rewilding, is it really the answer?

rewilding, is it really the answer?

part 1;

one of the things that is a big event in nature conservation in my country is rewilding. what it is, is usually that an animal, it mostly has a history in animals more than plants, but it does happen without giving it that name, that is seen as having a place in a ecosystem and is lacking, or in to low of a number there, or even gone extinct is by giving it a lot of human hands in it to get to be part of that ecosystem again.

origin is often under discussion, like the european mink, the only trace of the animal is from a find in an archaeological excavation. so to call a species a native species needs a bit of imagination, or just promotion.

rewilding is usually restricted to species that sell well with the public. and often it is not even a true re-introduction of a species once living here, but gone extinct. a lot are even never living in free nature anywhere.
species like wild horses are by the latest scientific opinion forever lost in the world, there are a lot of rewilded or free roaming horses that once been domesticated but accidentally or on purpose been left behind.
others are just kept in a very hands off until needed way of animal husbandry. usually more robust animals but still domesticated.

we have now a bit of history to look a bit better into it. it started maybe long time ago with the white stork, the uk seems to start this year,. but early sixties that already happened in the netherlands, started with a breeding stock from a swiss zoo avian population, there still had been living fully wild storks, but their numbers declined quickly.

what all declining numbers in all species have in common is the need of a good story, not so much a proven story, or even a correct story, it ,must sell the project to the public, because it is usually paid by the public directly and indirectly with sponsorships of larger companies and of course taxes.

other first projects been mostly with reintroductions of large grazing animals, like the shetland pony, the norwegian fjord horse and the icelandic horses. at the stages they have been recruited to imitate a natural grazing pattern in a natural environment, that still was done with much more care and very silently. often accompanied by more common youngstock from cattle and dairy cows still owned by a farmer. where the shetland pony and the norwegian fjords been owned by a nature conservation organisation, the icelandic horses and the young cows had paid owners to let them grow up in a more natural environment.

in other places, just young horses and cows been herded in larger groups for each summer season, of a more divers set of breeds, and their owners paying for their horse or cow being there keeping the edible plants short.

after that is became a model that became much more commercial. one of the favorites was at first the polish konik horse, not a wild horse, not a breed in the classical way, but from a school of thoughts that things you can play god with nature. the konik horse is a mixed breed of multiple european domesticated horse breeds, mixed with some of the last offspring of a mixed domesticated polish mare population and a true wild european type of horse called the tarpan, the tarpan genes are mostly only in it by a spoken history. in reality a konik is just a look a like tarpan-ish horse.
i had the opportunity to speak with people in the more eastern parts of poland, and that started with a lot of confusion, because konik as we use it for a breed of horses, means at least phonetically simply small horse in poland. in 2004 there were still visible a high amount of horses around, many different breeds and even still a lot still used small horse type working horses.

there was a project that had koniks in bialowieza, there is a national park, the name is written in very different ways, there seems to be no agreement on what is truly the correct one. there is a bit of original unspoiled virgin, or primeval forest. but there is as is normal quite a large circle around that with many rules, but also a lot of what can be called attractions for visitors, so there is a park near a old estate with konik horses, european bison, or wisents, and many very old trees. there are also areas around that called english forestry, russian forestry named after the people who made commercial use of the tree stands there.

i found a local who could tell where the european bison was walking free in the last, he told. most simply tried to graze on farmlands so there was investment in high and more sturdy fences. they just liked the corn, grain and grass over the more natural grub.
we did found a small herd, but they are very shy. still they are part of rewilding projects too, great chance we met their grandfather in his small enclosure in ‘het amsterdamse bos’, a recreational and sports parkland in a more traditional way to experience some green stuff.
there was made use of some caught russian bisons to fresh up the genes.

you could not visit the true primeval forests on your own, you had to buy a ticket and walk in large groups over a pathway and back. i never liked that so we mostly stayed in the old forestry around it. met with great people a bit shy, most older people still spoke sound enough german, to have great conversations about the area and its history.

we travelled the complete eastern border of poland, and as always i did put a foot under the red and with pole that told this is the border, still sovjet union at that time. but it was not really all that impressive, most was a small river and the rest marshland or woods. but still not so much tourists, so great to sport a lot of original wild life. meat a lot of nice people. hear their stories. all curious minds need for a few weeks.

but it was still cultural grounds everywhere, no herds of bison roaming large open areas, they are by tradition wood animals, no packs of wolves. lots of birds, lots of wild european beavers too. all horses i have seen had simply owners and been very well cared for as a given.

