Environmental Ethics -- restoration vs leave the wild alone

[MikeNovack]

Are rhino population allowed to decline more? Are rhino populations already below the 50% allowance and people have to rebuild them in some unclear way? When are they at the exact 50% level?

I am moving this to start another topic, because it is a a topic all to its own among radical environmentalists. Should we attempt to restore damage we have done, do we even know enough how to do that properly, or should it be left to Nature to restore what can be restored bu natural processes. Leave the wild to the wild.

Full disclosure -- I am on the BoD of an organization trying to restore C. dentata (breed American chestnuts with enough blight tolerance to survive in the forest.

[Impenitent]

humanity must be outside of nature

-Imp

[FlashDangerpants]

Full disclosure -- I am on the BoD of an organization trying to restore C. dentata (breed American chestnuts with enough blight tolerance to survive in the forest.

That doesn't sound like a terrible idea. Neither does brining back beavers and pine martens in England (the latter eat all the nasty American squirrels that somebody imported).

The people you are arguing against probably aren't here to defend their side of things. But they sound like extremist puritans.

[phyllo]

Should we attempt to restore damage we have done, do we even know enough how to do that properly, or should it be left to Nature to restore what can be restored bu natural processes. Leave the wild to the wild.

We are forced to deal with the damage whether we like it or not.

For example, we have killed large numbers of predators like wolves. Now we are forced to manage the deer population with controlled hunting. Banning hunting would produce a huge rise in the deer population. Uncontrolled hunting would decimate the deer population.

Intelligent human intervention is necessary.

[MikeNovack]

That doesn't sound like a terrible idea. Neither does brining back beavers and pine martens in England (the latter eat all the nasty American squirrels that somebody imported).

The people you are arguing against probably aren't here to defend their side of things. But they sound like extremist puritans.

Well yes, but there are degrees of "puritanism" involved. Just what are you going to have to do to "restore" (how extreme)

Beavers --- well recently enough extirpated and the environment still hospitable for them. All they need is a helping hand across the wide salt water barrier and they''ll do all the rest. Beavers even tolerate close contact with humans.

Pine Martens will NOT "come back". The reintroduction, for example to woodlands in Wales, will work, but they will not spread out from there. Consider WHY no pine martens in spite of the fact a plentiful food supply (the grey squirrels) and not actually extirpated (isolated populations in Scotland's forests. Pine martens require large tracts of forest, which no longer exist in most of Britain. They are not going to reoccupy a ten acre city park no matter how many squirrels available to eat.

Unless they do. Over here we have two related species, pine martens and fishers. It had been thought that neither would cone back (a hundred+ years ago western MA was only ~10% wooded but now recovered to 60-70%) because unwilling to cross roads. However, the fishers have come back with a vengeance.But no martens. << fisher -- picture a marten the size/weight of a house cat -- able to kill cats, dogs twice its size, even fast enough to kill porcupines >>

[RickLewis]

Beavers --- well recently enough extirpated and the environment still hospitable for them. All they need is a helping hand across the wide salt water barrier and they''ll do all the rest. Beavers even tolerate close contact with humans.

They are here now. According to the Wildlife Trusts, there are now over 2,000 beavers in Scotland. In England it only became legal to reintroduce them to the wild in 2025 but they are already getting re-established in a few places.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/saving-species/beavers

There's nice video on that site of them being released into the wild in Cornwall in February this year.

[Gary Childress]

Beavers --- well recently enough extirpated and the environment still hospitable for them. All they need is a helping hand across the wide salt water barrier and they''ll do all the rest. Beavers even tolerate close contact with humans.

They are here now. According to the Wildlife Trusts, there are now over 2,000 beavers in Scotland. In England it only became legal to reintroduce them to the wild in 2025 but they are already getting re-established in a few places.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/saving-species/beavers

There's nice video on that site of them being released into the wild in Cornwall in February this year.

I'm a hopeless, "lily-livered" whimp. The beaver video brought me to tears.

[Gary Childress]

I think "real" men need to take a moment to beat me senseless. It's the Godly way of the world.