/r/megafaunarewilding

Photograph via snooOG

This subreddit is a hub for any news, information, artwork, and discussion focused on rewilding, mainly restoring populations of megafauna species and the ecosystems they are a part of, as well as overall wildlife conservation. Welcome!

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/r/megafaunarewilding

23,878 Subscribers

1 Comment
2024/03/19
20:01 UTC

24

Rewilding the Woolly Mammoth

0 Comments
2024/03/18
12:12 UTC

45

Pleistocene Portugal Size Chart by Paleotuga.

1 Comment
2024/03/16
12:24 UTC

48

What Appalachian state/province is the most viable for cougars?

Cougars need lots of space and food to thrive. Alabama has the most deer out of any Appalachian state at almost 2 million but has 5 million people. The province of New Brunswick has only 776,827 people but has alot less deer at only 73,000. Eastern North America will be hard for cougars to have a breeding population settled but curious what everyone thinks.

18 Comments
2024/03/13
00:40 UTC

63

Cost of rewilding to local communities

So I want to get something straight before you read this and get the pitchforks out: I actually DO support most rewilding projects. With the exception of the more outlandish one's (such as resurrecting mammoths, using extant lions as American lion proxies in Texas etc, which despite their popularity online, are actually not nearly as well supported by mainstream biologists and conservationists alike as fans of these ideas think), I tend to support most of these projects and my only protests tend to be more along the lines of pointing out flaws that could cause setbacks, rather than a genuine desire to have them not go through (think of lynxes in the UK. They could very well survive on the British Isles from an ecological point of view, but my suspicion of the lack of tolerance they’ll receive would make me advise against it. At least, for now). Bison? Make them more free range. Jaguars? Get 'em back in Arizona. Wolves? Keep 'em coming. This is about me wanting to talk about a problem I've noticed, and I want to address it, with papers, books and other sources being cited when necessary.

But that being said, there is something that does really bother me about rewilding: there is often very little empathy towards the people who have to live with these animals. A very recent example is the wolf situation in Colorado. Now, I do think a lot of the fears of those who oppose it are unfounded. We all know the wolves aren't going to wipe out everything in sight, or kill people en masse. I find the concerns of deer hunters even more bizarre when you realise just how many wild ungulates live in Colorado, and the US in general. But there are still some genuine concerns that ranchers have that I feel are justified. After all, they didn't want the animals there, but they're going to be the one's dealing with them. While I fully support the wolf reintroduction, I understand very well why locals might have voted against it. I do have some concerns for how the wolves were reintroduced, but that warrants an entirely different thread all on its own.

Now, in the case of Colorado though, I am honestly not too worried. As I said, many of the fears aren't super well founded. Generally, people in the West (keep in mind, GENERALLY) speaking have systems in place for livestock compensation, have better access to non-lethal methods to protect livestock and while losing money and livestock is never fun, they can generally financially recover better from this. In the EU, governments will even subsidise non-lethal protections such as guard dogs and fences. And when predators attack people, these are often either extremely rare incidents, provoked or they happen to people unnecessarily putting themselves in a dangerous position. No one asked you to hike in grizzly country, afterall. That was your own choice and you were aware of the risks. Your livelihood and survival didn’t depend on needing a recreational activity. My main concerns here are mainly Asia and Africa, where people don’t have such luxuries.

