AHC: Establish a large predator species in the New World

of course, they are feral. If we're talking about introducing the Komodo dragon into Australia, the question arises if the feral pig population in Australia is big enough to feed a colony of them...
The animals in Australia naturally already can so that' a moot point, they'd love red roos, even live in their preferrd habitat
 
of course, they are feral. If we're talking about introducing the Komodo dragon into Australia, the question arises if the feral pig population in Australia is big enough to feed a colony of them...

It probably is now, but 120+ years ago when people were less careful about releasing animals I don't know. Razorbacks are most common in North Queensland, but the first settlement was 2000km to the south in 1826. It would take time to get settlement in the north to introduce an abundance of pigs enough for komodo dragons to have enough to eat.
 
It probably is now, but 120+ years ago when people were less careful about releasing animals I don't know. Razorbacks are most common in North Queensland, but the first settlement was 2000km to the south in 1826. It would take time to get settlement in the north to introduce an abundance of pigs enough for komodo dragons to have enough to eat.
Again they'd just eat red roos
 
Really? How are they going to get them, run them over in their cars? (that's how most roos are killed)
Same way they kill everything else, with a debilitating slicing bite, attacking the legs severing major tendons and blood vessels, mobility is massively reduced (in a roo it would be completely eliminated) blood loss is rapid and expidatiated by toxic protiens produced in the saliva (yes as in venom not bacteria, venom) quickly bringing on shock leaving prey helpless as they are consumed, assuming they haven't already bled to death.
You severely underestimate this animal.
 
You severely underestimate this animal.

I assure you I don't, I once saw a doco where one KD bit a buffalo on the ankle at a mud hole then followed it around for a few days until it died to the poison/infection, than all the KDs for miles around did a stacks-on at the carcass.

The issue is that KDs like hot and dry places, and typically live in dry, open grassland, savanna, and tropical forest at low elevations and in Australia these areas aren't teeming with roos just waiting to be eaten. The red roo is a desert/semi-desert dweller, and not that thick on the ground due to the nature of the environment. If it was suitable then the Perentie has had ~50,000 years to bulk up, but remains at 15kg rather than say 30kg+.

I think that the leopard would be the best bet, living in the Great Dividing Range and its fringes probably everywhere north of about Sydney.
 
I assure you I don't, I once saw a doco where one KD bit a buffalo on the ankle at a mud hole then followed it around for a few days until it died to the poison/infection, than all the KDs for miles around did a stacks-on at the carcass.

The issue is that KDs like hot and dry places, and typically live in dry, open grassland, savanna, and tropical forest at low elevations and in Australia these areas aren't teeming with roos just waiting to be eaten. The red roo is a desert/semi-desert dweller, and not that thick on the ground due to the nature of the environment. If it was suitable then the Perentie has had ~50,000 years to bulk up, but remains at 15kg rather than say 30kg+.

I think that the leopard would be the best bet, living in the Great Dividing Range and its fringes probably everywhere north of about Sydney.
They can and will engage buffalo following an ambush, they are not reliant on waiting and have been observed ambushing and eviserating wild boar (auffenberg) killing them near instantly. You are massively oversimplifying the evolutionary process the Komodo dragon specializes in killing and consuming large animals the perentie is a generalist and it faces no pressure to be anything else so there is no reason it would bulk up.
The red kangaroo while it does indeed exist in the desert also inhabits the surrounding semi arid grasslands that the Komodos would be calling home and they would be eaten along with everything else that they would coexist with Komodos are hardly picky, it's really that simple.
 
I don't doubt the KDs toughness, I doubt that there are enough red roos for them to eat in the semi desert grasslands. And even if there were the red roo only breeds every third year so would experience a decline in numbers to below what would support a population of KD.
 
I don't doubt the KDs toughness, I doubt that there are enough red roos for them to eat in the semi desert grasslands. And even if there were the red roo only breeds every third year so would experience a decline in numbers to below what would support a population of KD.
Red roos wouldn't be the only thing they'd eat snakes, lizards, cassowarys, walloroos, dingos and basically everything else they cohabitate with would also be on the menu
 
So, if you are looking to move large predators to North America post European colonization, it would probably be in the same interests that scimitar oryx and nilgai have been introduced to Texas and Oklahoma (although the former are not running free) - exotic hunting. I don’t think that’s a very tall order, considering that exotic prey animals have already been introduced. You might want to play with eminent domain laws and the formation of the Bureau of Land Management, here. IIRC, Thomas Jefferson had an essay against the retention of fee simple (which forms the foundation of American eminent domain law) that was presented at the First Continental Congress by his affiliates who weren’t able to convince the other attendants that a nation of freeholders who held their land in allodial title was the way to go. Perhaps have Jefferson present to make his case? You might be looking at a much more “Wild West” in such a case.


