Megafauna Restored

Some animals by their nature create and maintain biological diversity, making ecosystems stable and productive. The Pleistocene era, with its variety of megafauna, is the epitome of such ecological diversity. Restoring large creatures to the natural landscape can bring forth in the modern world such recreated environments of great ecological diversity and complexity. 

Pleistocene Extinction & Resurrection 

The Pleistocene epoch ended about 10,000 years ago. It was marked by great temperature fluctuations. Ice ages, with extensive glacial periods, were followed by warmer inter-glacial periods. An immense variety of large mammals (megafauna) inhabited the earth during this period. Various reasons have been proposed for the Pleistocene megafauna extinction. Details of this extinction event are discussed here. 

Scientists within the last decades have advanced justification for a Pleistocene rebirth in North America. They advocate the reintroduction of large animals inNorth America as part of a resurrection ecology. A Harvard professor in 2013 introduced a rationale for actually resurrecting extinct megafauna through DNA manipulation. 

Two hundred years in the future, the illustration above could be a scene in a future wilderness in western North America. The death race between two of the fastest mammals on earth has not occurred for 10,000 years. The crucial aspect of the painting is renewing a broken relationship of predator and prey, the reestablishment of an ancient bond.  

European Initiative

Wisent, the European Bison

Europe, with so many close living relatives of its extinct megafauna, has been taking a leadership role in the actual reintroduction and protection of large animals. 

Surprisingly, one of Europe's smallest countries, the Netherlands has taken the biggest step in Western Europe to create a living wilderness with a megafauna dominated ecology. This Oostvaardersplassen lies below sea level and its current 15,000 acres includes 3000 roaming wild horses, red deer and long-horned wild cattle.

The European Bison is subject of a Europe-wide effort to bring back this species from virtual extinction. The Wildland Research Institute in the United Kingdom aims to recreate wildlands and return exterminated species to Britain. Large herbivores have been advocated as a means to reduce wildfire danger in Mediterranean Europe. In Russia there is an ongoing effort to create an actual Pleistocene Park in Yakutia.

Candidate Species

 

White Rhinos - Gerald and Buff Corsi © California Academy of Sciences

Megafauna (nonbirds weighing more than five kilograms) in the new 'pleistocene' wildernesses will include:

• Existing native species,
• Species extirpated in most of their original range (such as the Grizzly Bear in California),
• Analogue species (an animal that can stand in for an unavailable one) such as the North American Cheetah, in order to create an approximate restoration of an ecosystem or
• Regenerated megafauna from DNA (eg; Woolly Mammoth). Cloning extinct species could be a real possibility in the near future. 
  
  

Benefits

A number of benefits accrue to this Pleistocene rewilding, such as:

• Preserve Endangered Species - Preserve large rare species, barely surviving now in Africa, Europe and Asia, in an extended and protected habitat where they might thrive and continue to evolve, not in a static zoo or wild animal park environment.
• Recreate Vibrant Ecologies - with the loss of the greater part of Pleistocene megafauna, many habitats of the Americas, Asia and Europe have become relatively lifeless at the scale most visible to people.  The reappearance of megafauna will bring back a richness of animal and plant life that has disappeared in large parts of the world. Witness the positive impact on the Yellowstone region in North America associated with the return of the Grey Wolf.
• Maintain Varied Habitats - Large animals have been one of natures tools to assure varied habitats that are not (a) as susceptible to disease and parasites, (b) overrun by a certain few animal species or (c) smothered by exotic plants whose natural control is missing.
• Increase popular support - people can relate to the picture of free ranging large mammals, witness its success on a smaller scale in the national parks of Africa or even San Diego's Wild Animal Park.  Such support is crucial to the saving of threatened species.
  
  

Caution Advised

 

Brush Rabbit, H Graem © 2006

There are ugly stories of man bringing exotic creatures to new lands, resulting in the local ecology being obliterated by the invaders. Witness rats, cats or goats on ocean islands or the rabbit scourge in Australia. Note the wiping out of the native birds on Guam by the Brown Tree Snake. 

 

Most of these exotic invaders were relatively small in size, breed up to large numbers very quickly and natural predators (such as the fox for the rabbit in Australia) may create new unintended consequences on the native fauna. The adverse impacts on the native ecology, especially in situations like Australia where the native mammal ecology (based on marsupials) is ill equiped to compete with the invaders, can be devastating.

An obvious question is presented by the pleistocene wilderness approach. How does the current proposal, to introduce megafauna missing from the local ecology, avoid such dangers? 

One difference is that the current proposal is for the introduction of megafauna, not the smaller, more prolific rats, rabbits, cats, foxes, snakes and similar animals that have devastated unique ecological habitats. Additionally, as the new megafauna acclimates and becomes established with sufficient numbers in its new home, the proposal is to also introduce their predators to keep all species in balance with the ecology.

As proposed in Nature, "Well-designed, hypothesis-driven experiments will be needed to assess the impacts of potential introductions before releases take place. Large tracts of private land probably hold the best immediate potential for such studies, with the fossil record and research providing guideposts and safeguards. For example, 77,000 large mammals (most of them Asian and African ungulates, but also cheetahs, camels and kangaroos) roam free on Texas ranches, although their significance for conservation remains largely unevaluated."

H Graem © 2012