I am generally unkeen to publish anonymous pieces here, simply because people must take responsibility for their views, but I am persuaded in this case that it is appropriate. I don’t know who the author is but I would guess a male working in either a statutory or a voluntary conservation organisation, But that’s a guess.
I found it a very stimulating read and I agree with lots of it but not all of it.
At 4,000 words it’s long, but well worth the read, in my view.
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Reintroductions: what are we trying to achieve?
In recent months and years we have seen a seemingly endless stream of stories about the return or future restoration of long lost wildlife via reintroductions – brilliant news, surely? Journey beyond the headlines into comment sections and social media however and you may be left bemused. So-called conservationists – the people who are supposed to care most for our wildlife – reacting with concern, critique and not even a hint of celebration. Isn’t that counterintuitive?
I’m one of the people who isn’t jumping for joy at these developments and I want to explain myself. I honestly wish I could be excited by the sight of storks and exotic butterflies flying free in English skies – to believe that this is progress – but I can’t. While this attitude may be hard to understand, I hope to at least show that there are genuine reasons behind it: it’s not just negativity for the sake of it, nor fear of change or lack of vision.
I’m worried, as we all are, about the state of biodiversity in Britain and globally, but I don’t believe that scattershot release of lost species can help us right now. Essentially it feels as though we have our priorities confused – trying to put the cherries on top of a ruined cake. We currently use wild-harvested marine fish, food of globally threatened seabirds, to feed captive populations of questionably native birds with healthy world populations ready for their release – and we call it rewilding. But while it feels illogical to me, I don’t think that in itself is a problem. Priorities are personal things, and I doubt even the most eco-conscious among us base all day-to-day decisions on maximising benefit to biodiversity – I don’t feed the birds in my garden for conservation, but simply because I like watching them.
Where I believe there is a problem though is in the way reintroductions are currently being packaged – their promotion above all else as the path to ecological recovery and the shutdown of criticism as anti-progress. Maybe reintroductions will deliver all that’s promised of them. Perhaps we’ll look back on this as a fuss about nothing while we revel in the recovery of native wildlife. But I think there’s strong reason to be sceptical, and if we are being sold a placebo as the cure for ecological collapse, conservation and public perception of it are on dangerous footing.
These thoughts on common arguments for reintroductions are not intended to change the priorities of people involved in current projects, but they might show why others have different priorities. Mostly, I hope to demonstrate to those who follow the debate that it’s not as clear cut as ‘reintroduction = good’ and that there’s nothing wrong with scrutiny when dealing with a subject so nuanced. Flagging concerns and asking questions isn’t nitpicking or anti-conservation, but essential if we are to avoid actions we might later come to regret.
An impoverished fauna
I’ll start with why some people don’t feel that burning need to introduce a species purely because it lived here in the past – our short but significant existence as an island. From an evolutionary perspective this should be cause for excitement, although with its handful of ‘subtle’ endemics it’s fair to say Britain is hardly the Galapagos. Equally the Galapagos Islands didn’t emerge from the ocean furnished with unique wildlife; if the first human settlers had taken a few million years longer to reach Britain, perhaps they would have discovered their own wonderful hotbed of endemism. As it is our island is just over 6,000 years old – barely a blip in evolutionary terms – and so we find ourselves looking longingly across the Channel at the species we’ve ‘missed out’ on. A desire to act on this is understandable but irrational, reflecting a human inability to think at the timescales nature works to, and the same belief in knowing better than nature that drove colonial efforts to ‘improve’ the faunas of North America, Australia and New Zealand. The fact that European bison never made it across the land bridge is not a problem that needs fixing, but a quirk of history. It’s no tragedy that our woodlands are missing functions that only a bison can perform, it simply means they’re set on a different evolutionary path. Our lists of amphibians and butterflies may pale in comparison to those of our continental neighbours, but it’s not something to fret over. Some of these species never had the chance to reach Britain, others might’ve been lost long ago because of changing climate, small founding populations, or chance events. Their absence is no cruel twist, but a totally natural product of our island status: it would be remarkable if there wasn’t a difference in diversity either side of the Channel. Counterintuitive though it may seem impoverishment adds to diversity at a global level. If hypothetically our ponds were the only ones in Europe inhabited by the common frog alone, then we have a unique system. The frogs here, free from competitors, can expand to occupy niches they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, while all other pond-dwelling species – invertebrates, algae, plants etc – can respond in unknown and unmeasurable ways and find a different set of opportunities (or barriers) to their European counterparts living alongside more diverse communities of amphibians. In this situation, if we choose to homogenise our ponds with those on the mainland we add to our own species list at the expense of global ecosystem diversity.
