Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe
bbc.com

Still worthwhile, but not as cool as the title pretends it'll be.

"* This method of conservation aims to let large areas of land return to wilderness – in other words, a state of zero human intervention.*"

This is quite clearly hopelessly idealistic. Robust ecosystems that sustain macrofauna are achievable (and necessary, IMO) but "untouched" is not. That sort of idealism is not a problem, but it does set up some issues in terms of getting everyone on board.

Large grazers, bears, wolves, even lynx come into conflict with humans. This is reality. That conflict can be managed and mitigated such that we coexist, but we need to develop a models and cultures that allow this. Scottish farmers don't want wolves. They're not going to come on board with a naive effort. Even lynx are a tough sell, but it's a better place to start than wolves.

I'm actually optimistic though. Despite some naive gaffs (especially in the UK & Germany), there's a genuine public interest growing. Birds of prey are back. Cyanide is a cultural faux pas.

We should look east and west for ideas. Eastern Europe, and obviously Russia have a continuous culture of coexisting with large and potentially dangerous animals. Americans and Canadians have had some great successes reversing exterpations.

George Monbiot has been very influential, and I like his book, but he is a hard liner. He draws heavily on the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction. That's a fine example, but I think it has led to an overly idealistic perspective. A large, pristine and remote park isn't the only way and its probably unrealistic in most of western europe.

>Large grazers, bears, wolves, even lynx come into conflict with humans. This is reality. That conflict can be managed and mitigated such that we coexist, but we need to develop a models and cultures that allow this. Scottish farmers don't want wolves. They're not going to come on board with a naive effort. Even lynx are a tough sell, but it's a better place to start than wolves

>Americans and Canadians have had some great successes reversing exterpations.

One of the more high profile examples in the last ten-fifteen years are the wolf populations in Yellowstone.

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolf-restoration.htm

One of the biggest issues they faced and maybe still do are conflicts between ranchers, farmers and hunters outside the border of the park. To the point where people would camp just outside the park with rifles and wait for any that would stray over the border.

Cattle ranchers in the area were the biggest opponents to the reintroduction, they also already deal with brucellosis issues because of the bison in the park, likewise, the bison in the park have a brucellosis problem because of the cattle ranches.

It took years of negotiations with landowners in the area, a lot of enforcement for poaching and constant tracking and population studies on the wolves themselves to get the success they had.

Kinda nice they include that, makes you think.