Aussie as.

Image © 2012 AP via AAP / Tatan Syuflana

There are a lot of challenging problems facing our nation. An ageing population. A struggling manufacturing sector. Soaring utility prices, soil degradation, and Chokitos don’t taste the same as they used to.

But most of these pale into insignificance when we consider Australia’s most pressing issue: an almost complete lack of elephants.

Sure, you can see a couple at so called ‘zoos’. But in the global elephant marketplace, we lag way behind several African and Asian nations. We’re talking about third world countries with substantially more elephants than us. It’s embarrassing, and not something I care to explain to my children.

Fortunately, some visionaries, such as Professor David Bowman writing in respected science journal Nature, have a plan to put Australia back on the pachyderm playing field.

Bowman argues that Australian ecosystems and biodiversity have suffered catastrophic damage from invasive flora and fauna, and that we need to consider fighting fire with fire.

Fire, in this case, meaning elephants. Introduced elephants would make a quick meal of the Gamba grass which is crowding out native plants in the Northern Territory. Remember how we got rid of cane beetles with some kind of toad? Just like that.

But  we’re not just  talking elephants here. We need rhinoceroses. Komodo dragons. Basically if it’s big and dangerous, give it a visa and let’s get it over here to beat up wild pigs.

What could go wrong?