Why is this relevant to reintroductions? It’s absolutely right that we try to undo damage we have definitely caused: wolves, for example, were hunted to extinction and I hope one day we make amends for that. Similarly, if the frog scenario above arose purely from human action (i.e. we had wiped out all other species of amphibian) then the point about wider diversity shouldn’t apply and we have a duty to restore. But what if this condition is a natural consequence of our isolation from the mainland? Our island status comes into play for those ‘lost’ species that occupy a grey area: reptiles, amphibians and eagle owl among others, for which the scant fossil evidence places their time here thousands of years in the past. When considering whether we need to bring these species back, we should ask whether we can be certain that humans were responsible for their disappearance. Whether our early ancestors would have succeeded in eliminating them before going on to coexist for centuries or millennia with large carnivores (e.g. wolf, extinct ~300ya) or easily hunted and habitat sensitive birds (e.g. crane, extinct ~400ya before its more recent return). Whether there’s anywhere else in Europe where the arrival of humans extinguished such innocuous species while brown bears (extinct ~1,000ya) were left to live on. If there aren’t convincing answers to these questions, we have to accept that absence could just as easily be a by-product of our separation from Europe. It then becomes a judgement call – benefit of the doubt versus precautionary principle. If you’re satisfied that humans were responsible, introduction is restoration. If you believe these were natural losses, however, introduction is just another example of humans releasing some animals somewhere they shouldn’t exist because they want them there, like the European settlers who decided to ‘fix’ the lack of starlings in the Americas. This is why for some people the idea of releasing a species based on limited fossil evidence and speculation feels so strongly unsettling.
We need to do something
Accepting (to an extent) our impoverished fauna relies on the precautionary principle, but can we justify caution in our current situation? Concerns over reintroduction projects are often deflected on the basis that at least they ‘do something’ for the biodiversity crisis/sixth mass extinction. However, this seems to make the error of conflating global-scale problems with what are, to be blunt, lesser challenges we face in the UK. Whatever positive impact reintroductions can have there’s nothing dismissive in saying the biodiversity crisis doesn’t hinge on whether or not there are extra species in the British countryside.
This isn’t just semantics. Biodiversity is measurable and so if we want to consider these things in global terms we can make a good estimate of how any particular action might contribute. While the biodiversity crisis is visible at all scales, right down to the level of our own garden or local patch, when we’re talking mass extinction the single important measure is global species diversity. Take the example of the white stork, a relatively abundant species with an expanding European population. The addition of storks to the list of British breeding birds makes a difference of zero to global species diversity, as would their loss if reintroduction failed. If the three British sites for the endemic Cornish path-moss were concreted over, that would mean a loss of one from the global list. Efforts to protect remaining forest fragments in Madagascar, the Philippines and Indonesia will determine whether or not we have to permanently scratch off thousands of species from the global tally.
Of the vertebrates featured in existing projects or proposals, only one (great bustard) is considered threatened on the IUCN Red List, while another three are Near Threatened (Dalmatian pelican, European pond turtle, and red kite in its European range). All others are ‘Least Concern’, which heartless as it sounds means just that; we can consider them the lowest priorities in global terms. These species might have suffered declines in numbers or distribution and that does need to be dealt with, but right now there are thousands of others facing the real and imminent threat of extinction – the fate of the latter will decide the outcome of the biodiversity crisis.
This isn’t intended to diminish the value of conservation at home, but perspective is important. There are reasons for UK-based reintroductions, but putting a dent in mass extinction is very unlikely to be one of them or at least there will be many more efficient ways of making a difference. If the biodiversity crisis is the top focus for domestic conservation efforts, we could drop all plans involving the captive breeding of abundant and unthreatened species and focus on conserving those for which our contribution genuinely is significant – our handful of endemic species and subspecies, the numerous groups (e.g. seabirds) for which we hold internationally important populations, and habitats such as Atlantic oakwoods which are unique to Britain (if these sound suspiciously like the priorities of ‘status quo’ conservation, it’s not a coincidence). We don’t only do these things because in reality we have other priorities, but these examples should highlight that if we were to take the biodiversity crisis defence at face value it would not lead us to any one of the species currently touted for reintroduction.
If tackling mass extinction is to be brought into the debate, it raises further questions too. It’s not hard to imagine ways in which reintroduction projects could be damaging in global terms: what if a thriving domestic eco-tourism industry means less income for conservation work in biodiversity hotspots abroad? What if someone inspired by the return of extirpated species to Britain cancels their membership with an overseas NGO so they can donate to domestic reintroduction projects instead? These might be victories or failures depending on your outlook but, in either case, they demonstrate the complexity of making a case based on doing something for a global crisis. The fact that we are in a biodiversity crisis isn’t a reason to wave away legitimate concerns or shut down discussion, and no one should feel pressure to embrace a project purely because it’s doing something. If preventing mass extinction is used as justification for a proposal it’s fair to ask how exactly it might help.
