About Eric Flint's 1632 series and the transported wildlife

Cafe Society
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I don’t know how many of us here read Eric Flint’s 1632 series, the tales of what has happened when a town in West Virginia is transported to the Germanies in the mddle of the 30 Year’s War.

A number of people have written authorized stories that fit into the canon, but there’s one subject I haven’t seen dealt with. That’s what happens to the wildlife that went back with the town of Grantville.

It’s said a circle six miles across went back. That’s a little over 28 square miles(73 square kilometers). Given that quite a bit of that land was undeveloped, then certainly quite a few critters made the trip too.

My question is this. How many of a particular species, say, raccoons, would be needed to keep a viable population? The environment is not very different, so it’s not like a desert species being moved to the tropics. Or what would happen to birds, their migratory patterns and so on? Rats, mice and other vermin would probably not even notice, would they?

I wonder what a German hunter would make of a possum?

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dinner?

that’s a really good question. i didn’t think of it beyond farm animals. there would be quite a few varmints that would have traveled.

also in 21st century wv you would have that big chunk of 1600 woods. interesting eco questions.

i’ll bet the first german housewife to come across an american cucaracha instead of the wee german ones would have let out quite the scream!

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I don’t have much to contribute, and I wouldn’t want to drive you away from the Dope, but you should know there’s a very active online community over at Baen discussing this stuff. The articles and stories found in the Grantville Gazette books originated with the online crowd there.

It’s in the Baen’s Bar section of Baen.com, which seems to require that you register. I’ve never gone there, but Flint talks about how many issues like this the community helped him work out while putting together each book.

I also find that Baen has both 1632 and 1633 available free in several digital formats there on their site. Cool.

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The Baen Free Library? It has quite a lot of his stuff, including some from 163x. Not just 1632 and 1633. but Ring of Fire and some Grantsville Gazette stuff.

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Specifically on raccoons this has been tried (deliberately and inadvertently) in the 20th century

Map of raccoon bag distribution in Germany, 2000-2003

The population centered on the red spot in Hesse (in the centre) are the descendants of two raccoon pairs deliberately released on April 12, 1934, at the point marked Edersee (One of the Hessian raccoons). The population centered on the eastern border are the descendants of 25 raccoons escaped in 1945 after a bomb strike on a fur farm.

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tschild, thank you so much for those links! Fascinating stuff.

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One of the short stories mentions kudzu and how hard it is to get rid of it with tools of the seventeenth century.

Would kudzu actually prosper in Germany? Is the environment suitable to it?

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I’m reviving a zombie thread I started because, while looking up other data, I came on some information about kudzu that may answer the question Strinka asked in the previous post.

If it’s been seen in northern Italy it will probably survive in Germany.