REWILDING EUROPE: Recreating the European Serengeti 

Hey guys, when I made this video, I didn't know anything about video editing so the sound is far from perfect. If you're listening on headphones the voice-over will be in one ear and the music in the other and overall it'll be quiet so please just turn up the volume! Hope it's still okay for you 😎

Great video. One species you forgot to mention is the Barbary Macaque. Fossil remains show it was once found as far north as Great Britain and East to Germany at least. They are cold tolerant, able to withstand deep snow to this very day in their existing range in the Atlas Mountains.

I wouldn't mind seeing an episode about the Australian srengeti. That's always a hot topic.

All that is good but only future can tell

technically there are still wild leopards in geographic Europe in the Caucasian mountain. Their is even a small population in the sotchi national park close to the Black Sea.

Phenomenal video! Awesome seeing videos on rewilding, and Europe rewilding, great coverage 👍

Yes please more videos of the European Serengeti !

Good summary of the whole deal. Shame this doesn't get more views

love to see this positive shift taking place around the world. from hunting animals, unfortunately many to extinction, to more and more countries taking steps to protect wildlife.

Well I think there are more cold adapted proxies for European megafauna than you might think. Asian cheetahs will develope wintercoats Lions and spotted hyenas all develope thick furs when exposed to cold conditions. Close to my hometown (German Baltic coast) lions are kept outside yearround. Southern Europe is warm enough for rhinos hippos and elephants (they re present in similar climates in South Africa)

Spotted hyena have been seen in German zoos growing longer fur.

Spotted Hyenas would have no problem adapting to the temperatures of Europe, as would lions and leopards. Their fur would grow thicker in accordance with the seasons. Great video by the way. 👍

Thats, friend, is a real interesting and well made video!💖

I believe that over time, animals not adapted to the cold could adapt quickly. But there would have to be many specimens of a species as many would certainly die in European winters.

It was a really great video, however I think it's important to mention that moose in Eurasia is called elk. When settlers went to thr Americas they named the vapiti elk, because it was so similar. (Keep in mind education and information was much different back then.) So when they encountered the real elk, the didn't have a name left for it (even if they named an animal after an other a few years back), they adapted the algonquin name, meaning bark stripper. So elk in Eurasia is elk, and elk in America is moose, and the animal in America called elk is the vapiti.

Palaeoloxodon namadicus is from india. P. antiquus is the european species. Be careful with suggesting replacement species in rewilding. Ecosystems are very complex and species can vary a lot between genus so it is generally a bad idea. I am talking about examples like rhinos, hippos and elephants. Giant cheetah lived in the middle pleistocene, way before even neanderthals so introducing a cheetah is no sense. Leopard makes more sense since it lived in eastern europe until around 3000 years ago and lion even more recently but for the rest it is not a good idea (except maybe tigers in the caucasus and far eastern europe).

I love this concept so much, keep it up man

your European Serengeti would require a huge fenced aread

Thank you for giving me this information in my left ear

Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands are not a succesful recreated ecosystem by any means. It is a failed project that sees mass starvation of grazers every winter. The founder of the project claims it to be an island system, but it is not an island but rather a fenced off plot. The animals can see food, they just can't get to it and are doomed to starve. I wouldn't showcase it as a succes story at all.

I've only recently found your channel, and I'm absolutely loving all of these videos showcasing the fauna that has so recently and tragically been lost. I truly believe that Late Pleistocene/early Holocene levels of biodiversity are both possible and necessary to restore for our own health, and it's one of my biggest passions. I did notice a handful of things in the video that were either missed or somewhat incorrect, which could be good additions to a part 2 or second edition of this video. Three species were left out: the European dhole, the European Onager, and the Barbary macaque. Additionally, the hippos of late Pleistocene europe were the same species as those in Africa today, but different hippos also lived in Europe earlier in the Pleistocene. The giant cheetah unfortunately died out during the middle Pleistocene alongside the European puma and Jaguar, so wouldn't be present in the late Pleistocene Serengeti. An interesting paper was published recently showing that two European hyenas, Pachycrocuta brevirostris and the "giant striped hyena" Hyaena prisca were in the same genus (for the former) and even species (for the latter) as the living brown hyena. So striped hyenas didn't inhabit the European Serengeti but Brown hyenas and a close relative both did. I'd absolutely love to see more videos on this incredible, mostly-lost habitat, and the possible rewinding opportunities it holds.

