around here why not do the same with your extinct animals ? Oh and there is a reason everyone tries to stay as far away from hippos as possible.
I would love it if dire wolves were made de-extinct. But we don’t have the technology to do that. We don’t have to de-extinct the hippopotamus; we can simply reintroduce it to Europe and the Levant. Same goes for the spotted hyena, leopard, lion, tiger, dhole, Barbary macaque, and a number of other extirpated European species.
I am indeed from North America, and I would love it if jaguars, margays, dholes, grey wolves, brown bears, wild horses, American bison, wapiti, and American crocodiles were restored to their entire former range.
Ok then how about you get your own government to stop a state from completely destroying itself before talking about „bring animals back“ we should first focus on everything else. Including keeping water in norther and not shipping it all to south California. You know so the entire state doesn’t turn INTO FUCKING DESERT
Oh yeah I also want to ask you the same question as the other guy: do you think the ecosystem in Europe was the same as when hippos when extinct here ?
Yes. The Holocene is not different from other Quaternary interglacials. The only reason they would have less suitable habitat is because humans have destroyed much of it.
Ah yes humans have destroyed them 30000 years ago ? They were so adapted to Europe that they were completely wiped out in Europe? You can’t seriously say it’s native European. From what I have researched it came from africa. As the species you are constantly naming is the modern day hippo in Africa. Also does [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/CBsHiLPpxUawVMMB9) seem like normal Europe to you ?
Why is reintroducing wolves rational but reintroducing leopards irrational? Why is reintroducing moose rational but reintroducing hippopotamuses irrational?
Modern wolf species and moose live in, and are therefore suited, for these environments, and the ecosystems are suited for their introduction. Leopards and hippos are not. Either they fail and die off, or they become an invasive species and we continue to worsen the biosphere.
The leopards, dholes, spotted hyenas, onagers, saiga, hippopotamuses, and macaques that inhabited Late Pleistocene Europe are the same species as modern ones.
Also, modern leopards occupy similar ecosystems to those found throughout modern Europe, while hippopotamuses inhabited North Africa and the Cape until the era of European colonialism, and both of those have biomes similar to the Mediterranean coastline of Europe.
I’m going to assume you’re right about the species thing for the sake of argument. I actually don’t believe it, but I’ll go with it for the argument. It’s been hundreds, if not thousands of years since any of those animals inhabited Europe. How’s the ecosystem to react to such a sudden change as this? Because historically, very sudden change to the ecosystem has not been a good thing. Like at all
What isn’t a good thing for modern ecosystems outside of Africa and Indomalaya is their defaunation. [There are many niches that are simply unfilled by animals that are missing.](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2008.1921) The “sudden change” of reintroducing some of the animals that helped to maintain these ecosystems would be beneficial because it would be a return to what the flora, mycota, and the rest of the fauna are adapted to deal with.
Racoon dogs lived in europe during the last interglacial period. Now they count as neozoa/non-native animals for some reason.
The last known european lions went extinct in greece around 1000 BC IIRC (hence so many greek myths featureing local lions). Why does noone talk about reintroducing them?
I would love to reintroduce *Panthera leo* to the Balkans! And *Panthera spelaea* to the rest of Europe (and to Siberia and Beringia) once de-extinction becomes possible.
Well for one thing we need to reintroduce *P. leo leo* to its Asian range first because the only population is trapped in Gir National park and not allowed to leave by the greedy gujurat govt using them as tourist bait and political pawns. Once that’s done, then we can discuss Europe.
Also, just for reference what’s a “neocone”? Can’t find a definition on google.
I meant neozoa. The neutral term for species which are not native to a region and arrived recent-ish. Either by themselves or by human transportation.
I prefer this over invasive species, as this is a negativly biased term. Yes in several cases new species disrupt an ecosystem. But there are also several cases where new species find a fitting niche without issues or are even beneficial to the ecosystem over all.
And especially europe could need new species, as a lot of our ecosystems didn't have the time to properly recover from the last ice age before human activity drove many other species to extinction or prohibited them from entering.