and the modern breed of koniks do simply look a lot like the polish ponies my family imported as riding pony candidates in the seventies, polish hits they been called, and the larger ones polish double hits. many been from other russian areas, and we sold them as being welsh or welsh crosses, because that breed had no brand on markings and was divers enough to cover for their looks.

and there is still selection on coat colour in the koniks.

the other horse breed that is used in the netherlands in nature conservation is the exmoor pony, there are opinions the exmoor has the most gentical upmake to be called of full wild origins, but there is no full consensus on that.

for the cows there was a start with mostly the scottish highlander cows, a bit of a strange choice, because in scotland they are used to fields that could have quite a lot of moisture, often on peat soils too, and over here they are mainly used on high sandy soils in woods.
there also was a old dutch breed used that of burned red cow, brandrood rund in dutch, also galloways. later on also spanish breeds with an origin in bull fighting breeds, and heck cattle, that is a remake of the original wild cattle of europe, called aurochs in english,
the spanish breeds are often named the spanish aurochs.

and from later on we have seen european bison=wisent, but water buffalo too.

still even if there are maybe still some genes left of their wild ancestors, it are not wild animals.

and in sheep it is a bit different, only soay sheep are used in small scale projects, sheep are usually still used for grazing maintenance in herder flocks with an owner. not so much left on their own.

deer are used too, red deer is a native species, but there is a larger flock imported from scotland for the hunger games project in the oostvaardersplassen, once it was the bottom of the south see in the netherlands.

and all these animals are never meant to be rewilded animals, but they just also for grazing management. the konik and the cattle and cow breeds are more left to free grazing, they are there mostly for maintenance, so not a true rewilding project at all.

it sells so much easier with a great story of the great wild outdoors, something that always has started from the wrong idea of course, when it was called nature conservation it was explained as keeping things as nature decided. only that changed into a world of opposites, we ended up with nature we liked over nature we did and do not like.

the problem with nature itself is that is is not so much of keeping things as they are, every time something changes, even a lit bit, there will be a reaction. and humans have a problem with that, we do not like changes.

in a country as the netherlands that maybe only have bits of the north sea that could be called virgin nature, we mostly have nature following in our footsteps, or that of our ancestors. nature likes to just use all the spaces you left open for it, it does not ask, it simply does. so the reality of it all is that we are left with natural elements in just a lot of old and new cultural habits.

the change is very big if you put out a little quiz with pictures of a bit of farmland, like a grazed field by dairy cattle, a stand of forestry trees and a bit of dutch heathland, most will call it nature, it is not nature, at best a cultural kept piece of land that has a acceptance of an amount of natural elements.

farming is grown like every other kind of work grown into an industry, only it has in most forms no walls or roofs to keep it out of our eyesight. most of the natural elements that are still there are just tolerated, it can be of profit, because there are projects that pay for specific natural elements in species of birds and plant life.

but it is not nature or the great wild and green outdoors. you are free to look at it from the road, often there can be even walking possibilities, and we are free to offer an opinion on the bad farmers, the strange thing is you never hear that same bad mouthing about rewilded animals or the ones kept to just keep grass low. if you let them do year after year take part in the hunger games you still get less opinionated responses as a common farmer.

and you never hear about the industries that did grown in the same time, and keep their activities behind fences, walls and under a roof.

so now it ends up in a phase where farmers will be bought out, and new nature will be made.
cow for cow, horse for horse, sheep for sheep only now no longer farmed, but rewilded of course.

many rewilding projects been kept more silent, like the one that breeds european hamsters, to be set loose on a grainfield in south and east parts of the country, nature reserve grain fields of course.

beaver got more attention, but already is so successful it starts to become a plague again, so once caught around the river elbe in germany, they now do not restrict themselves to nature reserves, and the do not discriminate in where they want to live and what they put their teeth too.

the eurasian otter is not really in the same momentum as the beaver, it does not goes well with traffic, but still the first are found sleeping on a coach.

we also have a lot that was accidentally or on purpose was rewilded without being ever part of the native species. like many gooses, yes, most of them in early times been marginal part of the native species, usually mostly during migration. or very rare passing through, but many are simply the offspring of birds kept in waterfowl collections, or as hunting birds to get their own kind in shooting range. the last habit was ended by law and many of the bird been set free, only they stayed, often cross breed with each other or just stay around year round.

the egyptian goose is not a true goose, a bit in between ducks and goose, but escaped late in the sixties from waterfowl collection in the dunes just up from amsterdam, and they are everywhere, still not recognised as becoming native enough, so by law an exotic species.

there is also the rose ringed parakeet, also an escape but every few years it sees fit to explode in offspring and cover more ground.

much older escapes, but often still ongoing are rabbit and pheasant both started from roman times, homing pigeons are forever.
european fallow dear also started through the romans but still ongoing from escapes up to today.

