Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/27/the-uk-will-soon-have-wild-bis.html
…
7 Likes
Wild? They’ll be livid.
(Thanks, Gerald)
8 Likes
7 Likes
So, does anybody have a link to the papers which argue that this will be a good idea? Was the Bison hunted to extinction by Pleistocene hunters? Were they wrong to do so?
2 Likes
Next step: re-introduce wild lions, last seen in Britain around 40,000 years ago.
15 Likes
Yeah this seems a bit odd. Certainly in the US what we have seen is that herds of large herbivores with no remaining natural predators are not a wonderful environmental boon. I hope they have specific examples of how the lack of this ecological niche is hurting the environment At least bison population should be easier to control than deer or small mammals.
1 Like
I’m questioning whether there’s going to be enough genetic diversity to have a healthy herd. Only 4 adults initially?
5 Likes
Thank god we’ve finally found a way to kill those damned trees!
6 Likes
Won’t someone think of the coppicers and pollarders?
2 Likes
The only predators that went after bison herds in the US were humans, indigenous Native Americans, and their effects on the herd numbers were inconsequential, as the herds numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but the vastness of the prairies where they grazed could easily accommodate them. It was the greed and stupidity of white colonists grabbing the prairies for cattle, and slaughtering vast numbers for sport that virtually exterminated the animals.
Which those same ignorant white invaders actually managed to do to the Passenger Pigeon.
European Bison don’t exist in anywhere near such large numbers, the landscapes don’t allow it, and small herds allowed to graze in controlled woodland environments will be very effective in returning those woodlands to a more balanced ecology. European beaver are doing the same on British rivers, controlling the flow, and acting to reduce flooding by giving the water places to expand into the landscape, one particular beaver family discovered in Dorset had been there for nearly a decade without anyone realising; nobody knows how they got there, but they’ve proved the reintroduction in other areas can be hugely beneficial to the environment and landscape.
Wolves and Lynx may be a bit more problematic, what with being apex predators, rather than grazing herbivores.
We’re a small country, with limited space for large scale reintroduction of larger animals, but done with care, it can be successful.
It certainly has been with birds, Red Kites are almost everywhere now, cranes and storks are breeding for the first time in four hundred years, the great Bustard, heaviest flying bird in the world is slowly being re-established in my home county of Wiltshire, so there’s a lot of promising work going on.
6 Likes
Four (4) bison are a “herd”?
2 Likes
Start with the wild wolves and bears. Or, for a challenge, wild sabre-toothed cats.
4 Likes
Three trees are a forest, so why not?
3 Likes
There’ll be bison over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see…
7 Likes
Less for “sport” than genocide of Native Americans by eliminating a basic resource.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