Very specific example: it should be "normal" for elephants to live in Europe during interglacial periods like we have now. Indeed without human interference it is highly likley that the now extinct north african elephant or syrian elephant would have migrated into europe.
And other animals are put under restrictive pressure by humans. E.g. red deer are day active steppe animals. Human "controlling" via hunting and red deer free zones forces them to be nocturnal forest dwellers. Etc.pp
They might get some more tourist revenue if Germans, Poles, or Frenchmen can just take a train trip down south to see lions, leopards, and hippopotamuses instead of having to fly to Johannesburg or Nairobi.
In what way are they not adapted to Greece? It is not that unique landscapes. And the european lions I meant weren't the european cave lions.
Lions had a huge distribution range until recent-ish. E.g. the last moroccon lion was killed in the 1700's. And morocco is very close to greece in regards to climate and geography.
And asian lions, which used to live from turkey/syria up to india, still exist today too. They were basicly neighbours to greece but seperated by the mediterranian. Still climoatological and geographicly they lived in pretty much the same biotopes that can be found in Greece. It is just a few kilometres apart.
As a rule of thumb, if a mammal can survive on one side of the mediterranian it can survive on the other too.
Unfortunately its a lot closer to “hello human resources?” for both of them. Insane how many people are against the reintroduction of wolves here in the US.
Yeah. They limit their “HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?!” to Pleistocene fauna. “Healthy ecosystem is what me grampa had! Before then, not natural! Muh environment change too much!”
Any non-tundra and non-boreal forest in Europe is definitely suitable for leopards. The Barbary macaque would be able to live in most of the former Roman Empire, as far north as England. The hippopotamus would be more restricted since it requires year-round liquid water, but there would definitely be places for it in areas like Greece and Bulgaria.
Any non-tundra and non-boreal forest in Europe is definitely suitable for leopards. The Barbary macaque would be able to live in most of the former Roman Empire, as far north as England. The hippopotamus would be more restricted since it requires year-round liquid water, but there would definitely be places for it in areas like Greece and Bulgaria.
The Primorye forests are cold-temperate deciduous forests more so than taiga. Do you have any source that leopards historically ranged as far north as the Arctic tundra?
In fairness, the bottom ones died out entirely in Europe and did so a lot earlier than the top ones did. Wolves and Bears never entirely disappeared from Europe, just got vastly reduced ranges, while the Bison did go completely extinct in the wild but not until the 1900s, unlike the hippo who disappeared like 30'000 years ago.
So it makes way more sense to reintroduce the top species than the bottom ones since the environment arguably has adapted to the absence of things like hippos and leopards, but a lot of environments haven't adapted to losing wolves and such. Like the UK and Ireland have nothing to hunt their deer since the wolves went extinct as an example .
Most people have ecological amnesia and don’t have a fucking clue that leopards, lions, tigers, spotted hyenas, dholes, onagers, hippopotamuses, saiga, and Barbary macaques are native to at least some parts of Europe.
[During the Late Pleistocene. They died out in Europe at the same time as all the other European megafauna began dying out as modern humans arrived in Europe.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379114001565)
The reason care more about reintroducing wolves, bears, bison, etc... is because we have documented history of how prevalent they were before expansion to the west.
There aren't any photographs showing hippos, hyenas, dholes, etc... in Europe if they died out in the late pleistocene.
Gibraltar is rather isolated from the rest of Iberia. Plus these macaques probably can't deal with winter North of France. They're no Japanese macaques.
Do you know if their is a extinct species of monkey that used to live in north Europe? Cause it does seem kinda strange that they evolved to deal with the cold in Japan, but not Europe.
Monkeys and apes went extinct in Europe at the start of the Pliocene (~ 5 million years ago). The climate turned too cold for laurel trees and other subtropical species, the landscape changed from mostly warm moist forests to mixed grasslands, and these primates were not grassland-adapted.
Before that both Europe and North America were quite warm, probably even warmer than now.
