Irish deer. As a little kid I saw a skeleton of one in a museum and I’ve just always been fascinated by them. But ------ I do admit that I want to bring it back and have it thrive enough so I can harvest one and eat it. C’mon - regular elk steaks are cool but a plate full of Irish Elk (as I learned to call it)? That would have to be some platter.
Second choice is mammoth — but mostly to see if I could bring one down with a muzzleloader.
You left out Dire Wolves – which I guess is fine, since we’d have nowhere for them to live and nothing for them to eat.
I looked long and hard at Irish Elk. Megaloceros are incredible and to see one alive and going about his life would be breathtaking. But I don’t know. Bringing them back and then just letting the hunters have them seems wrong.
In the end, I voted as I always knew I would: Wooly Mammoths. We’re right on the verge of losing our elephants, and a world without elephants is a very shabby world, indeed. Bringing back the Mammoths and letting them run free in Yellowstone - that would almost make up for losing the elephants and the polar bears, both.
Tassie Tiger. It was a bloody great shame such a beautiful animal was wiped out so recently for such dumb reasons that it pains me. “other” was extremely tempting, but I felt it unfair to have one option represent so many potential choices, and besides, that poor stripey fellow.
I don’t see what we would do with a wooly mammoth in modern day. The only place for it would be the zoo, which seems sort of pointless. I voted for the Irish Elk since it seems like one of the more plausible to be able to persist if brought back.
There are parts of Siberia/Northern Asia where free-range mammoths would be possible - maybe. Lots of empty space around where herds could roam. There is a lot in the habits and biology I’m not up on very well though so there could be issues I don’t know.
Giant Ground Sloth, mainly because we have nothing anything like it today and there are a lot of questions about what they may have been like. The Woolly Mammoth is really just a variation on your basic elephant.