Some scientists have proposed a controversial idea for rewilding North America with megafauna that went extinct 13,000 years ago. They claim the idea would:
restore balance to North American ecosystems
create an ecological history park accessible to all
add to the economy of nearby rural areas.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=could-re-wilding-avert-6th-great-extinction
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41 comments:
this is an awesome article, but I wonder if we are messing around with Mother Nature? What do you think?
@Mrs Withers, but they're reintroducing top predators... Those are necessary in a healthy ecosystem
susie
This is an interesting article, but I don't know if re-wilding is really a viable option. The support, as shown in John McCain's comment about bears, is simply not what it needs to be. Also, what would happen if we, for some unknown reason, ran out of land to live on? Then which comes first, the human population or animals.
David
I think that instead of trying to introduce species back into the wild where populations could become low again, we should place these species in a wild sanctuary. But I do understand what they're saying about "lose the species, lose the ecosystem; lose the ecosystem, and its all over". I think we just need to first work to protect what we already have. We need to reevaluate how much resources and land we're using, and also how many animals we're displacing by building new cities and such that might not even be necessary. But even if biodiversity wasn't being lost due to human interactions, wouldn't we still be faced with the same challenge? After all, according to the article, we've had five mass extinctions even well before humans came into the picture.
It seems like an interesting concept, allowing species to essentially re-evolve. There are several problems though. First, politicians, as well as national boundaries, can and will get in the way. Funding, legal issues, whatever, it'll happen. Second, the goal of this project is to get the species to evolve into something usable, with either new genes, or different adaptations, or even a new species. However, the amount of time necessary for this would be extraordinary. Another problem is that the organism simply would not survive. When I read the article, it sounded an awful lot like sticking some animal into a different evironment. For example, it sounds similar to sticking a housecat in a desert and seeing if it adapts. It won't unless it already has some form of adaptation to the heat. In that case, why are we putting it in the desert anyway? I do believe that with sections of land completely CLOSED OFF TO ALL HUMANS with environmental occurrences similar to nature, animals could re-adapt.
Lastly, I feel they should change the article's title. It sounded too much like trying to stick wild animals in different areas, like setting lions loose in North America.
Jack Hooper
This article reminds me of the movie, Fern Gully, because the point is to convince people to change for the environment, since we (meaning everyone in the world) are responsible for it. However, urban development often ruins these plans, since the growing populations need homes and jobs. Also, I'm not disrespecting the human race by writing that humanity puts itself before nature. Right now, America cares about creating jobs, eliminating, or at least diminishing, national debt, along with attempting to please the rich by keeping their taxes low while aiding the middle and lower class with government funded programs. Before trying to save the environment, I feel the public will try to save themselves.
Re-wilding sounds interesting, but Jack's right about the time length of the researching will hinder gathering support for the project. I like that the article mentioned how helping nature will create jobs, but i wonder if people will only find the jobs appealing before a national crisis worse than the Great Depression.
I agree with Kiana about tending to the present ecosystems before creating or re-wilding new ones.
Also, Jack is right about politics getting in the way, which is why the people wanting to help the environment need to seriously bug their state and national representatives about the issue.
I belive a lot more research will need to be done before the true impact of rewilding of the world can be determined. It is important not only to reintroduce the predators to the enviorment but to reintroduce the right predarors, if the wrong ones are introduced the problem could be vastly worsened.
@ Jack
You are right about politicans. They are only concered with being re-elected, not doing whats right, and most americans do not have the patcience to see a plan like this go through
@Travis
You're right about the research. I mean, I know scientists have already done alot of research on the major species, but without knowing everything about every species, we can't hope to try and fit two species that don't belong together, together. It's like trying to solve a puzzle by just matching up the first piece you see with the second piece.
David
This article was very interesting. Reintroducing predators seems like a great idea at first but if you think about all the time this would take and you would have to put the predators in an environment that would actually help the environment.
@ Travis
The problem with sole research is that it's only theoretical. Unless we put the animals together and test predator-prey relationships, we won't know about their experiences in that environment as well. The bunnies in Australia are a good example. The fox, a natural predator, was introduced, but found other animals easier to catch, and thus did not go after the rabbit. Rewilding is going to be a long and globally painful process.