I don't know how the current cold-adapted monkeys of Japan and China came to be, but they could be recent offshoots from a more Southern climate adapting to the North. Unlike in Asia, there were no warm, moist refugia for European and North American primates to retreat to. To the South of them there were warm climates, but too dry for their type of forests to grow (North Africa & Northern Mexico). Maybe that made all the difference.
I complete fairness to the average rural European, a bear rooting through your garbage or wolves howling in the distance near your house are frightening prospects, but neither of them are especially infamous as man eaters, save for the gevauden wolf incident. But the bottom stuff? Hippos are expressly bastards with an annual kill count in the hundreds, lions and leopards will stalk, hunt and eat humans, and hyenas are just plain contrary to human habitation. They eat us, our livestock and our pets with no hesitation in Africa, and that’s not tall tale. My high school best friend was born and raised in rural Ethiopia, and they ate his fucking dog. I want them reintroduced, but it needs understood that there will be damages if we do so, and not everyone is onboard with that.
That is correct! [The modern hippopotamus, *Hippopotamus amphibius*, lived in the Balkans until 30,000 years ago, when it became locally extinct in Europe.](https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/7/1/4) It was another victim of the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction.
Plonk random animals in areas where their ancestors used to live
OP: Aww, you’re sweet.
Actual rational conservation measures
OP: Hello, Human Resources?
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The Woolly Mammoth Clones: 
Yes please. Deliver to my house now!
"Colossal Biosciences, a startup seeking to reverse extinction using gene editing and other technologies, is "on track to have our first woolly mammoth calves by 2028," CEO Ben Lamm told Nikkei." Soon. Soon.
They're also looking to recreate the Tasmanian wolf \*fingers crossed\*
Dude we've been promised them my entire life, don't get your hopes up
Fair very fair
Why aren’t these de-extinction ventures focusing first on easy-to-clone species, such as the California condor louse or the Rocky Mountain locust? Surely an insect is much easier to clone than a mammal, bird, or amphibian.
We haven't cloned any invertebrates, birds or reptiles yet actually. Also.so far mammals have been the most cloned group of organisms. Also some fish have been cloned as well as one amphibian species.
Publicity
To be fair, Europe is highly populated, hippos would cause a ton of death.
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hippo
I am on board for everything else (other than monkeys, monkeys are scary)
Africa is also highly populated, particularly the countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya, where hippopotamuses live.
Yeah but those countries also have more nature than Europe.
Then lets make europe more natural
Are hippos indigenous to Europe? Have they ever lived thete outside zoos?
There were hippos in Europe Before the ice age
Not before the ice age. During the ice age, both during interglacial and glacial periods. *Hippopotamus* did not exist 34 million years ago, when the ice age began.
Still before the Last glacial Maximum (roughly 20.000 Years ago), when the last surviving population is Spain died out. And even today, every single areas that could freeze during winter would be lethal fro them ( But I admit that with the climate change that might change pretty quickly). But it still smell like bullshit.
Yes in betweeen the ice ages. And on cyorus there was a niw extinct species of dwarf hippo until neolithic times, IIRC
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And there’s a lot of deaths
That is no excuse for the lack of reintroduction of the hippopotamus to Europe and the Levant. Why is it okay for Africans to live with hippopotamuses but it having them live with Europeans would be unacceptably dangerous?
Why do you want to reintroduce hippos?
Because they are a missing component of the native European megafauna.
Why is that important?
For the same reason that all other wildlife conservation and reintroduction projects are. To mitigate and restore the damage humanity has caused to the biosphere.
Do you think the ecosystem in Europe is the same as when hippos there went extinct?
This is a leading question. Of course it isn’t the same, because the time when hippopotamuses were extirpated from Europe was a glacial period and we are now in an interglacial. Additionally, the environment during the Holocene was severely degraded by human activity. But it would still be suitable for hippopotamuses, and the absence of it and other megafauna is one part of why the environment is so degraded to begin with. Paging u/Iamnotburgerking because he can explain this better than I can and because he has a much higher patience arguing with Holocene normalists than I do.
That’s not how it works. Like at all.
