Nature Reclaimed

Since the beginning of the industrial age, man's impact on this planet has become ever more harsh. The natural landscape has been squeezed into smaller and smaller areas.

Surviving tower above former New Almaden mine reduction works, H Graem © 2008

At times, with man's conscious help or more often by happenstance, nature has reclaimed her birthright. An example of the former is the reclamation of rock quarries into parks. An example of the latter is the reforestation of eastern North America following the (1) opening to settlement of the Midwestern prairies and (2) cessation of demand for pasture land for horses with the commencement of the automobile age.

An extreme example of nature reclaiming it's own may be found at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The radiation generated in this incident resulted in the removal of all human inhabitants over a large swath of land surrounding the site. Amazingly wildlife, including wolves and bison, have reclaimed the land and thrived in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

New Almaden Quicksilver Mine 

Rebirth of nature on lands impacted by the processing of toxic substances, such as the mercury involved at the New Almaden Quicksilver mine, can be most gratifying. Before and after images below of various sites at the former mine show the progress in reclamation since the mining era ended.

Liquid Mercury

In the 19th and early 20th centuries mercury was a primary ingredient in the manufacturing process for hats and in refining  gold. Mercury is one of the most toxic elements. Such toxicity is a key characteristic of the mining and processing of mercury. Pure mercury is a liquid metal, sometimes referred to as quicksilver  that volatilizes readily. Mercury in the air eventually settles into water or onto land where it can be washed into water. Once deposited, certain microorganisms can change it into methylmercury, a highly toxic form. The term 'crazy as a hatter' is indicative of its toxicity to workers in that industry. The principal source for mercury is the red ore called Cinnabar.

Historic Almaden mine drawing  -  Courtesy UC Berkeley digital library

Starting around 1849 with the California Gold Rush, the largest American source for Cinnabar was the New Almaden Mine in the Santa Cruz Mountains at the south end of San Francisco Bay.

The mining of this ore lasted over 100 years. The oak forest which previously covered the hills was clear cut to provide fuel for the furnaces. Industrial and residential buildings were constructed and then torn down as the quality of ore decreased and mining operations terminated in different areas and miners departed their homes on the company land.

Approximate dates when operations ceased for various locations within the mining area are as follows below:

• Spanish Town - Last of inhabitants gone in 1900
• Hacienda Reduction Works - dismantled following closure in 1912
• English Town - Last of inhabitants gone about 1912, Buildings removed in 1930s.  
• Senador - Closed in 1926 and reduction plant dismantled
  

With exhaustion of the richest pockets of ore, the last of the mining ended about 1970. By 1975 all of the land owned by the former mining company had been acquired for a county park. The cleanup began immediately. In many cases, exposed bodies of mine tailings were covered with impermeable layers of clay to minimize transport of mercury to water bodies.

The 'before' and 'after' photos below illustrate the restoration of this formerly mined land and its return to a natural state. Given the reclamation difficulties involved in this Mediterranean climate and the extent of mercury contamination, the reclamation of these mined areas gives hope for other lands damaged by the ravages of man.

   Before                                                      After

                 English Town from schoolyard - Circa 1885                                  Today with increased tree cover                            

    Senador Mine - Circa 1916                                                 Concrete dust bins remain standing

Hacienda Reduction Works - Circa 1875                       Undergoing Mercury Decontamination

            Spanish Town - Circa 1890                                     Oaks on north facing slope recovered nicely

Trans-Pecos

Desert Bighorn Sheep

If there is one word that would describe Texas wild lands today, it would be exotic. Texans has an affinity for exotic animals, especially deer and antelope, that are not native to the state. From 1963 to 1994, the exotic population in Texas grew from about 14,000 animals of 13 species to more than 195,000 animals and 71 species. 

The chart below lists six exotic animals now roaming free in the state in such numbers that they must be considered permanent additions to the mammal fauna according to The Mammals of Texas by David J. Schmidly. According to the chart, Texas' record for preserving exotic species seems to lean toward those least in need of help. None of the species fall within the two categories most vulnerable to extinction: (1) critically endangered and (2) endangered. Only one is included within the third most concerned category: vulnerable.

Click chart below and expand to make readable.

There are cases where ranchers have benefited endangered animals from elsewhere. The price, however, has been hunting, which the ranchers say is necessary to pay for the upkeep of the rest of the animals. This has been controversial. 

Envisioned Wilderness

 

Addax Antelope

This wilderness, envisioned as located in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas and a portion of New Mexico, would be populated with antelope and other animals that can thrive in this hot and dry climate.

The satellite view Above shows the proposed wilderness area with orienting geographic features and cities. Prospective wildlife corridors are also indicated. The wilderness would be connected to other natural areas such as Mexico's Sierra Madre, the Canyonlands, High Plains, and the Edwards Plateau via these wildlife corridors.

Mountain Nyala Antelope

Emphasis would be on species that are truely endangered and will not out-compete native species. Predators that can cull out weaker creatures and keep numbers within the capacity of the natural environment would also be included.

Animals proposed for inclusion in this wilderness are indicated in the chart below. Exotic species (not either native, previous occupants of area, or naturalized) are in italics and a darker gray background, with their endangered status indicated. All the exotic animals are in one of the four most endangered categories (CR, EN, VU & LR) or are extinct in the wild (EW) according to the IUCN.

Click chart below and expand to make readable.

California Wilderness

The California Wilderness is envisioned as encompassing the wildest and least populated California lands of a within the Mediterranean climatic zone. As illustrated below, it would stretch south from the San Francisco Bay Area to the mountains just north of Los Angeles. East to west it would extend from the Central Valley to the Pacific Coast at Big Sur.

One of the best places today to examine the ancient Pleistocene life of Southern California is the La Brea Tar Pits. This video demonstrates the Pleistocene environment in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Grizzly Bear - Its return to California is a goal of many

The rebirth of the future California Pleistocene landscape began in the late 1970s with the relocation of tule elk into the Diablo Range in the northern wilderness reaches. This successful move was followed by the reintroduction of pronghorn antelope and tule elk to the Carrizo Plain in the central lands east of the Big Sur.

Beside wildlife currently extant in these lands, the wilderness would include representatives or relatives of animals once inhabiting California. 

The California Megafauna Chart below lists potential wildlife inhabitants in the ultimate wilderness. 

African Elephant

One example would be the African Elephant to represent the place of the Columbian Mammoth in the reconstituted pleistocene landscape. 

Most symbolic of the animals is the grizzly bear, whose only current residence in California is on the state flag. Its closest American relatives are found in the Yellowstone region of the Rocky Mountains south of the Canadian border.

The California Wilderness would be linked by wildlife corridors to the Mohave Desert and the Sierra Nevada Wildernesses. The Mohave corridor would cross the Tehachapi Mountains that enclose the south end of the Central Valley. 

Pronghorn Antelope

The Sierra corridor would cross the Central Valley, connecting across former oil fields to the Kern River Valley as it emerges from the Sierras. This corridor would pass through the north end of the City of Bakersfield where oil facilities currently are occupied. 200 years in the future this area would be ripe for cleanup and rebirth as a corridor for wildlife migrating across the Central Valley grasslands between the Coast Range and the Sierra Mountains. 

The major Highway 5 north/south arterial would most likely tunnel underneath the Mohave/Tehachapi corridor and bridge the Central Valley/Sierra corridor.

A corridor in the north would connect the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta with the northernmost extension of the California Wilderness. Given the potential increase in sea level over the coming 200 years, the 'Delta' may embrace a greatly increased expanse of open water and marshland.

Click chart below and expand to make readable.

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