We all love elephants, tigers, lions, crocodiles and other amazing animals that are no doubt important to their ecosystems. But it can't be denied that the people who live around them don't always benefit from them and can even experience harm from them. Keep in mind, people who live in many of these countries are not well off. They have no social safety nets, live in harsh circumstances and don't have much financial stability. They need to rely on their livestock and crops a lot more than your average Westerners do, and suffer greatly when this is impacted. Let's take Mongolia for example. A snow leopard killing a single livestock animal there, can amount to up to 42% of an annual capita loss for families there. Families there who don't have much. And this is a trend everywhere. People in the west generally lose much less to predators then those in Asia and Africa, yet tend to be far more compensated for it. To these people, losing one or two cows can be a literal death sentence, as many of the regions this happen in are riddled with poverty. ( The unequal burden of human-wildlife conflict | Communications Biology (nature.com). A study done in Tigray, Ethiopia examined how much locals lost to spotted hyenas in terms of livestock. Now, Ethiopia has a high degree of tolerance towards spotted hyenas (which is fortunate, as recent research shows that the species may be doing worse than we thought), and on paper, spotted hyenas don't do much damage. Even less than 1% of livestock was lost in the region to the hyenas. But while this doesn't seem much on paper, you need to view this in context too. If you're a poor sod in this area with only a few goats and hyenas eat two of those, you're in a world of trouble ( Peri-urban spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) in Northern Ethiopia: diet, economic impact, and abundance | European Journal of Wildlife Research (springer.com).

It's easy to (and indeed, I've seen it often happen) to simply say that people need to protect their livestock better or that they just need to adapt, often cited with numerous benefits the animals bring. This is very much true, as I will never deny the animals don't have benefits. We all know which one's they are as well and ecosystem services are sorely needed. But at the same time, in regions such as Tigray or rural Mongolia where a hyena or snow leopard raiding livestock can result in your children starving, that message doesn't always hit home. But loss of livestock isn't the only reason why locals might not want to happen in their backyard. Human losses of life are very much also a thing to consider.

In Tanzania, Rufiji and Lindi to be precise, around 1000 people have been attacked by lions as of 2007, a number that keeps increasing. More than half of these were fatal. These attacks happen in wildlife-depleted areas and the lions therefore turn to an easy prey: humans (Human and ecological risk factors for unprovoked lion attacks on humans in Southeastern Tanzania — Experts@Minnesota (umn.edu) and (PDF) Lion attacks on humans in Tanzania (researchgate.net)). Keep in mind, the vast majority of people that were attacked weren’t some hikers out recreating, nor were they tourists breaking the rules and trespassing into dangerous territory, and they weren’t out to poach or hunt lions either. These are people working their crops, defending their fields from bushpigs or going to get water or supplies. In other words, they need to put themselves in dangerous circumstances in order to survive. And when doing so, they risk being predated on by lions. And given many of these attacks involved lions actively entering human settlements and even breaking into homes, one can’t really argue that they were feeling threatened either. These were predatory, unprovoked attacks by hungry cats that deemed humans a good source of food.

Is it humanity’s fault at large that the lions are attacking people? Given they happen in very prey depleted regions, certainly. It's easy to guess who is responsible for killing all those herbivores. But I don’t think I need to explain why a woman who lost their bread-winning husband to a lion attack while tending the fields, or a father who waved his son goodbye when he went to get water from the nearest source (which can be miles away) and never came back home won’t be comforted by these facts.

On the Indian subcontinent, we see a similar pattern. People in far off, rural regions of India and Nepal, much like the denizens of rural Tanzania, often have no choice but to venture out into the forests for various tasks. While you (and I am making an assumption here about most people who will read this, including myself) are heated up by a heater or able to get firewood from nearby, these people will have no choice but to enter the forests in order to be able to warm themselves and their families. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of tiger victims are those that are poor, rural and often require to enter the forests for their survival. Much like the Tanzanian lion victims, these people don’t have a choice. They have to venture out and risk their lives to provide for their families. And with tigers increasing in numbers but their range and available habitat decreasing, conflict in some regions are also increasing. Nepal in particular saw a rise in tigers. A great success in conservation, myself included (Despite my hyena-themed name, the tiger ranks very closely as a favourite animal as well) celebrated, but not without costs. Between 2007-2014, around 45 people were attacked by tigers in Chitwan National Park alone, the majority of which were fatal. And just like with the lions in Tanzania, most of these attacks were predatory attacks on poor rural people that were collecting essential resources at the wrong time and in the wrong place. (Living with tigers Panthera tigris: patterns, correlates, and contexts of human–tiger conflict in Chitwan National Park, Nepal | Oryx | Cambridge Core). The Indian subcontinent also has the unfortunate habit of treating the remaining family members of tiger victims, widows in particular, as cursed outcasts.