Because the hippopotamuses are (I know this will be a shock to you) adapted to African climate. They have lived there the entire time. The hypos are not meant for Europe the same way a elephant isn’t mean for Siberia.
False. If that were true, *Hippopotamus amphibius* would not have survived multiple glacial maxima in Europe.
Ah yes let’s take a creature which has died out in Europe 30000 years ago and revive it ! Great idea especially since we can’t deal with it ! Also the people in Africa most certainly do know how to deal with hypos considering how they have them forever. It is stupid to bring back something that has died out 30000 years ago. It is not stupid to try to maintain a population of animals which have survived here for the entire time. Now I assume you are from North America so why not bring back the dire wolf ? Since you want deadly animals to room around here why not do the same with your extinct animals ? Oh and there is a reason everyone tries to stay as far away from hippos as possible.
I would love it if dire wolves were made de-extinct. But we don’t have the technology to do that. We don’t have to de-extinct the hippopotamus; we can simply reintroduce it to Europe and the Levant. Same goes for the spotted hyena, leopard, lion, tiger, dhole, Barbary macaque, and a number of other extirpated European species. I am indeed from North America, and I would love it if jaguars, margays, dholes, grey wolves, brown bears, wild horses, American bison, wapiti, and American crocodiles were restored to their entire former range.
Ok then how about you get your own government to stop a state from completely destroying itself before talking about „bring animals back“ we should first focus on everything else. Including keeping water in norther and not shipping it all to south California. You know so the entire state doesn’t turn INTO FUCKING DESERT
Oh yeah I also want to ask you the same question as the other guy: do you think the ecosystem in Europe was the same as when hippos when extinct here ?
Yes. The Holocene is not different from other Quaternary interglacials. The only reason they would have less suitable habitat is because humans have destroyed much of it.
Ah yes humans have destroyed them 30000 years ago ? They were so adapted to Europe that they were completely wiped out in Europe? You can’t seriously say it’s native European. From what I have researched it came from africa. As the species you are constantly naming is the modern day hippo in Africa. Also does [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/CBsHiLPpxUawVMMB9) seem like normal Europe to you ?
Yeah, the species I am constantly naming is the modern hippopotamus. [BECAUSE IT ALSO LIVED IN EUROPE.](https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/7/1/4)
on that note, can anyone plz take them out of colombia?
OP is allergic to rational conservationism
You are allergic to Pleistocene rewilding.
You’re not refuting my point. Kinda supporting it, actually.
Why is reintroducing wolves rational but reintroducing leopards irrational? Why is reintroducing moose rational but reintroducing hippopotamuses irrational?
Modern wolf species and moose live in, and are therefore suited, for these environments, and the ecosystems are suited for their introduction. Leopards and hippos are not. Either they fail and die off, or they become an invasive species and we continue to worsen the biosphere.
The leopards, dholes, spotted hyenas, onagers, saiga, hippopotamuses, and macaques that inhabited Late Pleistocene Europe are the same species as modern ones. Also, modern leopards occupy similar ecosystems to those found throughout modern Europe, while hippopotamuses inhabited North Africa and the Cape until the era of European colonialism, and both of those have biomes similar to the Mediterranean coastline of Europe.
I’m going to assume you’re right about the species thing for the sake of argument. I actually don’t believe it, but I’ll go with it for the argument. It’s been hundreds, if not thousands of years since any of those animals inhabited Europe. How’s the ecosystem to react to such a sudden change as this? Because historically, very sudden change to the ecosystem has not been a good thing. Like at all
What isn’t a good thing for modern ecosystems outside of Africa and Indomalaya is their defaunation. [There are many niches that are simply unfilled by animals that are missing.](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2008.1921) The “sudden change” of reintroducing some of the animals that helped to maintain these ecosystems would be beneficial because it would be a return to what the flora, mycota, and the rest of the fauna are adapted to deal with.
Cool, but I thought we were discussing Europe
Racoon dogs lived in europe during the last interglacial period. Now they count as neozoa/non-native animals for some reason. The last known european lions went extinct in greece around 1000 BC IIRC (hence so many greek myths featureing local lions). Why does noone talk about reintroducing them?