The middle order
There are a couple of counterpoints to the above. Firstly, while the UK currently makes a relatively modest contribution at a global level it could become more important in future if, for example, rising temperatures force southern European species to seek refuge further north. The best thing we can do to prepare for this eventuality is to provide as much land as possible for nature and maximise variation within it, so that residents and new arrivals have the best possible chance of finding niches that allow them to ride out the extremes of climate change. Assisted colonisation – moving species that might not manage it themselves – is also mentioned in this context and perhaps will be an important tool in future. Now though it seems hard to justify because of the generally healthy populations of candidate species, as discussed above. And, more subjective perhaps, but why here? If the wild part of wild nature means something, then why choose to establish a species in Britain if its future could be secured in climatically suitable parts of mainland Europe, i.e. the places it would naturally retreated to if humans hadn’t made it so difficult for animals to move through the landscape? Unless there’s a strong reason for a species needing to be moved to Britain specifically, introducing it here would, again, amount to ‘improving’ the fauna for our own excitement rather than for the benefit of nature.
The second point is that the return of lost animals might help threatened natives by restoring missing niches, even if it’s not so important for the conservation of the species being introduced, and this certainly applies to some candidates. Beaver is the obvious example – an animal whose arrival breathes life into stifled landscapes. Their restoration, living wild and widely across the country, should be a priority, and wolves, lynx and boar might too produce some benefits for existing species. Beyond these, however, we seem to have an unusual focus on filling a niche that is overrepresented – a ‘middle order’ of medium-sized predators and scavengers. This guild does well from human activity: roadkill, the release of non-native gamebirds and general simplification of the countryside which leaves prey animals nowhere to hide. All these work to the advantage of the generalist predator, as shown by the increases in buzzards, kites, polecats and badgers and the bullish trends for fox and corvids despite their widespread control. For the few exceptions, hen harrier and wildcat for example, we know exactly what the problems are, and they’re not rooted at the ecosystem level.
In terms of ecosystem function, we can say, for sure, this niche is well filled in just about every part of Britain. Even more bizarre, for a group that is quite clearly thriving, we plan to give additional support by establishing feeding stations or, it seems, further introductions of prey animals. The release of unnaturally high-densities of naïve captive bred animals will be a further boon for one of the few guilds that currently thrives alongside us, but it’s hard to see the value to threatened species.
The fact that some animals succeed amid our destruction is something to celebrate, but when it comes to choosing priorities for conservation we can put these low on the list: they’ll do well with or without our help. Restoring these species isn’t a problem but it’s a very weird take on prioritisation: they will happily succeed in the landscapes we’ve obliterated. The most destructive dairy farm could support bison, and, with some supplementary feeding, storks and raptors too. Make these the harbingers of ecological recovery and we set the lowest possible bar for progress.
It’s notable that the project of greatest significance in global terms, the one that would signify the greatest positive progress in improving the state of our countryside, is the one that has faltered the most. The great bustard is in a perilous state throughout its European range for a number of reasons, most significantly harmful agricultural practices. In the densely populated landscapes of Britain, it faces further challenges from human disturbance, insufficient areas of decent habitat, and an abundance of predators and scavengers. If bustards were to establish, thrive and spread across England we would know that we had made progress in tackling these more deep seated and pervasive issues, but they haven’t. Rare species tend to be rare for a reason, and their recovery sadly is not simply a numbers game of putting them back in quantity where they used to live. We know this from the fact that countless butterflies are pumped out into the countryside by amateur breeders ‘doing good’ and yet nothing comes of it. No colonies of rare species establishing across the country, no resurgence in numbers. The problems that make these species rare remain, and so the only legacy of release is to damage recording schemes and muddy our understanding of their distributions to the detriment of conservation.
To sell the reappearance of such animals as success is risky. If the species being released is unthreatened at a global level; if its return has no positive effect on threatened native species; if it can be released into degraded landscapes without any need for recovery; then these are victories for captive breeding, not for conservation.
What is a species?
To most of us, a species is more than just fur, flesh and feathers – it’s also ecology, behaviour, migration routes etc, all of which can be warped with even short spells in captivity. An extreme example is the barnacle goose, a powerful migrant that divides its time between remote High Arctic breeding sites and wild coastal grasslands in western Britain and Ireland. Alternatively, it’s a bird that loafs around East Anglian wetlands throughout the year, mingling with non-native Canada geese. The latter ‘version’ of barnacle goose is a feral population arising from birds released/escaped from captivity, abandoning most of the habits of their wild counterparts upon finding southern England to meet their tastes. If disaster struck the Arctic-breeding populations and the only barnacle geese left globally were the resident English population, would we really still have the species, or just an image of it?
Even captive-bred rodents have been shown to differ significantly in behaviour to wild individuals, so for more complex and intelligent animals we might expect an effect – and, arguably, we have already seen examples in existing introductions. Great bustards parading round carparks metres from people are not the same as the wary birds of expansive steppe and grassland in continental Europe. A wintering population of white storks propped up by supplementary feeding is a human invention, not a return of something lost from a wilder past.