More Serengeti videos please 👏🏼

Large tracts of land given to animals is exactly what we need. The best chance of doing this would be in the region where Belarus, Poland and Ukrain meet.

Yes, I’m a writer and among many forms of fanfiction I’ve also been doing spec evo series that would these videos your planing to do very helpful.

I think about reintroducing leopards to chernobyl, france, portugal etc

In der steinzeit were eine Safari wohl eine Mischung aus Tieren von Afrika aber auch nordischen Tieren die man in Kanada und Alaska heute noch sieht man sähe Löwen Hüyänen Elefanten Nashörner flusspferde aber auch Bären Bisons Riesenhirsche Elche und viele andere Tiere zu sehen were spannend 😊😊😊

Elephants can adapt to european climate

There is actually a subspecies of leopard that isn’t that far from Europe and is probably better suited. It’s the Persian leopard and there’s even a small population in Georgia.

Have you guys made any predictions on how this will affect trafic safety in Europe?

lions cope well with cold climates if they live outdoors since childhood

I would not be happy with tigers and leopards being reintroduced to Great Britain if they want them on the continent that's up to them

Not sure if this could be indicative of big cat survival in European climates. There are predominantly two species of exotic big cats that have survived and bred from release and escaped big cats in the 18 and early to mid 1900's in Australia. Mountain lions, black leopards and jaguars, various subspecies of tiger and African lions were popular exotic pets brought over by European and American early settlers with only mountain lions and black leopards surviving long enough to establish small isolated populations. Also during the 1850's gold rush big cats were used to guard miners digs. Quite often these were released for various reasons or escaped as well as big cat mascots used by US servicemen stationed in Australia during WW2. On returning home all big cat mascots were ordered to be destroyed but of course these big cats were like to ets to them and killing their pet just wasn't going to happen. So the majority just 'vanished' (sort of somehow escaped, most definitely not released. That would be worthy of disciplinary action) often the day before returning or the surrender order date. Others, interestingly including a few Australian dingo pups and breeding pairs were smuggled back on board returning ships. The Australian government has a 'yeh we know they're in the bush but it's easier and more convenient to just say yehnah they're just probably here, so don't panic or form hunting possies. Trust us, we're the government." As a side note it was these smuggled Aussie Dingoes that almost all privately owned Australian Dingoes and pets in the states originated from.

Was it deliberate to show a muskrat while talking about beavers? A similar thing happened in the American video, with a nutria shown during a beaver segment.

Both the Aurochs and Tarpan should be cloned to gamete level to add to as back-breeding programs as well as gamete cloning for European Bison and Iberian Ibex..

Elephants and rhinos might succeed in temperate zones better than might be believed. Their size give them a low surface area to volume ratio and makes them inherently well adapted to deal with the cold. If some of these sorts of animals were introduced into one of Europe's Mediterranean peninsulas with a path to spread north they might return to all of Europe in not too many generations. Now its just a matter of coming up with the space and social acceptance.

So many former rural villages have no citizens. These areas should become natural wildlife refuges. Let's not forget that wild animals are *not* made of fairy dust. If an active rural area is transformed into a reservation, the new denizens will continue burping and farting, so there'll be no carbon capture gains. Let actuve rural areas produce food and uninhabited areas be given back to their original wild denizens.

Awesome video. Although I do have to say that I think that 'climate change' as a cause for the extinction of the megafauna was not as big of a factor as people say. Those animals had survived countless glacial and interglacial periods, some of them with more drastic variation than the last one, only to went extinct after humans arrived in the mainland.

Tigers, lions, and leopards are native to parts of Europe.