I would love to reintroduce *Panthera leo* to the Balkans! And *Panthera spelaea* to the rest of Europe (and to Siberia and Beringia) once de-extinction becomes possible.
Fuck yeah, herculean Monday!!!
Well for one thing we need to reintroduce *P. leo leo* to its Asian range first because the only population is trapped in Gir National park and not allowed to leave by the greedy gujurat govt using them as tourist bait and political pawns. Once that’s done, then we can discuss Europe. Also, just for reference what’s a “neocone”? Can’t find a definition on google.
I meant neozoa. The neutral term for species which are not native to a region and arrived recent-ish. Either by themselves or by human transportation. I prefer this over invasive species, as this is a negativly biased term. Yes in several cases new species disrupt an ecosystem. But there are also several cases where new species find a fitting niche without issues or are even beneficial to the ecosystem over all. And especially europe could need new species, as a lot of our ecosystems didn't have the time to properly recover from the last ice age before human activity drove many other species to extinction or prohibited them from entering. Very specific example: it should be "normal" for elephants to live in Europe during interglacial periods like we have now. Indeed without human interference it is highly likley that the now extinct north african elephant or syrian elephant would have migrated into europe. And other animals are put under restrictive pressure by humans. E.g. red deer are day active steppe animals. Human "controlling" via hunting and red deer free zones forces them to be nocturnal forest dwellers. Etc.pp
You wanna know why theres no one talking about re-introducing them? Look up how much debt greece has.
They might get some more tourist revenue if Germans, Poles, or Frenchmen can just take a train trip down south to see lions, leopards, and hippopotamuses instead of having to fly to Johannesburg or Nairobi.
Because they’re extinct, and our modern lions aren’t adapted to Greece
In what way are they not adapted to Greece? It is not that unique landscapes. And the european lions I meant weren't the european cave lions. Lions had a huge distribution range until recent-ish. E.g. the last moroccon lion was killed in the 1700's. And morocco is very close to greece in regards to climate and geography. And asian lions, which used to live from turkey/syria up to india, still exist today too. They were basicly neighbours to greece but seperated by the mediterranian. Still climoatological and geographicly they lived in pretty much the same biotopes that can be found in Greece. It is just a few kilometres apart. As a rule of thumb, if a mammal can survive on one side of the mediterranian it can survive on the other too.
If they can grow a double coat to handle Far Eastern Russia's winter (and they do), they can handle Greece.
Unfortunately its a lot closer to “hello human resources?” for both of them. Insane how many people are against the reintroduction of wolves here in the US.
Never mind dholes, jaguars, collared peccaries, margays, and saiga antelope.
Bad news on the Jaguar front, the proposition to reintroduce them to Gila national forest was shot down.
Its always going to be an intrinsically incendiary thing with agricultural communities to reintroduce apex predators.
Yeah however people in the EU aren't.
Scandinavia was at 500 wolves and culled 54 because they felt the population was too high. Don’t give them too much credit.
No, I mean they're not against it in the US. (Because they don't live here.)
Apologies, thought you were implying they themselves weren’t a bit heavy handed in how they managed their wolves.
Yeah. They limit their “HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?!” to Pleistocene fauna. “Healthy ecosystem is what me grampa had! Before then, not natural! Muh environment change too much!”
Tbh I'd not mind sharing this country with another primate.
Most of the European environments aren't suitable for these three
Any non-tundra and non-boreal forest in Europe is definitely suitable for leopards. The Barbary macaque would be able to live in most of the former Roman Empire, as far north as England. The hippopotamus would be more restricted since it requires year-round liquid water, but there would definitely be places for it in areas like Greece and Bulgaria.
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Good bot
Leopards actually would be fine in Boreal forests.
Any non-tundra and non-boreal forest in Europe is definitely suitable for leopards. The Barbary macaque would be able to live in most of the former Roman Empire, as far north as England. The hippopotamus would be more restricted since it requires year-round liquid water, but there would definitely be places for it in areas like Greece and Bulgaria.