This article opened my eyes even more to the importance of species. It is crazy how one species leaving, such as the coyote, can affect the diversity of the whole ecosystem. This article proved many points on why rewilding should occur. But, we have to get the whole world on board witht this idea.
Nicole Rogers
@ David Cross
After reading your comment, you kind of made me think even more on rewilding. I am all for it; But you made a great point when you asked "What would happen if we for some reason, ran out of land to live on? Then which comes first, the human population or animals?" At first, my solution to this was that human would have to make room for the animals and live more closely together. Then, I thought about how cities, such as NYC or Chicago, have higher densities of humans. But, we cannot forget that these are also the cities with highter crime rates, which may be caused by too many people in one place. If humans live closer together for the purpose of giving animals more land, then your question comes up again, "Which comes first, the human population, or animals?"
Nicole Rogers
The ambition of Soule was pretty impressive, and how he conducted all of this extensive research, all of which was just sparked by his missing cats. Reading the article provides yet another source that urges the human race to stop the way that they are atering the world, but where to begin when it to comes to issues of such magnitude....
@ Nicole Rogers
You make a good point about "getting the whole world on board." I mean, sure environmentalists and scientists will immediately support it, but what about loggers, miners, and resource harvesters? They only want the best resources, regardless of the animal cost. And what about the Average Joe at home? Why does he care about animals he's never even seen. To get everyone on board for this project, it's gonna take some serious team work.
This is a thought-provoking article, but the author is biased and I wonder how much this effected the content. Without a doubt, we are damaging our environment at an alarming rate. While the damage is extensive, it can be reversed through total commitment from everyone, like Nicole said. Putting top predators back into the environment would re-establish the balance lost since humans began altering the environment. The balance is important to everyone but I can't think of anyone that would want a coyote walking around their neighborhood. It was really interesting to think about the interactions of different species for a simple product, like wheat or rice.
@Kiana
In the article, it states there have been five other great extinctions before humans. Whatever the cause, it has happened. Five times. I agree that we would most likely be confronted with similar challenges even if we took care of the environment the way we should.
It's like global warming. Yes, humans have contributed to global warming through the burning of fossil fuels, but there have been natural causes of an increase of global temperatures for centuries. There are warm and cool periods, regardless of human activity. At this moment in time, our consumption of fossil fuels is not good for our environment and alternatives should be explored. The loss of biodiversity is also partly due to human activity and should be prevented, perhaps through rewilding or, like you said, to care for what is left.
This article was interesting to me simply because although it sounds lovely, it strikes me as highly improbable. The level of dedication and influence that would be necessary to actually make Americans contribute to this new process seems to me impossible. Especially with so many Americans looking for jobs and new getaway homes and such. Our economy would suffer but our environment would lean towards sustainability. In addition, since we are all interdependent and thousands of species are thinning out and heading toward extinction, I find it extremely difficult to believe that we can make a full turn around. Let's face the hard reality, Americans do believe that whoever dies with the most toys wins, and since we all will eventually die, I'm sure thousands of Americans aren't concerned with what will become of Earth a thousand years from now.
@Nicole getting the whole world on board would be a perfect start, but to pessimists, such as myself, this article simply made the extinction of species and the depletion and degradation of ecosystems appear to be imminent.
@David I agree with you one hundred percent. It seems impossible with Americans living the way they are. And thinking about it, I take back what I said about being a pessimist, I think that most realists, like myself would agree.
This article is very eye opening. It seems so promising and simple. Section off large pieces of land, devote it to nature, and rewild it. Though, like the article says goverment and local communities are negatively interacting with this project. They do not want to give up land and fork up large amounts of money to make this work. I believe this process needs to start with smaller steps, starting with restoring and cleaning what is left of nature now.
@ Kiana and Anela
I agree about how you both said we should start by fixing what we have left of nature now.
Soule, over all, has a great idea. The problem is that we have urbanized, and rewilding isn't an option unless we unurbanize. I do not believe that would go well with most citizens...
Gabe
@NicoleRogers Getting the world on board is the only problem. Its a great idea, and I think it really could happen. But only with world wide cooperation. And with everyone's idea being to move forward in the world, I don't think cooperation is possible. This would be a big step back...