Yes, I can imagine that :)

I allso want to reintroduce a snow leopards in ,,Tatry" and Alps mountains or more places And in future a pack of lions in chernobyl and portugal and other places etc (Legally or not)

An Amur Tiger that which as the proxy of the Turanian or Caspian Tigers that which found in Ukraine too.

Learned lots. Great narration. Love the passion.

While I am all for rewilding, some of this is very unlikely. It is hard to get the public on board with introducing predators, especially ones that would be exotic. Tigers are already endangered in their natural habitat so breaking off enough to form a European population would exacerbate that. Not to mention the amount of territory they demand. Also, they are more than willing to prey on humans and livestock. It is better to focus on strengthening native wolf populations. They are a native and fully adapted keystone species.

Leopards in Europe ever heard of the beast of bodmoor my exmoor or eesex lion

Asian lions inhabited southern europe, in the balkans many legends were told about them, but roman empire expanded and hunted or kept them as pets, asian lions still exist but in remonte area of gir forest in gujarat India. We have high chances of reintroducing species in countries they historically lived but problem is the europe is now really populated and habitats are shrinking, so will we able to make europe suitable for all animals that historically lived in europe? Only time will tell

Is European countries allowed to Re-wildering projects?!!

"Big cats in europe" *Flashbacks to cave lions hunting humans* ...Please don't.

I mean, big cats would do well in the southern Europe. Elephants and rhinos would have to take time in warmer but a little bit more dryer climates I think. Idk, I'm not an expert

We can clone some of the extinct species.

There's big cats in the British isles and what about the rest of Europe

yes leopards in europe and lions in the balkans

Is the sound a bit off?

Really live this type of content. 👍🏻 If you would just allow me one nitpick, please don't call them "moose". They're slk here. It's like calling Eurasian reindeer "caribou". They're the same species, but the names in America are native american and specific to them. They're elk, elg, älg, Alces alces, and it's a shame the wapiti should steal that name.

I had similar thoughts for South America, sadly the proxies we would have to take are even more remote than in Europe 😅

Why do you want serengeti in Europe? Get your own geti.

I think rhino's might be able to survive in some of Europe. South Africa the karoo goes into the negatives and rhino and elephants can be found there

Europe also had pumas once

Correction at some point in the video you said that siberian tiger was the largest modern cat but its just aa claim lots of people like to throw aroumd but both the african lion and bengal tiger surpass it on average and wild records

I would love this, we should live in some sort of harmony with nature not dominate it

Small problem the land is almost completely used by humans. Western Europe is the worst place for such projects rivaled by Japan especially Tokyo and costal china

I mean it sounds great. But very unrealistic. Especially for the more dangerous animals. People would never support this. They are already afraid of harmless wolfs.

6:29. You mention bison. Why did you show an American bison?????

Iranian cheetahs live up in the mountain plains and have very fluffy coats, but there's only about 40 of them. If you could somehow take semen from a few wild Iranian cheetahs, mix it with several captive bred African cheetahs, you could potentially breed a longer coat and do staged rewinding like they do in South Africa? I think they're also trying to breed the King Cheetah in captivity, they've got amazing striped coats, definitely look them up. 💚 Just a few thoughts from a diehard spotty cat lady 😆

Persian leopard

No space in Europe

i dont thing introducing tigers into europe would be a good idea. Firstly they were never native to europe in the first place introducing an african lion would be more native to Europe than tigers. Secondly they would probably do well in the forest of europe but the point is to restore the ancient grasslands if they were restored then tigers wouldnt do so well anyways as tigers are not grassland hunters there forest creatures thats probably why lions out competed then in the first place even tho the lions had to adapt to the climate more due to there familiarity with the grasslands. Thirdly lions are pack hunters tigers are not this is also probably why they outcompeted lions in that environment cause there hunting method is more efficient.

Reintroducing tigers is not reintroduction.They are not native to europe where as lions were

Hello, in the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan Armenia Georgia) we have leopards :) although I don’t know if we count as European