all kinds of fish, many species of turtles, are usually not there in large numbers. still many keep their own well.

many of these species been once pets or animals we made use of. their rewilding and success they reached on their own.
wild birds are like dogs often temporarily a hype to have like the snow owls during the days of harry potter. flamingo’s, because they gave a sunny impression in a pond in a garden.

but it does not matter much if we choose a specific kind to set at least in a half wild state, or a lost pet. the pet industry will find new favorites to breed and sell. who cares what the effect are on the natural elements that are still native.

but the rewilding way is also an industry, even when the wild comes on its own accord, like the wolf did, well on its own, it needed a lot of rules and regulations to made it hands off to gave it the success in offspring to walk mainland europe again. there are stories of assisted reentries of course, and cross breeds with domestic dogs.

beers we do not have yet, but would work under the same harsh rules of protection, and yes they are assisted in other parts of europe.

the only species that gives little to no known problems are the reintroduced eurasian sea eagle. done in other countries but being around for years and breading again.

many more species are assisted in silence, like a native snake species called barred grass snake. not a official project but very success full.

we also have a lot of american bullfrogs, when they get to big in a garden pond they often been released to the great outdoors.

and there are many more species who had the need of a human hand to get out and about.

it always happened in all times, but it is only at the end of the 20th century rewilding, or the older name reintroductions became an investment. it is not more or less successful than the amateur approach, they do put some extra effort into it, mostly on paper. you have to study on it at the university, write a nice paper on it and you are the big expert. even that happened accidental, because there seems to live the wrong idea, if you have studied and end up with a master in biology, you have to know all there is about living things, dead things too. so even if you have ended up with a master because you studied the behaviour of a brown rat, you know all of the behaviour of wolves too.

and all these people who have such masters in biology, and more modern even ecology, or animal sciences have to work somewhere, so they often end up in selling rewilding as the best thing on earth. or you can work in commenting on when it does not end well.

there are multiple companies that even give tax financed governments or nature conservation organisations the option of leasing animals for a nice feel good project.

i remember in one of the first konik release areas, the guide telling about how wild these horses are, and i have a bit of a very bad habit, i see such things as a dare. i had listened to a story that because of how shy and wild their behaviour was, there would not be a problem with the public. well as his words had been worth anything, he would not mind if i took him up to showing that he was wrong. i only needed 3 minutes to get the lead stallion next to me, being touched and scratched, and i could lean over his back. i would not bring that further, because i could have easily jumped on his back.

it took one summer week and the horses walked in between the public, opening satchels and things to find food.
it is so simply you cannot undo domestication so easily, so looking wild, is simply not the same as wild. i would never approach an free living animal without such settings, but the arrogance and pretenses in that field is so dedicated stupid, it is dangerous at best and harmful to these animals for sure.

i have been many times over part of tryout groups around such rewilded animals, and i am never impressed by the stories told around them, there is no real and honest looking from the animal and the risks that are there when they mingle with the public or in other settings.
it has a do not talk about the bad sides approach.

it is just sold with an overly pretense of feel good, as if we humans have any idea what nature want, needs or does. but we do think we know that.
there is a certain amount you can understand, make use of hope for, but it cannot ever be taken for granted.

and when it does go wrong the experts are not available any longer, they are never the ones who pay the bill, or have to do the work to right things again.

and the most sad is the massive amount of animals that are the victim of all of this. the excuses that are sold to talk it straight, it simply cannot ever be talked right. now it is growing into a business and it has to make money this can only become worse. much worse.
nature itself will always survive, maybe not in the form in fashion, or in the way we ourselves like it best.

but can we please stop with pretenses, and not stop a report with how wonderful well it will end, because too often it simply does not end well. and that part is usually not in such reports, talks and presentations.

all these animals and the new making use and abuse of them have all their own story to tell.

So again humans think they know better, that they have all the answers.  Well, consider this, if you left nature alone to do what it does best, stop interfering, there wouldn't be any problems to resolve other than acceptance that nature knows best.  It's doubtful if the majority of humans that roam the planet even understand biodiversity.

Rather than going to school to learn how to be something you are not or being fed useless trendy information, maybe it would be more advantageous to teach about nature and all it's wonders.  Nature is the only provider of life on earth, no matter what the species - including human beings!

Is 'rewilding' even a real acceptable word or just another human invention to cover a problem they've created in the first place.  Humans take it upon themselves to meddle with natural resources and then wonder why it all goes belly-up, they then get to fiddle again with solutions that only create further problems for the future.  Will they ever learn - why do they think themselves superior to all other forms of nature's bounty?