I believe the planet we live on belongs to all species and so I'm excited to hear that rewilding is already taking place in areas all over the world. The concept of rewilding lessens the inevitability of the biodiversity loss of the Sixth Great Extinction. I hope the fire being lit by scientists catches on with the politicians and governments of the world.
As stated in this article, it seems that the various environments in which we live are all influenced by a large-scale "domino effect." Re-wilding is not only costly, but also a fairly large decision that requires much pre-planning and agreement on both sides of the political spectrum. Herein lies the problem: in a time of economic turmoil and anthropological-revolved problems, can we focus and unite as fellow earthlings and tackle the issue of species depletion?
Michael Soulé seems to, however, he is cautiously optimistic. I really appreciated his effort to unveil the truths behind the attack of the Californian real estate agents and the devastating effects it inflicted upon the coyote population. By doing so, he was able to support his opinions with numerical data, which is incredibly important in illustrating the issue to a wider audience. I feel that this will not go away on its on and requires assistance from the very same humans that have provoked it.
@Marilyn
I agree with you on the "taking smaller steps" approach and hope that eventually everyone will be capable on getting on board to the idea of rewilding America.
when i read this article i found a lot of interesting things i didn't know. i also support rewilding because i think it can really help thing and restore most of the things we lost. bit i also thing we will need to persevere the things we have left for rewilding to be effective.
@ jack i think they would place animals in similar habitats like is it is us to hot climates they would place it in the dessert not in the snow. so I'm pretty sure when the rewild animals they take in concentration that f it is use to hot weather you they should place t in a place where it could easily adapt (such as a hot place). but i do a agree with you on your other key points.
I think this is interesting, but I can't really add everything up. It sounds like it would be a good idea, but when you get down to the roots, you start to feel some doubts. Would the good really outweigh everything the world has already been built upon? I mean, one has to think about how this would change the rest of the world on a bigger level...how humans, animals, and all else would have to adjust to this change. And how exactly would this come into play? Rewilding is more of a process than anything; we as human beings can't really force it any further, in my opinion. That, and I'm not quite sure the remainder of the human population would really support this, because as humans, the unknown seems to frighten us.
@Travis
I have to agree with you. I think this whole rewilding process seems quite shaky at this point in time; further research would probably be the only way to go. If we act out the wrong way, without knowing what we're doing, we could create devestating results.
I think the idea of re-wilding to restore balance within nature sounds like a great idea but i think the chances of it actually happening is very slim. Re-wilding would have to be a gradual thing and would take many years before we'd see any improvement, and i also don't believe we could get everyone to be comfortable with re-wilding. It's sad to see how many species are predicted to be extinct by the end of the century, but at this point i think it will be a long time before we would see any major improvement if we began re-wilding.
@Haylee
I agree with you completely. It all seems like a great idea but we have to sit back and ask ourselves if it is really worth it. And people these days are really skeptical and i think it'd be very hard to get everyone to agree with re-wilding.
Rewilding is a really awesome idea, and in an ideal world it would be beneficial and most likely help, but realistically the time, money, and effort put into this is not worth the outcome because we're not 100% sure of the outcome.
@Anela: My cousins in Washington state have coyotes (maybe..wolves, I'm not sure) walking around their neighborhoods at night. They said it's scary, but not traumatizing. Just throwing that out there.
@Marilyn
I also agree that taking "smaller steps" is a realistic thing to do.
This was a very interesting article. The idea of reintroducing a species into an ecosystem to help that environment is genious. I never would have thought of it. However, the process is extensive and will take the time and effort of many people to make it happen.
Micheal Soule was optimistic about it, but others not so much. Realistically, it is not worth the effort. Humans should just do their best to fix small problems individually.
@ Marilyn
I agree completely with your idea of taking "smaller steps". If everyone did that it would get us farther and cost much less.
The idea of rewilding is very interesting and seems like the answer to preventing extinction. But thats all it really is. A very in depth idea. To actually rewild an area would require un imaginable amount of effort and in the end. It might not even work.
@Marcus
You are completely right. Is it really worth it to rewild an area? Maybe in the future, but we are not prepared to literally change the world's ecosystems.
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