I also presented a case for how this could be done with a much earlier POD. Again guys, be creative.


@Riain, if I may point out that tigers are not as flexible in terms of their abilities to exploit habitats as jaguars, which could easily lead to a redistribution of habitats (say, jaguars abandon riparian forests where their ranges overlap with tigers). Furthermore, I specifically detailed that tigers, after the extirpation of jaguars from the American East would be a suitable addition to the riparian forests there, especially after the introduction of pigs. So, the lion is not the only animal that stands out here, and bears (even grizzlies) should not be considered serious competitors to hypercarnivores like big cats because the majority of their diets are composed of plant matter.


I also saw someone suggest the Caspian Tiger as a plains predator? Caspian Tigers were like any other tiger - a specialized riparian woodland predator. This meant that their distribution and population were always limited in their native range. They would, as tigers do, hang around rivers and lakes, where the vegetation cover is much denser and suitable to the pattern of their coat.
 
Red roos wouldn't be the only thing they'd eat snakes, lizards, cassowarys, walloroos, dingos and basically everything else they cohabitate with would also be on the menu
Yes but he's basically saying it wouldn't be enough to support a reproducing population or the local perenties would have evolved to comparable size.
 
Yes but he's basically saying it wouldn't be enough to support a reproducing population or the local perenties would have evolved to comparable size.
Yes and that's an incorrect way of thinking, for a number of reasons most notably that they really haven't had time to, in terms of evolution the previous occupiers of that niche haven't been gone that long and have been at least partially replaced by humans and their glorified free range mutts that the Aussies call dingos
 
Yes and that's an incorrect way of thinking, for a number of reasons most notably that they really haven't had time to, in terms of evolution the previous occupiers of that niche haven't been gone that long and have been at least partially replaced by humans and their glorified free range mutts that the Aussies call dingos
In which case that suggests a komodo population could only reproduce once the humans and dingos are already gone. Wouldn't they then be competing with the perenties? Do komodos have an advantage over perenties of the same size?
 
Yes and that's an incorrect way of thinking, for a number of reasons most notably that they really haven't had time to, in terms of evolution the previous occupiers of that niche haven't been gone that long and have been at least partially replaced by humans and their glorified free range mutts that the Aussies call dingos
I do doubt that Komodo dragons could get established in pre-European colonisation of Australia, but the main reason is competition with the existing top predator: humans. Humans are frankly much better predators than Komodo dragons, and would be competing for the main prey with large dragons.
 
In which case that suggests a komodo population could only reproduce once the humans and dingos are already gone. Wouldn't they then be competing with the perenties? Do komodos have an advantage over perenties of the same size?
No again humans and dingos are partially the reason why the perentie hasn't moved into a different niche, the komodo dragon avoids this by already occupying this niche, it also already lives with feral dogs (it eats them) and humans (sometimes eats those too) and no they would not compete with perentie as perentie are archtypical small to medium prey generalists and komodo dragons are medium to large prey specialists.
These are very different animals that do very different things, it's not remotely useful or helpful to use the perentie to gauge the Komodos potential success.
I do doubt that Komodo dragons could get established in pre-European colonisation of Australia, but the main reason is competition with the existing top predator: humans. Humans are frankly much better predators than Komodo dragons, and would be competing for the main prey with large dragons.
They live with humans right now, so that's a rather illogical conclusion to reach.
 
Mountain lions, grizzly bears, polar bears, and jaguars
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They live with humans right now, so that's a rather illogical conclusion to reach.
There's a difference between an established predator in its home environment living with humans who are mostly farmers/fishers, and trying to introduce a new predator into an environment where humans are abundant and rely on hunting for a significant part of their food.

There's a reason the Australian ecological equivalents to Komodo dragons (Megalania and relatives) went extinct. If they weren't directly killed by humans, humans out-competed them in the role of apex predators.
 
There's a difference between an established predator in its home environment living with humans who are mostly farmers/fishers, and trying to introduce a new predator into an environment where humans are abundant and rely on hunting for a significant part of their food.

There's a reason the Australian ecological equivalents to Komodo dragons (Megalania and relatives) went extinct. If they weren't directly killed by humans, humans out-competed them in the role of apex predators.
Megalania was much larger than komodo dragon and was entirely reliant on large prey, calling it an ecological equivalent is a stretch and it was likely fire stick farming not pressure from competition that made megalania go extinct.
 
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