One megafaunal predator rises above any cat, bear, hyena or wolf though. And that is the crocodile. Perhaps the animal that kills the most people each year, crocodiles are a grave threat to those that have to live with them. Water is essential. People drink it, use it to irrigate their crops or fish in them to sustain themselves. Everyone needs water. And humans are certainly no exception. And when doing this, they put themselves in great danger. Crocodiles have no issues preying on people, regardless of whether there is other game available for them to eat. In 2006-2008, around 134 people were killed and 36 more were injured in various rural, frequently poor districts in Mozambique. This can amount to one person roughly every week. (PDF) Human-wildlife conflict in Mozambique: A national perspective, with emphasis on wildlife attacks on humans (researchgate.net).

Moving away from carnivores entirely, let’s take a look at an animal that people who live alongside perhaps despise the most, and one I know will upset many people here: elephants. Both in Africa and Asia, elephants are amongst the animals that people will complain about the most and retaliate against. And people that do so have generally good reasons for it. Elephants can be very destructive towards crops, and once again this often happens in areas where people can’t afford such losses. But elephants are also dangerous in their own right. In 2022, over 200 elephants were moved to Kasungu in Malawi, one of the most ambitious relocation projects up to date in my opinion. Mere days after the elephants arrived, they started killing people and trampling crops. As of 2024, seven people have died and numerous injuries have occurred. This project happened without the local’s consent, input or safety in mind, proving by the fact fences meant to keep the pachyderms away were not even finished when the animals arrived. (Death toll rises to seven in Malawi elephant relocation project linked to Prince Harry NGO | Global development | The Guardian). It's unfortunately not a different story in Asia. In a six year period in Hazibaragh, Indian elephants killed around 242 people. This was more than the number of victims from wolves, sloth bears, leopards, tigers and striped hyenas combined. (ResearchGate, page 26). Am I advocating for elephants to be shot? No, I’m not. But do I understand why someone who lives alongside them might? I certainly do.

It's clear that living alongside these animals, while certainly not impossible, is not without danger and challenge. And yet, I find people (especially from the West) tend to simplify, downplay or even downright dismiss or ignore these very real issues that have an impact on conservation. Frankly, I have noticed they will offer simplified solutions to complex problems they often don't understand, but will still judge and belittle people when they take matters into their own hands. It's very easy to judge a group of Indian villagers for killing crocodiles or tigers in retaliation for loss of livestock or their fellow men, when you aren’t feeling the effects of living alongside such formidable predators. It's not your food supply that was depleted, or your neighbour that was devoured by something after all. Many conservation and rewilding projects, both real and proposed, dismiss or downplay the human factor. At most there is talk of compensation (and in many countries, this frequently goes wrong due to mismanagement, corruption or other causes. And besides, if your brother was eaten by a tiger, how would you feel if the local forest guard just waved some money at you and called it a day? If you’re even offered such compensation in the first place, that is…), but it ends there. I am genuinely appalled by the lack of empathy many people have for these folk. They’re human like you and me, and many of them are attacked unprovoked while they go about their daily lives, trying to survive day to day. In that regard, I suppose we aren’t that different from non-human animals. But my point remains: we turn a blind eye when these people suffer, but when they retaliate and kill the animals that harm them, we suddenly are all too eager to point fingers, even if we were all too willing to ignore the circumstances that led to such tragedies in the first place.

