What Stops Dragons From Causing Ecological Collapse?

In my setting Dragons evolved on a n isolated continent far from where man evolved. But in the past thousand years dragons have been introduced to the human inhabited continent, which is filled with real world Eurasian and North American wildlife as opposed to the fantastic.

Introduced species have a habit of cashing native ones to go extinct or be vastly reduced in numbers, but I still want predators like wolves and bears to exist.

How could an ecosystem withstand the introduction of a new apex predator, or is the logical conclusion of any introduction the extinction of many native species?

Dragons are animals and not sentient in this setting. They are not magic, they're a 100 kilogram dromeosaur descendent that lives alone and reproduces slowly. They are carnivores and have to eat their body weight in food per week. This question could even be rephrased as "would tigers cause ecosystem collapse if you placed them in Alaska?" It's honestly more about introducing large predators than anything else

posted almost 5 years ago

NixonCranium‭

11 reputation 18 1 1 0