Captive-breeding is the sole reason that a number of species globally still exist, and the zoos and other institutions involved deserve huge credit – worries about effects of captivity on behaviour should be laughed out of court when you’re dealing with species such as Spix’s macaw or the numerous amphibians getting hammered by chytrid fungus. But what about situations where a species’ existence is not in question, and there is a possible of achieving the same results through recovery of wild populations? Some will argue that establishing a population of introduced animals showing novel behaviours is better than nothing if it speeds things up, but for others patience is preferable. Even if it means waiting many years while we nurture and encourage wild populations, within and outside Britain, we do have the option of conserving not just animals but also innate behaviour and adaptation to local conditions, driven by thousands of years of evolutionary history, by allowing species to find their own way to – and disperse within – our country.
Capturing public imagination
There is an underlying assumption that engagement with a success story – the return of a long-lost species – will breed a longer interest in conservation and a deeper care for native wildlife. But we don’t know that. Should we not consider the possibility it might do the opposite? If you know that a spectacular bird like the white stork is back breeding in the country, could it not, perhaps, make it harder to appreciate why you should care for a little dull brown thing like the curlew? To put it another way, do you think you might care less about your Fiesta getting scrapped if you were told it’s being replaced by a Ferrari?
If these are the only conservation stories that pierce mainstream consciousness, what impression are we giving? Do we want our showcase achievements – the ones that the public come to associate with conservation done right – to be based on which side of a mesh sheet an animal lives? It would certainly make our jobs easier, but it won’t do much for interest in biodiversity. Positivity is important, but better earned. Of course we wouldn’t make much headway with the public if we only focused on declines and destruction, but we do have success stories built on real substance. Spoonbills, hunted to extinction only to find their own way home because of a huge amount of progress in improving the quality and extent of wetland habitats. Among introductions, beavers, again hunted to extinction but brought back and now creating life in lifeless landscapes. Positive stories have a much greater impact, surely, when they’re founded on genuine progress. The wider public has a limited appetite for environmental news; fill it with junk food and it becomes harder to sell anything with genuine substance. Make curlew, adder, chalkhill blue etc your pin ups for conservation and you cannot cheat progress. When these species are increasing again in our countryside, something has changed – we have made a step towards addressing the reasons our biodiversity is in such a poor state.
An unhelpful distraction
Combine all the messaging around introductions, simplify for public consumption and you’re left with a dangerous cocktail – the conservation establishment got us into this mess, why support it now?; introducing animals will halt mass extinction; this charismatic species is back – things aren’t so bad after all!
We don’t need this. Reintroduction is an important but relatively minor tool within conservation. To promote it as something better, more progressive, and separate to the ‘boring stuff’ – habitat management etc – is damaging to our overall cause. And while it’s seemingly become taboo to even bear the thought, I’ll say it – we do have time to discuss this. That’s not complacency, it’s realism. If we rush into actions because of a falsely inflated sense of urgency, we might later realise that we could’ve achieved far greater progress, more quickly and effectively, by taking a different course. In most domestic cases, whether an introduction takes place today, tomorrow or 100 years from now will make no difference – to the global biodiversity crisis, the loss of native wildlife, or the conservation of the species being released. We should not give into the desire for instant gratification simply because achieving meaningful recovery takes more groundwork. To focus on introductions now is like blue-tacking leaves onto a dying tree – it gives a facade of recovery, but there’s no connection to the underlying problems. Our priority should be creating a countryside that’s worthy of storks, bustards, and wildcats, ready to welcome their return as a final flourish: a reward for genuine progress. If it means that I personally don’t see some lost natives restored to the wild in my own lifetime, so be it. Recovery isn’t about satisfying personal longings. It should be no less rewarding to know we’re working towards a future in which these animals can exist here in thriving and vibrant ecosystems.
Concern about the current focus on introducing lost wildlife isn’t dislike of the projects, whose intentions are undoubtedly good, or satisfaction with our current pathetic baseline. It’s the feeling that just as we’re reaching a point where historic shackles – land, funding and public interest – are freed, we have become distracted by a strange fixation on methods that cannot make a meaningful difference to the monumental task at hand. Further, these are being sold to the public as cures for challenges they cannot meet and used to instil a simplistic roseate view of biodiversity and the state of our countryside. Worst of all, they are being used to create disillusionment with other forms of conservation. Raising concerns might seem like pedantry and misplaced negativity but, considering what’s at stake, I think it’s worth discussion.
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Uh-huh. I’ve read all this sort of bullshit before, it is someone setting up a bad faith answer to advance a personal agenda of anti progress. If that wasn’t the idea, then the writer really needs to question their beliefs and own biases.
random22 – still pulling no punches I see
Thanks for that stupid, empty, childish response. You really explained cogently and thoughtfully exactly why the author’s arguments are wrong.
I can safely assume that you have nothing to actually say, and that the author is making a timely and valid point.
Hi – author here.