Now I know someone will inevitably say: what about tourism? Indeed, many will say that ecotourism more than makes up any trouble the animals might give. Now, it is true that ecotourism is extremely important. It makes people appreciate wildlife, can finance conservation and allows local communities to profit from it too. But tourism isn’t a magical way to fix everything. In order to draw enough tourists to sustain a community, you need something to want them to come. Then you need infrastructures and facilities to transport and house them. And you need to convince them to spend money locally. All easier said than done. And, to put it bluntly, you don’t need every animal to draw tourists in. One or two less lions or elephants that were known troublemakers less aren’t going to suddenly stop the flow of tourism you might get. It's also not guaranteed that the money made from tourism goes to people who suffer the costs from having the animals around. So there is an argument to be made that tourism does not always balance out the issues local communities gain from them. And before anyone says it, no, this is not advocating for trophy hunting. Afterall, for that to work, you need a decent population of those animals around as well. So you’ll run into the same issues. Ecotourism and trophy hunting share more problems than people on either side like to admit. Both can be affected by local corruption or poor ethics (unstainable trophy hunting for example, or poor guiding ethics that harm the animals tourists wish to see, such as is the case with cheetahs in Kenya Cheetah-Paper.pdf (marapredatorconservation.org), or how rampant tourism affects wildebeest migrations Nature | Tourism is Killing Wildebeest | Season 41 | Episode 1 | Arkansas PBS (myarkansaspbs.org)), but that is an entirely different discussion. Besides, there’s plenty of examples of local communities being forced off their ancestral lands to make way for luxury safaris and trophy hunting alike. It's unfortunately all too common for people to be displaced, and conservation doesn’t always happen because of it. Attempts in 1977 to reintroduce Asiatic lions to Lake Parishan didn’t occur on the account that locals protested against it. And if we’re being perfectly honest with ourselves, can we blame them for not wanting a potentially large and dangerous predator around? That isn’t to say we shouldn’t support any reintroduction efforts at all, of course. I’d personally love for Asiatic lions to roam around Iran. But I’m also in a privileged position where I’m not being forced to deal with the consequences.

Adding insult to injury is that we often dehumanise these people, albeit perhaps not always intentionally. Attacks on people in Asia and Africa aren’t often covered in detail. At most, you get an article about a nameless fisherman that was killed by a crocodile, or three people that were trampled by an elephant. Their names are rarely mentioned. Meanwhile, Westerners that are attacked by animals make the news night after night. When wildlife researcher Gotz Neef was attacked by a lion in Botswana, this was a big deal. Numerous news articles were written, it appeared on the news across the world and it was frequently talked about in various circles. Neef lived to tell the tale but in 2018, the Kenyan Maasai Kirui was killed by a lion while guarding his cattle. If you have never heard of Kirui, don’t worry, almost no one has. Outside of Kenya, this fatality barely received attention and the international sources that do talk about the incident rarely mention the man by name. With that in mind, perhaps you might also understand why the reaction of people in Zimbabwe didn’t react with nearly as much outrage as those in the West did over Cecil the lion’s death. They have much bigger concerns and issues than a singular lion. And also keep in mind that, while the West freaks out over the extremely rare (and usually not fatal) cougar attack, some villages in Nepal have to deal with the same amount of tiger attacks in less than a year, that the entire US has with cougar accidents in a century. Yet one of these receives far more attention than the other.

But perhaps the biggest example of this would be Kaziranga National Park. Kaziranga is often hailed as a conservation success story, in part due its population of rhinos and other endangered animals. But this came at a cost: human rights were undeniably infringed. Numerous locals were displaced, are not well compensated for their losses and to make matters worse, they are often shot by the forest guards. I’m sure we all know the policy of Kaziranga rangers to shoot poachers on sight in order to protect the wildlife. But many of the people shot aren’t poachers. They’re just regular people trying to reach a different place, or gathering resources. Kaziranga’s policies push the local communities deeper into poverty, which ironically makes them turning to poaching all the more likely. Poaching is in many cases often just a result of poverty, afterall. The locals, even if they don’t engage in the practice themselves, will also often shelter and assist poachers, even something as small as simply not telling the authorities about them. They don’t trust the authorities. And if you were a poor woodsman on the fringes of Kaziranga fearing for a bullet in the head whenever you wanted to gather firewood, would you?(As Kaziranga National Park spreads, residents tear down their homes before they are evicted (scroll.in) and To the PM, From Kaziranga: An Open Letter Decrying Displacement, Human Rights Violations (thewire.in)

