Komodo Dragons to Australia?

In a Feb. 1 Nature paper, biologist David Bowman of Australia's University of Tasmania raises the hypothetical possibility of introducing elephants and Komodo dragons to Australia. At first it sounds mad, but what's happening now in Australia is a form of madness, too. Massive wildfires that have become a regular and lethal fact of Australian life don't only represent climate change or natural susceptibility, but the buildup of vegetation that until 50,000 years ago would have been eaten by Australia's now-extinct megafauna.

Elephants could fill that role again, writes Bowman. "The idea of introducing elephants may seem absurd, but the only other methods likely to control gamba grass involve using chemicals or physically clearing the land, which would destroy the habitat," he writes. "Using mega-herbivores may ultimately be more practical and cost-effective." Komodo dragons wouldn't do much for fires, but they would eat feral pigs and buffalo, the targets of ongoing and largely unsuccessful animal control efforts.