I like many of you have seen the headlines claiming dire wolves have been raised from the dead. I have also, unlike many of you, taken enough of an interest in the subject to discover that people are contesting these claims, stating that, at best, gray wolves have been given some dire wolf-like traits.

But progress has to start somewhere. Every year, thousands of people flock to Loch Ness in order to find a monster that doesn’t exist. But with the power of technology, we could have thousands flocking to Sumter County to see monsters that do.

It would not be that huge of a step. We already have an environmental protection agency. We could easily create an environmental resurrection agency as well. Its first task could be bringing back all the extinct megafauna that used to haunt North American, and that could, with enough scientific research, roam the woods of America once more.

Everyone whines and complains about irl Jurassic Park being dangerous, but going that far back isn’t really practical anyway due to DNA degradation. While dinos aren’t an easy option, there are several other large creatures that constitute a much more likely option such as giant ground sloths, giant beavers, and basically almost anything we have now but much, much bigger.

News is littered with catastrophes. At this point, I would at least like them to be interesting, and inflation, student loan debt, and the rising cost of housing most certainly aren’t.

So with a few genetic engineering intro classes at our local high school, coupled with some practicums on the collegiate, we can be well on our way to remedying this unfortunate trend. Student interest in classes and knowledge of STEM would simultaneously increase, hunters would find themselves with unexpected variety, and Sumter would continue its trend of environmental consciousness by adding more creatures to graze beneath the solar panels, forming a win-win for all.