Now, if you’ve read this far down with an open mind and still haven’t downvoted this, you might think I don’t support conservation, rewilding, reintroductions or anything of the sort, and that I think potentially dangerous animals should be shot at even the slightest suspicion of causing harm. And you would be extremely wrong. I fully support such projects within reason, and I am a massive advocate for non-lethal control and giving animals the benefit of the doubt. I’ve made more than one person upset by defending wolves, and my actual job involves teaching people about appreciating wildlife and nature in general. Animals, and nature in general, are and always will be a huge part of my life. But I also can’t pretend that innocent people being killed or financially ruined for the sake of conservation isn’t a problem. Does that mean we should stop with conservation? Of course not! But the human aspect of conservation is something we should consider.

Local communities should have a say in how the wildlife around them is managed. A fantastic example would be the Snow Leopard Trust Foundation. Earlier I mentioned Mongolia, a region where snow leopard predation on livestock can cause massive harm to the locals. But rather than just wagging their fingers at the locals if they even think about shooting one of the cats, people of the SLTF instead involved the local communities in snow leopard conservation. The communities have benefited greatly from this. They have better protections against the snow leopard’s potential raids and the average income of families who have chosen to engage with the SLTF have increased by more than 40%! (Turning the Tide: Mongolian Conservationists Create a Future for Snow Leopards | by Snow Leopard Trust | Medium). This proves that local communities should have a say in what happens to their home. Whether they are an Indian woodcutter, an Indonesian fisherman or a Tanzanian farmer, all want to live and provide for their families and communities. They have a right to know and decide on how their lives are affected, rather than be ignored or judged. If you wouldn’t like the idea of a large, dangerous animal wrecking your backyard or devouring your friends, chances are they don’t like it either. Local communities, while not universally great at conservation of course, can do great things for the land they call home, such as when the Colville Tribes of Hellgate restored a land once wrecked by ranching. (How the Colville Tribes are restoring traditional lands and wildlife - High Country News (hcn.org))

I think these five pointers are worth remembering.

  1. Conservation is about more than just animals, or even ecosystems. It's also about people. People will always live alongside wildlife in various regions and how they do that will have massive impacts on both them and said wildlife.
  2. Listen to the right voices. Sure, its eye catching to listen to a random celeb bottle feeding a lion with some heartbreaking music in the background, an animal right’s activist who tweets about things they don’t understand from the comfort of their home or someone who has clear benefit (Fore example, asking someone at Colossal will support mammoth de-extinction. But you’ll find it's actually much more difficult to find a professional expert who supports the idea once you look past the affiliated scientists and big names) or anyone of that category. But who is the flashiest, isn’t always right. Shaun Ellis and his ludacris claims may make for an entertaining documentary, but if you want actual knowledge on wolves, someone like David Mech is a much better source. Be critical in who you listen to and when you do, it's best to listen to the Ron Tilsons and George Schallers of the world and not the Joe Exotic’s or Doc Antle’s.
  3. Don’t impose conservation. As I’ve hammered in by now, conservation is much more effective when local communities are involved. If you don’t keep their needs and concerns in mind, you’re going to be in for one nasty surprise after another, and those will have negative consequences on humans and animals alike. Not taking action when a tiger keeps picking off people in a village can eventually result in a mass killing in which many animals are slaughtered per retaliation, for example.
  4. Accept that the conservation of large, potentially dangerous megafaunal animals is very complex and isn’t easily solved. We can say stuff like “poachers are bad”, “technology will develop”, “tourism/trophy hunting will fix everything” and “people just need to be more careful”, but they are not real solutions. Not even close. They’re just excuses and hand waves, all while both people and animals pay the price. The sooner you accept that conservation of these animals and balancing their needs with those of their environment and the human denizens of the regions they occur in, the better. There’s no magical fix for all solutions. It requires hard work, great thinking, in depth teamwork and much, much more. If you genuinely think just introducing a species somewhere, implementing a rule or giving a donation is going to solve most if not all issues, you honestly don’t know enough about the subject you’re discussing.
  5. Have some empathy. Chances are, you’ll never have to witness your child’s face being torn apart by a hyena, hear your neighbour being mauled by a lion in his own home or come across the remains of your friend after he was dragged into the river by a crocodile. But for many people across the world, these are very real scenarios that can and have happened to them. Ignoring or downplaying such things may make us feel better, but it's also unethical and will create problems for the animals we wish to preserve down the line.