I promise I’m pro-progress – desperate for it in fact.
I think ‘anti-progress’ is a strange thing to level at anyone in conservation. Presumably ‘anti-progresss’ means wanting the state of biodiversity to stay as it is/get worse? For what it’s worth, I certainly don’t think anyone involved in reintroduction projects is ‘anti-progress’, even if I think there are better ways of achieving progress.
The author asks. “But what about situations where a species’ existence is not in question, and there is a possibility of achieving the same results through recovery of wild populations?”
What about it indeed. See ‘Scottish wildcat’.
NatureScot accept the species is present in the wild in three figure population numbers, yet they and the organisation ‘Saving Wildcats’ (which would be better titled ‘Introducing Dubious Wildcats’) declare it ‘functionally extinct’ and all official monies and focus go towards the captive breeding programme that will shortly see animals that in some cases appear to be hybridised turfed out into places where their survival rate is expected to be pretty low.
Meanwhile, the one place where high grade examples consistently turn up is threatened by development. What do NatureScot and ‘Saving’ Wildcats say? Nothing. NatureScot even state that they have no objection.
There could hardly be a better illustration of how headline grabbing and money magnet captive breeding and release schemes can be a disgraceful distraction from real conservation.
“The fact that European bison never made it across the land bridge is not a problem that needs fixing, but a quirk of history. It’s no tragedy that our woodlands are missing functions that only a bison can perform, it simply means they’re set on a different evolutionary path”
At last, an antidote to the hyperbole surrounding the Kent bison, a project remarkably resistant to any critique of its aims and ecological justification
It’s a very interesting read and , I suspect , encompasses many field naturalists views. Reintroduction does , to the less interested , appear to be a glossy , shop window policy pushed forward to appease voters whilst failing to address the real issues. But as long as those , such as yourself , who work tirelessly for positive change can see that , does it really matter. Has the reintroduction of White tailed eagle and White Stork , or the helping hand given to Red Kites made any real difference other than , in the case of Red Kites , made the journey along the M40 less tedious
Hi Andy – author here.
The honest answer is I don’t know whether it matters, and I should stress that my main problem is not with the projects but with the way that some projects are being promoted.
I do suspect that the narrative of ‘reintroduction = success’ where traditional conservation has failed, which has been part of the publicity of some releases and is readily digested by a public with little understanding of biodiversity issues, has put pressure on agencies/NGOs to engage in more outlandish/headline-grabbing projects, possibly to the detriment of more important work.
E.g. without this pressure I doubt Natural England would have started a feasibility study of reintroduction of black grouse to SE England. Personally I would say they’d be totally justified (and better off) putting any resource spent on that study towards monitoring/improving the condition of SSSIs, but I suspect they feel they need to investigate this kind of thing to avoid being labelled ‘anti-progress’.
Great stuff. Full of common sense. I’m afraid the absurdity of the Bison introduction had not even crossed my mind. I have always thought that the White Storks were a huge mistake – introducing a non-native breeder that is a generalist predator that takes the eggs and young of ground-nesting birds is just what we didn’t need.
It’s interesting that most of the fuss is about what are really bit part players in the wider scheme of things – the Bald eagles alongside the Grizzly Bears, the Marabou Storks alongside the ‘big game’ at the waterhole – and we’re making all this fuss about bringing them back. It’s also interesting that in the one place with something approaching a large scale, lowland ecosystem – the New Forest – Jonathan Spencer recently pointed out how assiduously British conservationists have avoided it and its lessons. Personally, I’ve always believed in a ‘broad stream’ approach – if its heading my way the outer limits are fairly wide. The opposite view, put here, holds the seeds of disaster. The dismissal by mainstream conservation of Natural Capital because it ‘puts a value on nature’ is a clear case in point. The endless churning of scientific arguments comes across as mealy mouthed and far too frequent protests of ‘what about food security’ demonstrate thinking that is both ignorant (of farming) and conservative in the sense of living in the 1970s.
Hi Roderick – I’m the author.
Although personally I wouldn’t put these species among my priorities I’m not against their reintroduction. I do think the ‘bit-part players’ are overrepresented in our ecosystems at present, but I don’t think there’s a huge difference in whether this guild is made up of 50:50 fox : carrion crow or 25:25:25:25 fox : pine marten : wild cat : carrion crow.
My main issue is in selling the return of these bit-part players as success to the general public, when we know these species will do well from the many more damaging ways in which we use the countryside.
I have my opinions on IUCN statuses (stati?)
The criteria for moving from a lesser threatened status to a greater threatened status are not necessarily perfect. Neither is the re-assessment regime. Just because a species is listed as ‘Least Threatened’ does not necessarily imply that it is in a good place. It has what is considered a stable (ish) population of sizes that vary significantly. It isn’t unknown for a species to jump more than one status between assessments. Once a species reached the most threatened statuses that species is is a really bad position.
