Escaped Exotic Animals (1983: Doomsday)

In September 1983 nuclear weapons fell across the planet, many thousends of cities and towns were destroyed and the surviving humans evacuated huge areas and escaped to 'safe' areas.

Behind them they left animals. Some domesticated, like pet cats and dogs, and some not so domesticated.

In the USA the craze of the late 1970's and early 80's was to own large exotic pets, tigers, lions and other big cats were kept in backyards across the country. After Doomsday many escaped, survived and bred.

Also across the world many zoo's and in particular Safari parks escaped destruction from the nukes, these animals survived and in some cases thrived without human intervention.

United Kingdom
There had been reports in the press of large black cats roaming the sparcely inhabitated areas of the UK well before Doomsday, these were probably pets relesed after the Dangerous Wild Animal act was introduced in 1976 making the keeping of large dangerous exotic animals in private hands illegal.

On Doomsday three large Safari parks survived the destruction Many Zoological parks also survived, after Doomsday many of the animals escaped from their enclosures and made their way into the wild. Here they bred and spread across the abandoned countryside.
 * Woburn Safari Park, Bedfordshire.
 * Longleat Safari Park, Gloscestershire.
 * Windsor Safari Park, Berkshire.

Reports of strange animals began reaching the governments of the survivor states in the large 1990's. The reports of the large big cats began to increase, there were also reports of herds of large African herbivores such as Zebra, Wilderbeast, antelope and even a herd of Elephants have all been reported, although none have been offically recorded.

Due to the low winter temperatures across the former UK it is expected that many of the more tropical species wouldn't have survived the first winter, however many had adapted to the climate before Doomsday so scientists believe that large mammalian species such as Elephant and Rhino could survive only limited by food sources.

Due to the fact that the UK lost the majority of its large wild animals, particularly the carnivores over 500 yaers ago there are many ecological niches that the escaped animals can fill.

Kingdom of Cleveland

Many of the wild animals in the Kingdom of Cleveland are feral domesticated animals, however there are colonies of exotic escapees:


 * The are large numbers of Amercian harris hawks throughout Cleveland and Northumbria, it is assumed that they are the decendants of escaped falconary birds.


 * In the Tyne and Wear National park there are several parks of a wolf-like animal, it is unknown if they are pure bred wolfs, cross breeds with feral dogs or actually feral dogs.


 * The is a colony of European eagle owls in Yorkshire, again assumed to be escaped falconary birds, although some experts have noted that they may have flown across the North Sea from the Nordic Union.

In Cleveland there are plans to expand the number of native species in the country by adding in species made extint in the recent past. To do this the Cleveland Wildlife Trust has set up plans to reintroduce European Beaver, European Elk, Red Deer, and Wisent in the near future to the Tyne and Wear National Park.

North America
Due to the more loose laws on keeping animals in comparison with the UK far more exotics escaped from captivity after Doomsday. The spread of these animals was therefore not limited to areas surroundig zoo's and Safari parks.

The restored WWF has discovered hundreds of exotic animals such as lions that have appeared on the Great Plains and have become the top predator, hunting the expanding herds of plains bison and escaped cattle. In Texas and New Mexico herds of Oryx and Gemsbok have been found.

There have also been reports from travellers of breeding zebra, elephant, rhino, tigers (as far north as the former Canadian border), osritch, various types of large and small antelope, camels (both Bacrian and Dromadary), macropods such as Kangeroo and wallerby, smaller cats such as caracals and servels, leopards and panthers, meerkats, great apes such as chimpanzee's, as well as smaller primates such as lemurs and old world monkeys.

The North American landscape was adapted to large herbivores and predators but many went extinct after the last ice age, many scientists welcome the return of the 'megafauna'.