So I think this is the first-ever Shifting Baselines survey. I hope you're keen, and I hope you will forward the survey to friends and colleagues far and wide.
Here's a bit of background.
In 2005, my colleagues and I published a paper proposing that we should consider reintroducing large animals - megafauna - back to North America. Large animals around today that could potentially act as analogs to the animals that were present in North America some 10,000 years ago. North America once had multiple species of giant tortoises, horses, camels, and - brace yourself - elephants and lions. Closely related species to those bygone North America megafuana are still around today. European horses are closely related to the North American horses 10,000 years ago, and African lions are the same species as the lion that was once present in North America.
We published the original 2-page paper in the journal Nature (here's a copy if you're interested). The proposal was met with gasps and groans. Many were excited about the proactive idea, while others were furious - calling it the dumbest idea they have heard since Jurassic Park. In 2006, we published a longer paper in the journal The American Naturalist - outlining the proposal in detail (here's a copy if you're interested). More recently, I also published an article in Scientific American outlining the idea. Not surprisingly, this is a hot debate: people tend to love it or hate it.
To be clear, we did not propose to back up a vanload of cheetah into your neighborhood and open the doors. Rather, we proposed a staged, scientific approach. Start small with experiments, learn from those scientific experiments, and then move ahead if warranted (if the costs are deemed to outweigh the benefits). We outlined a series of justifications from an ecological, evolutionary, economic, and esthetic perspective that Pleistocene Rewilidng should be considered. Increasing evidence suggests that large animals play disproportionately important roles in ecosystems in terms of maintaing biodiversity and generating biodiversity over the long haul. It follows that megafauna did the same in North America before going extinct, at least in part due to humans. We also proposed using captive animals already present in the United States (as opposed to animals in Africa or Asia).
We also outlined a series of case studies starting with the somewhat benign to the controversial: Bolson tortoises, horses, camels, elephants, lions. The now to the 100-year vision.
Between 2005 and now, a slew of folks have voiced thier opinion on the idea - from academics to The New York Times to Good Morning America to Lou Dobbs. Now, I am hoping ScienceBlogs readers will weigh in.
The survey is six short questions. The more opinions the better. I will summarize the results here on Shifting Baselines. So spread the word.
Click here to take the Megafauna Challenge.
One comment further to my completed survey, picking up on Pleistocene Park: Does re-wilding North America
represent sound conservation for the 21st century?.
I find this rationale to be weak. If I felt responsible to try to address overexploitation, there are more than enough current continuing examples; I don't need to invent what strikes me as an essentially romantic vision of herds of Pleistocene megafauna sweeping majestically across the plains ...
Since these suggestions all concern North America you might want to tell if you are only interested in answer from people living there or if Europeans are welcome to answer too. There are similar ideas for reintroduction of megafauna into Europe. We once had lions too.
I would like to know where all of the habitat to support these animals would come from, we are rapidly crowding out the wild animals already here. I don't think the resources exist to support healthy populations of large, introduced mammals. Also consider parasites, cascade effects on ecosystems from putting new predators/massive herbivores into a community...etc etc.
Polls such as there are very interesting and usefull tools by which the essential element of public awareness and understanding can be guaged.
As for the emotional appeal. That is perfectly fine with me in so far as it doesn't ignore the ecological reality. Our emotions are evolved instincts that arose in concert with our exposure to wild landscapes and many of the ills of modern society I feel could be in part due to our distance from and denial of what what E.O.Wilson has dubbed "biophilia". It is NOT in my opinion just a triviality.
Anne Marie's question as to where the wild lands would be found and that wild animals are being crowded out is a good one and one that is widely held but I think it is largely a misperception based on the magnifiying power of the media and our natural human perceptions.
In fact the west is still largely un-inhabited once one leaves the corridors through which we travel. Of course there are lots of human impacts...ranching, mining and other resource impacting activities, but small towns are dissappearing, mechanization requires fewer workers who at one time lived in the west in communities now all but abandoned (but taking up space).