On fossil records. Fossils by their nature may not reflect the numbers that pre-existed. Preservation depends on certain conditions. Fossils also tend to be scant.
Just my opinions…
tuwit – thanks. Red Kite has been classified from the top to the bottom of the assessment framework during the last few decades…
“Just because a species is listed as ‘Least Threatened’ does not necessarily imply that it is in a good place.”
True, but even with imperfect information on population status, it still makes sense that priorities should be focussed on those species that the data, such as they are, indicate are the most threatened.
That said, it is worth asking if there is a perfectly zero-sum game with regards to conservation projects here and overseas. What evidence is there that implementation (or not) of any of these reintroduction projects here in the UK results in less (or more) resources being assigned to efforts to prevent rain-forest destruction or coral reef loss?
Hi Jonathan – author here.
I don’t have any evidence of impacts on overseas conservation projects, and accept it may be a non-issue. I think my point really is that it feels borderline distasteful to talk about the sixth mass extinction in the context of domestic reintroduction projects (and it does crop up as justification) given the reality of what’s happening overseas.
Hi tuwit – anonymous author here.
I agree, and I’m sure that few species in Britain (non-natives aside) are doing well vs the most important baseline, the one before human influence began to have such a strongly negative effect on the natural world. When I say that e.g. mid-sized predators are faring well, it’s proportional to the rest of our fauna. I believe that buzzards, kites and polecats should all be a lot more numerous than they are at present, but before we get onto that I think we should focus on the groups that are currently on a downward trend e.g. ground-nesting birds.
Excellent thoughtful read with sound reasoning. Thank you, unknown author. Grass roots work much more important than flashy introductions.
Joanna – thank you for your first comment here.
As a wildlife professional in North America, but originally from UK, I was delighted to read Reintroductions: what are we trying to achieve?
The article expresses many opinions that I have come to in the course of my own work. I hope it is widely disseminated and I propose to do my bit.
Tony – hi! and many thanks!
An interesting, comprehensive and good piece, but I get fed up with the argument that goes if you do A then that means people won’t want to do B. Yes we can get window dressing exercises in conservation as in anything else, political spin and private sector PR, but there’s also the point that reintroductions should be a tool for engaging the public in protecting nature, understanding ecological principles and the underrated subject of biogeography. The issue isn’t reintroductions as a distraction from essential, but supposedly ‘duller’ conservation practices it’s our sector being so utterly crap at education/communication (not mentioning 30 – 40% of our food gets wasted before it suggests rewilding farmland for one) in general and reintroductions being made a scapegoat for that. No, it’s potentially a catalyst for and a compliment to ‘standard’ conservation, an opportunity.
There’s a plan to reintroduce the fascinating burbot (Lota lota) to the river Wissey in North Norfolk – this includes making sure water and habitat quality is good enough – so the project has acted as a starting point for a wilder, more natural river with woody debris in it. The burbot has been the impetus for a wilder, healthier ecosystem helping an awful lot else (and beavers should be good for burbot if/when they eventually meet). The project in turn could potentially act as a catalyst for improving other rivers – with or without beavers. Imagine the children near the Wissey being able to get involved with the return of a rather dramatic looking freshwater cod and the insight that will give into river ecology and all the other fascinating wildlife. I bet the burbot would help develop interest in caddis flies, freshwater shrimp and freshwater mussels, its fellow river dwellers, rather than somehow distract attention from them.
Thanks to the fact that beetle wing cases (elytra) are very hard and resistant to decay unusually for invertebrates they leave a relatively conspicuous trace of their former presence (although we could still miss some). We know therefore that we started losing species of beetle dependent on dead wood several thousand years ago in the Bronze Age no less. I would love to see plans for reintroducing these lost species being brought back in much the same way as the large blue was.
There’s absolutely no way that could happen without a drastically improved situation re the retention of dead wood and veteran trees that would benefit the hundreds of species of inverts and fungi that are currently just hanging on in Britain waiting to become the next lost species. We’d have to have raised the bar in terms of current conservation of dead wood and dying trees for all deadwood species – not so rare, rare, virtually gone to bring back the (temporarily) lost too – there’s no conflict between saving species tottering on the brink and reintroductions at all.
Bringing back some specialist beetles would form part of a desperately needed public education package about the ecological value dead wood. A species of beetle lost a hundred or a thousand years ago successfully re-establishing itself would be a bloody good indicator we’re getting on track with appreciating dead wood and old trees.
Another point is that there was already a massive amount of ecological disruption before the industrial revolution and the scientific cataloguing of fauna/flora took place – we lost keystone species like the beaver and wild boar a lot earlier than many European countries did for one. In his book ‘Wild Fell’ Lee Schofield raises the point it’s highly likely a lot of our upland plant species were munched into extinction by sheep before anyone had a chance to record them. The number of species that managed to hang on in inaccessible ridges and gullies in one or two places indicates a good few others were completely lost. I’ve read elsewhere (New Naturalists) there’s a good chance that there were butterfly species like the purple edged copper that bred here, but died out due to the intensification of agriculture which has been going on for hundreds of years, again before being officially recorded.