If we want people and wildlife to be able to coe-exist, it takes great effort and involving local communities to do this and minimise damage and conflict the best we can, for man and animal alike. And a good start would be to take issues people might have with rewilding seriously, rather than dismiss it. We might support such projects, but they’ll be the one’s experiencing the consequences, for better or worse. And I think it's in everyone’s best interest to make sure the good outweighs the bad.

Alright, my essay/rant is done.

EDIT: I am very pleasantly suprised most people responded positively to this thread! I'm glad there can be aknowledgement that conservation and rewilding of megafauna is complex with many nuanced shades of gray. I am severely dissapointed in some genuine racist stuff that was also posted in response, but I'm glad that is the minority.

124 Comments
2024/03/12
17:32 UTC

1,148

A Compilation Of Wildlife Encountering The U.S./Mexico Border Wall

77 Comments
2024/03/12
13:40 UTC

120

Fisher Sighted In Northeastern Ohio, They Were Extirpated From the Area For Nearly 200 Years.

7 Comments
2024/03/10
15:57 UTC

447

Wolf in Hudson Valley NY

23 Comments
2024/03/10
15:03 UTC

28

Alternative to Pleistocene Park

To my fellow group members would it be easier to do holocene rewilding in europe/eurasia than to do pleistocene rewilding.Secondly would a Holocene Park be easier to do than Pleistocene Park

18 Comments
2024/03/08
16:03 UTC

530

A bull elk wading in a river in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee. Photo by Alfred Lockwood.

17 Comments
2024/03/08
15:45 UTC

38

Habitat loss to utility-scale solar in the west

I’m a conservationist and hunter in the American west. Just in my local area, the amount of pronghorn antelope habitat that’s slated to be opened to applications for utility-scale solar development by the Bureau of Land Management on public lands is absolutely massive. The pronghorn populations are already struggling here.

I understand that climate change is accelerating our biodiversity crisis, but isn’t razing hundreds of thousands of acres of untouched habitat an issue you’d expect to get some more press?

15 Comments
2024/03/08
05:20 UTC

23

European fauna absent of the british isles

Great Britain and Ireland have been linked by a land-bridge to the rest of Europe for thousands of years during the ice age. The ecosystems and species found there are nearly identical to the rest of western Europe, even being considered as in the same subspecies as their continental counterparts, it's possible that some might have crossed the small sea way between continent/island regulary, such as bears.

Despite all this, many small species are absent of UK terrotory, i am talking about species such as hamster, beech marten, european mink.

For amphibian and reptile, such as the absence of snake in Ireland, this can be explained by temperature that were too low, as the only time where the island would be hospitable to these would be when it was hot enough for the ocean to rise and isolate the landbridge.

For alpines animals such as ibex, chamois or marmots, it can be explained by lack of appropriate terrain, as they do not do well in plains and lowlands, it also explain their absence of Scandinavian mountains or the Urals, that are too isolated to other European mountains range for such species to migrate there.

But for these few small mammals, i don't seem to find any real explanation for their absence. there's plenty of habitat for them, and other similar species such as badgers, pines marten, otter or water vole had no issue.

Even the rabbit and hare, that were only reintroduced on the island in Historic times. Should've been present and native.

Does someone have an explanation for that, or an opinion against or for their introduction/reintroduction in UK

11 Comments
2024/03/07
12:47 UTC

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