Also, better habitat results when animals such as large keystone megafauna create the kind of niches which many now endangered species evolved to exploit. An example would be the elephants which actually create better habitat, spread fertile product and dig water holes that allow the other dependent species to spread out and become more stable and less threatened by changes.
I would also point out that one of the major forces of resistance to re-wilding is the modern ranching industry whose livelihood is dependent on subsidized grazing on public lands. Rather than see them cast as foes, I would take a tip from the cooperative nature of all sustaining complexes of organisms. The ranchers bring enormous amount of experience to land use. They use land for cattle because it pays them for doing what they love to do (being out on the land) but they should be incorporated and rewarded for their knowledge and skills in helping to manage and interpret the rewilding projects that will for the long need human involvement if it's going to work...just as with national parks, if no one visit, no one will support 'em...and most of the cowboys I know would love to be paid well, with benefits and out on the land they love, as park rangers and wild animal handlers if they could.
But I want glyptodonts :-(
Speaking of "dumb", I can't believe somebody actually appealed to a Michael Crichton novel as an example to pay attention to when considering policy. This could be a great precedent, and if I liked Michael Crichton novels enough to read them, I could probably do something funny with the Andromeda Strain or one of his medical cautionary tales as reasons not to conduct space exploration or build hospitals.
As it is, I'll just point to the Book of Genesis as a reason why building skyscrapers is never going to turn out well.
I'm broadly in favour as my survey response indicates. the obvious starting point seems to be getting a truckload of contiguous land from someone somewhere useful (Ted Turner perhaps) and getting started with a fenced area. Also bolson's tortoises should be bred up and released wherever suitable habitat remains because, frankly pleistocene rewilding or no, big tortoises are awesome.
As I said in a comment on the survey (which I supported), until much more is done to restrain/restrict the use of guns in the US, you haven't got a chance in succeeding with this.
While I'm not against the idea of re-wilding in principle, my perception of available habitat echoes Anne-Marie's, as opposed to Dougs. I live in the American west, well over 100 miles from the nearest interstate highway, and I'm afraid any perceptions people from the coasts have about population patterns here are badly skewed. While some of the smallest towns are indeed passing into oblivion, the people from these towns are not generally heading for the coasts -- they are heading for somewhat larger towns in the same area. I also find the idea that ranchers could be persuaded to support re-wilding particularly fanciful. Just this last fall, the government reintroduced black-footed ferrets to the local national park, and the outcry from the ranchers was something to behold -- and these were animals that were actually beneficial in terms of pest control. Despite this, several ranchers I know have vowed to shoot any and all ferrets on sight. The idea that one could reintroduce, say lions, without an armed uprising is almost laughable. While I like the people here a good deal, the popular view out here is that nature is the enemy. No monetary incentive would ever convince these people to leave and let their land be over-run by the wildlife they pride themselves (however foolishly) on having vanquished.
I am curious about the effect of how your survey questions are worded. They are certainly not neutral. Indeed, they are largely worded as 'Look how similar this currently extant organism is to something that went extinct long ago. Should we reintroduce it?' What do you think would happen if, instead, it was worded as 'America used to have a species of clade X which went extinct. There are other members of said clade alive today, but they differ in the following ways... Similarly, species in America have changed in their absence in these other ways... Should we introduce these different species from clade X to America?' Or even take that structure, but include similarities for balance. I think that would be a far more fair assessment rather than the current survey.
I have a number of concerns about this project as well, especially involving the procedures for the practically inevitable escape of some animals from enclosures.
Indeed, it's the assurance that the animals will remain within enclosed areas that seems to undercut the project a bit. If the elephants, camels, lions, etc. all remain within fenced-in areas, it seems that the project would simply be creating a large zoo or safari park rather than actually "re-wilding" North America.
I'm also dubious about the benefits of bringing alien species to the continent, especially when approached from a top-down, megafaunal perspective. I've heard little said about how plant, insect, and even disease ecologies have changed over the past 13,000 years, and the focus seems to be on the largest species with little consideration for species that make up a larger amount of the biomass despite their small size.
