covert rewilding

This is rewilding that is done in secret, usually because official permission has been asked for and denied.  Rewilding is the reintroduction of a native species to an area where it used to exist but from which it had to be saved and transported elsewhere because extinction was looming.  Once the species has recovered or the environment has been restored, some would argue that it is time for the species to go home.

 But not everyone wants the restoration to take place. In the UK there were instances of covert rewilding of the grey squirrel . The red squirrel is the one that is native to the UK but the grey squirrel had invaded and become so popular that people didn’t want to see it go, despite the damage that it was accused of doing to both the red squirrels and the British trees.  So wildlife vigilantes took matters into their own hands.

 In Australia we were very concerned about the fate of the Tasmanian devils who were dying from a form of infectious cancer.  A number of healthy devils were taken to Maria Island in Bass Strait and kept there until the crisis could be resolved in Tasmania.  There are those who argue that devils used to be on the mainland so they have attempted to smuggle them off the island and ‘restore’ them to the mainland.  Not everyone is enthusiastic about this idea.  

For a successful rewilding you have to first of all be able to trap the animal (in the case of the devil this is easy) and then transport it to an environment where it will be happy but not immediately visible.  The species needs to get established before anyone discovers that it is there.

There is another form of rewilding — trophic rewilding. This is the introduction of a animal into an ecosytem in an attempt to alter the structure of the food chain. Trophic means ‘relating to nutrition’. There is a study that is looking at the possibility of introducing Tasmanian devils and spotted quolls onto Bass Strait islands that have never had them so that they can keep down the wallaby population that has grown with the lack of predators. The wallabies prevent the growth of grasses that are habitats for endangered small birds. Their carcasses provide food for ravens which also flourish and are predators of the small birds. The devils and quolls will adjust the food chain in favour of the small birds.