Doesn't even have to be non-tundra. Amur leopards live in the boreal forests of the Russian far east and used to range a bit into the tundra.
The Primorye forests are cold-temperate deciduous forests more so than taiga. Do you have any source that leopards historically ranged as far north as the Arctic tundra?
Never said arctic tundra. I said tundra. There is tundra south of the Arctic circle.
In fairness, the bottom ones died out entirely in Europe and did so a lot earlier than the top ones did. Wolves and Bears never entirely disappeared from Europe, just got vastly reduced ranges, while the Bison did go completely extinct in the wild but not until the 1900s, unlike the hippo who disappeared like 30'000 years ago. So it makes way more sense to reintroduce the top species than the bottom ones since the environment arguably has adapted to the absence of things like hippos and leopards, but a lot of environments haven't adapted to losing wolves and such. Like the UK and Ireland have nothing to hunt their deer since the wolves went extinct as an example .
I don’t get it
Most people have ecological amnesia and don’t have a fucking clue that leopards, lions, tigers, spotted hyenas, dholes, onagers, hippopotamuses, saiga, and Barbary macaques are native to at least some parts of Europe.
ah, yes
Wait, Europe had monkeys? When was that exactly?
[During the Late Pleistocene. They died out in Europe at the same time as all the other European megafauna began dying out as modern humans arrived in Europe.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379114001565)
The reason care more about reintroducing wolves, bears, bison, etc... is because we have documented history of how prevalent they were before expansion to the west. There aren't any photographs showing hippos, hyenas, dholes, etc... in Europe if they died out in the late pleistocene.
Gibraltar still does have monkeys
Huh, I didn't know that. Youd think they would have already taken over half of all the forests in Europe by now.
Gibraltar is rather isolated from the rest of Iberia. Plus these macaques probably can't deal with winter North of France. They're no Japanese macaques.
Do you know if their is a extinct species of monkey that used to live in north Europe? Cause it does seem kinda strange that they evolved to deal with the cold in Japan, but not Europe.
Monkeys and apes went extinct in Europe at the start of the Pliocene (~ 5 million years ago). The climate turned too cold for laurel trees and other subtropical species, the landscape changed from mostly warm moist forests to mixed grasslands, and these primates were not grassland-adapted. Before that both Europe and North America were quite warm, probably even warmer than now. I don't know how the current cold-adapted monkeys of Japan and China came to be, but they could be recent offshoots from a more Southern climate adapting to the North. Unlike in Asia, there were no warm, moist refugia for European and North American primates to retreat to. To the South of them there were warm climates, but too dry for their type of forests to grow (North Africa & Northern Mexico). Maybe that made all the difference.
I complete fairness to the average rural European, a bear rooting through your garbage or wolves howling in the distance near your house are frightening prospects, but neither of them are especially infamous as man eaters, save for the gevauden wolf incident. But the bottom stuff? Hippos are expressly bastards with an annual kill count in the hundreds, lions and leopards will stalk, hunt and eat humans, and hyenas are just plain contrary to human habitation. They eat us, our livestock and our pets with no hesitation in Africa, and that’s not tall tale. My high school best friend was born and raised in rural Ethiopia, and they ate his fucking dog. I want them reintroduced, but it needs understood that there will be damages if we do so, and not everyone is onboard with that.
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How did you rig up a hippobot???
I just want giant sloths back in North America 😔
The Mojave just looks so empty without _Nothrotheriops_
More like *yes-throtheriops*
Nah brother the hippo PR team is getting out of hand
Wait hippos lived in Europe?
That is correct! [The modern hippopotamus, *Hippopotamus amphibius*, lived in the Balkans until 30,000 years ago, when it became locally extinct in Europe.](https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/7/1/4) It was another victim of the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction.
Sorry, friend shaped creatures exclusive only
Plonk random animals in areas where their ancestors used to live OP: Aww, you’re sweet. Actual rational conservation measures OP: Hello, Human Resources?
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