Likewise, trying to restore what North America was like 13,000 years ago seems just as arbitrary as trying to restore what it was like around 1492. The project seems to be very much tied to the idea that overkill was the main driver for extinction, something that is still a hypothesis and needs further research.
Finally, if the project is viewed as an "ark" for endangered species I think it is fundamentally flawed. Saving individual animals that make up a species will only end up "taming" the species or confining it to zoos and parks. If we're serious about the conservation of elephants, big cats, etc. we need to preserve the natural habitats in which the animals live, not simply transplant individuals. Many animals in North America like wolves, cougars, jaguars, black-footed ferret, pronghorn, bison, and others are suffering due to a lack of corridors and an idea that saving a species means saving individuals while ignoring habitat.
Introduce in order to what purpose?
Large ,-in the northern of the US-, indigenous species, such as bears and alligators are considered a nuisance in particular states.. So let us introduce even bigger foreign ones?! Even if there wasn't such a territorial conflict between human society and animal breeding ground, there could still be a lot of damage done to the existing ecosystems by just introducing some persona non grata.
North America changed drastically at the end of the Pleistocene. Whether human-driven or not, many species went extinct. It is currently impossible to return the continent to the state that it was in before human settlement, and will remain so until either reverse extinction (the Jurassic Park idea) or time travel are made realistic options. I for one would love to have mammoths roaming the continent, but I transplanting elephants from Africa or Asia and pretending that they are mammoths is just that: pretending. Even animals of the same species undoubtedly had local adaptations, and should not simply be substituted by their foreign conspecifics without lots of research assuring that they are in fact equivalent, or nearly so.
North America changed further, starting with the European Age of Exploration. The number of species that has gone extinct on the continent since 1492 is embarrassingly large. They cannot be replaced either without measures similarly fantastic to those required for a proper restoration of the late Pleistocene. (Given the option, I believe that a pre-European Holocene recreation is both more realistic and more achievable goal than a pre-Holocene.) However, unlike the late-Pleistocene extinction, which was followed by a long and relatively stable period where humans and the remaining fauna coexisted, the mass extinction that began in 1492 continues to this day. Stopping that should be our primary conservational goal, a more realistic one than setting up a pretend version of the Pleistocene in every way.
That having been said, I would love to see reverse extinction work...!
Depending, of course, on which of the 25-upwards species concepts out there you happen to pick.
Also, I want mastodonts and ground sloths and teratorns...
Pardon my being glib, but the bulk of the resistance to rewilding efforts as described by Josh here can be summarized by the asking the following question; "Is there any problem so small we can't seem to present it as an insurmountable obstacle?"
Americans with guns might shoot these animals? Well, we can't do anything about that, can we?
Ranchers on public lands for which they pay relatively little rent and do at best a mediocre job at managing it, don't like the idea so we can't even try on the land that's so degraded that even the ranchers will barely use it or make them stop even by offering them better jobs?
Even though small communities are disappearing the people are just moving to bigger cities so we shouldn't try to depopulate the entire west...did someone suggest that?
What if some insect species bug which might have adapted since the end of the ice age would either be imperilled or worse, start reproducing wildly and turn into a plague? Or both simultaneously.
What if humans didn't actually kill all the megafauna off? Wouldn't we be upsetting the natural balance that's already out there? Natural balance that is out there? Collapased water tables due to human impacts I guess is some sort of natural balance?
Holy cow!
I'm with you Josh, and nobody said it would be easy, but who'd a thought the uphill climb would be so steep so soon?
Cheers...oh, and happy solstice!
Also, better habitat results when animals such as large keystone megafauna create the kind of niches which many now endangered species evolved to exploit. An example would be the elephants which actually create better habitat, spread fertile product and dig water holes that allow the other dependent species to spread out and become more stable and less threatened by changes.
Stopping that should be our primary conservational goal, a more realistic one than setting up a pretend version of the Pleistocene in every way.