Then of course there’s the Caledonian forest, at one point reduced to such tiny fragments that we almost lost the tiny crested tit. How many fungi, lichens, beetles, mosses, flowers and potentially even bird species weren’t so lucky and have not conveniently left behind any evidence of their former presence so that they’d ever be considered for official reintroduction? If it hadn’t been for the virtual eradication of our northern woods a few hundred years ago would I be able to head north to look for grey headed woodpeckers and Tengmalm’s owls today? There’s a big danger a lot of missing species get pigeonholed into ‘absent thanks to English Channel and North Sea’ when in fact they were lost due to anthropogenic factors.
We do need debate about that, if we for example released the Arran brown here because we think on balance evidence/logic suggests we lost them, but in reality it’s an introduction rather than reintroduction what’s the worst case scenario? If successful we’d have another butterfly species breeding here that breeds elsewhere not so very far away with virtually the same suite of species that also exist here so extremely unlikely to pose any threat to anything. The very worst that could happen, a near native as opposed to out and out non native invasive, but we’d probably have brought back a former native. If we get ultra arsey about a principle such as absolute 100% certification of former ‘indigenousness’ before official sanction for reintroduction that could do more damage than good for conservation.
Given that if land isn’t being concreted over there’s a fair chance it’s being soused with herbicides and pesticides I think we’re beyond the stage where something like the supposed solo native frog species status of the common frog and its subsequent evolution here should be the dominant/exclusive factor in conservation policy – we desperately need to keep ecosystems and species going at all. The unnaturally depressed state of our biodiversity is what we need to focus on.
Our last colony of pool frogs was allowed to die out because they were supposedly introduced – except that subsequent fossil evidence indicated they were in fact neglected natives and so others were brought in from Sweden to replace them as best as possible. A lesson needing learned?
I would humbly and respectfully suggest to Anonymous there are issues such as our woodlands having the the life throttled out of them by genuine introduced nasties such as snowberry, rhododendron, cherry laurel, salmonberry, cotoneaster usually (and still) planted to provide cover for pheasant that are far more deserving of attention than tying ourselves in knots about reintroductions. In the UK we’ve actually been way behind so many other countries when it comes to reintroduction and translocations and that didn’t help us stave off major wildlife loss did it?
There’s a lot in your reply that I agree with, Les. It is not a case of either/or. My work encompasses a range of techniques and the fact that I am actively conserving the Eurasian Beaver does not preclude me from conserving the Eurasian Curlew.
I would say we must capitalise on the educational value of reintroductions of ‘uncharismatic micro-fauna’ as much as we do the attention-grabbing higher-profile species. I am also reintroducing a near extinct saproxylic hoverfly in Cale Pinewoods, and a near extinct species of Orthoptera to lowland heathlands.
Hi Les – author here.
I agree with you on reintroductions having the potential to generate new opportunities, and completely accept that they have played an important role in unlocking new funding (and I’m sure also land, by inspiring the right people).
My key issue is messaging, and the burbot project you mention seems as though it has it exactly right. They could just release the fish and flag it as a victory where conservation has failed, but by the sounds of things they’re planning to build it on improvements to the environment, and explain to anyone interested why the burbot disappeared and how their work has helped to change that.
On native status, I know this comes down to personal belief. It’s a hard thing to explain, but if you believe that tree frogs or pond turtles shouldn’t naturally be here, and you really value wildness/naturalness, the idea of introducing these species feels the same as releasing coypu or pheasants.
I agree we should be more proactive with translocations, but I also think we need to be realistic about the contribution these are making to wider conservation efforts.
Finally, I have a few minutes to read this blog. It makes me want to paraphrase French mathematician Blaise Pascal: “I would have written a shorter blog, but I did not have the time.” I have a few comments that I would be curious about the author’s response to, but since the blog is anonymous (for some strange reason), it feels pointless to post them here. However, I do have a few general comments that might be useful to other readers of this blog.
It always surprises me how some environmentalists (or non-environmentalists, for that matter) make an impression that they are certain about how ecosystems looked in the past. All the arguments about a bone of this or another species being found or not, as if we comprehensively dug through the isles back and forth looking for them… Ecosystems and species are extremely fluid, and suspecting how they looked doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the case.
Secondly, every time I read a piece like this, it seems to me that the people writing them think that conservation efforts are somehow a zero-sum game. They are not. The fact that your carpets are dirty doesn’t mean that you don’t do the dishes.
Hi Tommy, apologies for the anonymity (and the length of the blog…), feel free to send any questions this way.
I agree on your point on uncertainty re. past ecosystems. It’s a judgement call, but personally I would prefer a cautious approach, because to me the idea of intentionally introducing a non-native species feels worse than missing out on a (very) long lost native.