In the wild a species, no matter what that species, becomes sick and either recovers through nature or it dies.  Humans however think it right to interfere with that natural process by prolonging life that should otherwise have died naturally.  

Just think how much public money is squandered by the UK's National Health Service keeping people, just one person, alive at great expense.  Machines to prolong life, machines to aid mobility, machines to support the terminally ill and will thus die a miserable death.  Medicines to 'cure' maladies or to again prolong life only to create other illnesses that require further medical intervention - what sort of life is that?  Do the medics tell you how fortunate you are to be alive when they've just chopped off your limbs rendering you to a future of dependency and lifelong medical intervention?

Is it really all about money?

Even animals are nurtured to keep the species from extinction but isn't that a decision for natural resources to take, not human beings?  Lord 'Arry, if left to humans the dinosaur would still be stomping around terrorizing everything and everyone in it's path, think then how humans would stand against such giant aggressors.  

And now the 'experts' are considering a genetically modified cow that doesn't fart.  A beast of a thing resembling a feminine tennis player of more recent years.  The cow fart has been on this planet far longer than the free thinkers of modern times, never been a conspicuous problem before so why now have the 'experts' decided the common cow is causing environmental catastrophe - including climatic change.  Has it never occurred to the 'expert' that the environment is going through a natural process, the same as it's been doing long before the coming of humans.

There is reason for everything in nature's cycle - humans butt out!

It might not be for another million years but there will come a time when nature thinks the humanoid to be superfluous to requirements - if they don't destroy themselves beforehand.

o, they are already underway with mammoths first, that dinosaur will follow of course.

so maybe this time the dragon does eat the saints.

rewilding is not a word it is an industry, a man made one, it needs movies, flyers, large information bulletin boards outside, websites and an app for the ones who prefer not to look through their own eyes. or would no longer dare to go outside.

or in better wording a pretty stupid habit humans always had, but usually by humans who cannot think beyond a few human years.

the water buffalo was a small group that was set loose in the fully man made national park the biesbosch, no longer under the influence of the sea, it was once mostly use for large scale harvesting willows and some agriculture, agriculture won it over the use of willow, so the agriculture got kicked out, and now it has to rewild again, not as it was as a salty marsh land, usually depending on the ti,me of year how much the sea got in, on other times it was a river delta, but the dutch had a problem with the sea, so we handled that efficiently, so the complete area became sweet water fed, and most of it agriculture with a lot of crops.

a smaller area was still willows and a bit of reed marshes, some fields for grazing with dairy, cattle and sheep.

but we had a need to keep sweet water somewhere where it was not a big problem, so it is actually as always a double purpose area now, keeping sweet water in when the sea level is too high to remove it to the sea, and we call it simply nature now.

the animals who lived there for many years between all of that had too go, we need animals who belong there in a fake rewilded marshy area. so besides some konik horses, the water buffalo, what also is not a wild animal, just a domesticated one.

but just after they been brought out there, the wetter got a bit bad, so the complete group looked over some water took a swim and put themselves a bit further in a stable, the farmer no idea what happened simply decided to feed them some hay, and they had to be brought back again. they forgot to tell the water buffalo they had been so called not kept animal and had to live in the wild dutch jungle. they still do.

the use of domesticated horses is also because the result of grazing is looking better than using machines, but it is also cheaper, and their owners usually have even to pay for doing the work. but at least they have owners, they are still keep an eye on them.

but the best example of rewilding is claimed to be happening in the oostvaarders plassen, an area that was actually to become industry and housing, but it was kept reed marsh and wood marsh for many years, so a lot of animals, mostly birds liked it very much, so it had to become a nature reserve.

and to keep it open, it can not happen the reed marshes naturally would grow into wood marshes. so there have been ordered some konik horses, they simply came haltered with a lorry from poland. and a few heck cattle, i met these the first years on a cattle field at the border of the project, a large area was already cultivated for fields and crops, so that is rewilding again.

there had been bought a large load of red deer from scotland.

and all 3 species multiplied happily and with great effort, the area of the now national park grow over the years, but when that stopped, it was simply nature, at least within the fences to keep all in, so many years each autumn the hunger games started.
until a few years ago just people, decided to stop it, with effort hay was gathered and brought to the animals. politics had quite some time needed. it still happens, but nowadays they can simply shoot what shows it would not make it.
so not really sold, but it seems we have to be proud of the national park called the hunger games.

completely useless, the deers can be shot and the meat sold, the cattle too, but then it was found out that a most likely natural deposit of dioxines was much to high in the so called wilderness meat. many koniks are simply rehomed to other eurasian rewilding projects.

Rewilding ....