Has anyone here ever heard of rewilding? You probably have. It's where you put species or proxies for species back into places were they've been missing for years because of human activity. I read this article in a magazine the other day about a project idea.. a proposal to put animals similar to those that once roamed North America back into the ecosystem. This page is somewhat a summary of it. It's worth a look, if nothing else. The usefulness/absurdity/chance-of-working is open for comments.
rewilding as I understand it is mostly about errasing human impacts on the land such as roads and trying to restore habitat to establish cores are coradoors back to a less impacted state. It rarely means the active reintroduction of large animals and preditors. I think the idea in that paper is pretty silly. Its never gonna fly. We need to establish cores and coradores for the species we still have before we think about purposefully introducing exotic species. Also, the problem with "rewilding" as its described in that paper is: what wild is being re-created? Perhaps we should do our best to recreate glaciers of the last ice age that covered many of our northern major cities? My point is, nature is never in ballance it is always changing and whos to say that one version is more preferable than another?
I think that "rewilding" is one of the craziest ideas I have heard of. Why "restore" to nature, what natural neglect, could do about as well? Hasn't anybody ever noticed old fireplace out in the woods, with no house anywhere to be found? Does nature "care" that the brick or stone fireplace, takes longer to naturally "rewild?" Not at all. Why break up an old, now unused road? Just simply not repaving it for a while, will accomplish the same effect, without the huge waste of taxpayer money. Weather and weeds will eventually demolish a road, anyway. Only hazards that may fall on playing children, would obviously need to be torn down.
Remember about 10 years ago when wolves were being reintriduced in the USA, where they naturally used to roam? It was claimed to be a big success; so big that cattlemen started getting pissed when wolves attacked their herds and started shooting at them. I think it's a good idea to help areas rewild if they have been overdeveloped, anyway that can be done. I say return the land to its rightful owners, and become temporary tenants once again. I like the wild, and we should all be able to live in it and with it. People here in the USA are becoming too reliant on people to keep them alive and happy. Survival skills need wild areas to be honed. I am all for rewilding, as radical as that may sound to some.
We studied this concept in college. Rewilding, is not so much about ripping up mans influence...after all Nature can take care of undoing mans physical structures perfectly well on her own. It is about trying to recreate ecosystems that we have destroyed. its a particularly relevant concept in the UK where we have removed a great chunk of the animals that would have had a huge impact......species ranging from the wolf, to the bear, to the Boar, to the humble Beaver...... Our eco system as a result is a very false one....Our chief 'large' predator now is the fox....which when u look at the place of fox like dogs in other countries is quite amusing! Thats why we have so much trouble, and have to have so much human intervention to keep what we HAVE got ticking over...because we've taken huge parts of the biota away..... Rewilding, looks at reintroducing these lost species. It is very controversial, and different parties will have vastly different views. Some species would work. I think the Lynx would be a good one. They have large ranges, being highly territorial, and are generally solitary, so that erases any worry of overpopulations. Being secretive, and shy they are also very elusive, so human encounters would be minimal........They are also quite specialized hunters of Hare and Roe Deer..... Any predator of deer would be highly welcome as they are severely over populated in many areas due to a lack of predation......which has awful impacts in the way of disease and terrible damage to woodland eco systems which are designed to thrive under reasonable levels of browsing, but are unable to regenerate as a consequence of too heavy browing levels....thus gradually degenerate and will be lost. A lot of money and time is spent on managing deer numbers annually. All because of no predators.....well....occassionally a Fox might find a Roe kid! Rewildings a good concept....but in practice???? Difficult....... Scotland would be a good place to introduce wolves back into.....But then theres the conflict with the Hill farmers and their sheep. On the other hand, hill farming is increasingly unprofitable, and the governement actually SUBSIDISES them to keep them going......so here's an idea.....keep the hill farmers as custodians of the land......But think of this....a Scotland with such species as Lynx, and Bear, and Beaver, and Wolf........The big wigs could potentially really cash in on that from the tourism sector.....as countryside tourism is proving itself as an ever increasing government cash pot..........wildlife...photography...you name it tours...... Deer stalkers and Hill farmers would make ideal leaders of tours etc, AND the Deer would finally have some adequate predators...... WIll this ever hapen tho??? I seriously doubt it
There was a case of freelance rewilding in New York City where someone dumped a wild coyote in Central Park. The result was an orgy of panic with hundreds of city employees stalking and capturing the poor beast. Helicopters and everything. The Park cordoned off. The Coyote was relocated to upstate New York.
