My version of "doomscrolling" nowadays is just going to iNaturalist, browsing pictures of animals and fantasizing about where I would introduce them outside of their natural range if I was some kind of ecology-focused evil scientist. I do this when I'm depressed. I don't know if it helps.
Bring hyena to Texas put Texas in hyena paws humans can trust Texas to hyena pack yesss
How could I disagree with such a trustworthy source
animals i really want to introduce to the USA:
-red pandas in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. they can live in those you-pick orchards and delight tourists, and in the winter the big ones can be harvested by the farmers for food and fur. america also has native bamboo, as well as plenty of escaped invasives.
-koalas in southern california. we already have a lot of feral eucalpytus in the state and it makes our wildfires way worse. let's put koalas in there too. coyotes can hunt them like dingos do.
-cheetahs in colorodo, wyoming, nebraska, and oklahoma. we had cheetahs here once, that's why pronghorns are so fast. let's give them something to really haul ass about.
-spotted hyenas in texas and new mexico. did you know there's actually a shit ton of oryx already roaming around new mexico? they were brought in for a game preserve. oryx can fight off lions, but spotted hyenas are actually superior pack hunters with some of the highest kill rates of large cooperative predators in the world. we might have a problem with ranchers, but like: fuck ranchers. they already decimated the mexican wolf populations. they deserve hyenas.
-pangolins. i would drop these guys in arizona honestly. everyone in arizona hates and fears fire ants. i think entire neighborhoods would throw ecstatic parades for pangolins (which smell much better than giant anteaters) at least until a pangolin dug straight through their pasteboard condo.
-new zealand's little penguin in louisiana. they burrow into mud and sand banks during the day and tolerate quite hot temperatures! i think they'd do fine, and louisiana is sliding into the gulf anyway. let's have penguins there. i'd also try them out in new england in case lousiana is just too swampy for them. i feel like new yorkers would go insane with pride over having penguins around. they would act like they invented the whole concept of penguins. we should let them.
-water buffalo. georgia and the carolinas. i just think it would give everyone there some interesting new problems.
-i firmly believe that asiatic elephants would do great in the southeastern united states. it's a subtropical climate that's only going to get swampier as things heat up, and there's plenty of kudzu and tall grass species for them to munch on. they're also smart enough to learn to navigate and negotiate with people, and to follow set routes around human farms rather than tromp through them, so disruption to existing human infrastructure would be minimal but occasionally hilarious. i think it would be so cool to have an american subspecies of elephant. if i ever win the lottery this IS what i am going to be doing with my millions.