On the second point, I should stress again that I don’t have a problem with reintroduction projects. My problem is that the promotion for some of these seems to have incorporated the message that they are better and more effective than ‘normal’ conservation, and I think that’s unhelpful.
An excellent and thought-provoking article- though I wonder why the writer felt the need to be anonymous?
So much of this is about human psychology; we do what we do in large part because it makes us feel better. The ongoing decimation of the natural world is such a vast and overwhelming issue – trauma, in fact- that any action that gives a sense of hope and positive change is embraced, whether it makes true ecological sense or not. It’s obvious, really, that the problem is the destruction of the non-human world in the broadest sense, and that the re-introduction of a few glamorous species into this general devastation is not really about stopping the ‘sixth major extinction’, but about a human narrative of hope.
As the author infers, though, hope can be counter-productive if it gives a false sense of optimism. Humans tend to value a personal sense of well-being about the world more highly than the actual well-being of the world; the story matters more than the reality. Right now, anything that flatters that desire- for example, the false hope of ‘carbon neutral’ offsetting, or bison standing in a fenced woodland in Kent- is part of the problem. It makes us feel better about the state of the world, whilst doing nothing meaningful to deal with the underlying problem. It enables us to destroy the world whist still feeling good about ourselves.
The only thing that matters is habitat restoration.
Bring back the plants, then the insects will follow, then everything else can recover.
I sort of don’t really care about the reintroductions.
But I do find it annoying that nobody is allowed to say that human overpopulation is the root cause of every single environmental problem.
We should be seeing this said not only in nature programmes but as the main item on every mainstream news channel.
Items on TV etc about reintroductions are just diverting us from addressing the real problem and finding an actual effective solution.
I loved the phrase from this article ”blue tacking leaves onto a dying tree” – that sums it up really.
Agree Debbie, but also add “over consumption”.
Well said you. Why is it that so much debate about the natural world seems to ignore Flora or the Habitat if you prefer that term. Sir D A is one of the few natural history commentators who ever mentions plants in his programmes. Get soil and plants healthy and abundant and the rest as you say will have a better chance of following and flourishing.
A well thought-out and heart-felt opinion piece on our conservation efforts from someone who obviously works in that field. I feel somewhat conflicted about re-introduction projects. As a butterfly enthusiast I am glad that we have species that I can now see again thanks to re-introductions (both official and unofficial – I see no difference between the two. The butterflies certainly don’t care!) However, when I see re-introductions taking large amounts of funding for specific species and generating “feel-good” publicity, I do wonder if it is what we should be doing, especially when it is unlikely that they will be successful long-term. Many re-introductions have failed, mainly because the correct habitat conditions do not now exist for their survival, despite our best efforts. Such projects may show that we can bring-back species from the brink, but their “success” does little to address the wider issues facing our wildlife in this country and give the impression to the general public that everything is OK when it certainly is not. It is only wider-scale conservation at the country-side level that will really help, not the creation of “zoos” where certain species are targeted in small areas and “success” is claimed. My 2d.
I may have an inkling as to who Mr, Mrs or Ms Anonymous might be. But if I pursue he or she wont tell me. I’m sure.
That aside, this is a welcome piece and one that strongly echoes with me. I wish I had written it (or had the knowledge to do so, more importantly). Interestingly only a month ago I has suggested to a peer reviewed journal (that deals with bird conservation) they write an editorial on the subject. My suggested working title was ‘Reintroductions – hiding us from the real problems our wildlife is facing?’
I’m not against reintroductions and was involved in the reintroduction of Red Kites. Yes, a success, but the birdwatcher in me (not the conservationist) reflects on the real excitement of an annual visit to Wales to see them. But then I suppose that a carbon foot-print has been saved.
If ‘Yes Minister’ were to script a piece on this because those noisy ecowarriors were demonstrating about our loss of songbirds in the countryside through agricultural practices, Sir Humphrey might say to an agitated PM, something along the lines of ‘Well Prime Minister, introductions seem to be the buzz-word of the day, we could win votes by introducing them. I hear there’s plenty of cock linnets in cages in the East End…..’ TBC
When I was working the nuclear option in a difficult debate was the ‘who cares’ question. Did it matter to anyone other than us – the peculiar, small and quite isolated world of forestry in my case. And having read through the lengthy comments (and responses from anonym who is stretching his/her anonym a bit) my feeling is we are talking to ourselves. Does the average springwatch viewer care a damn that the Poole Harbour Ospreys were introduced – especially compared to the shock horror of a chick being grabbed by a Goshawk ?
I have a strong feeling – which gets more pronounced with re-wildling – of a subliminal attempt to re-establish control. The idea of lets spin the wheel and see what happens id alarming. The fact that its come up with a string of wins is even more so – but I’m afraid I’m for Turtle Doves and Ospreys rather than finely argued definistions of rewildling.