In
a recent (9/27/2013) TED Radio Hour Podcast entitled Everything is Connected, I heard an interview with author of the
book Feral, George Monbiot. He talks about stumbling across the word
“Rewilding” which, according to the website of the Rewilding Institute means “the scientific argument for
restoring big wilderness based on the regulatory roles of large predators”.
This is what we have seen in the Yellowstone ecosystem with the return of
timber wolves. Monbiot claims in the interview that profound changes have
occurred to the entire ecosystem as a result of the reintroduction of the
wolves. The natural reduction of the deer and elk populations resulted in
regeneration of plant life, leading to an increase in populations of birds,
beavers, and bears and, most remarkable, the “behavior” of the rivers and
streams. More plant life meant less erosion causing channels to change course
and become more fixed. The reintroduction of wolves, he claims, changed the
physical geography of Yellowstone. Who would have thought?
Monbiot is a huge advocate for
rewilding. He lost me when he began talking about reintroducing rhinos, hippos,
and lions to Europe and the UK – because fossilized bones indicate that they
had once lived there – but then he went on to say something that really caught
my attention. In talking about his desire for us to step back and let nature
decide, he said rewilding is about the future and the hope of bringing back
lost species, while much of our modern conservation work is about the past and trying
to lock-in past ecosystems as we know them now. Rewilding, he says, gives us
hope where we currently have despair. We need to replace the “Silent Spring”
with a “Raucous Summer”.
All of this was rattling around my
brain when I saw the news headline about the discovery of Bigfoot in Kentucky.
A veterinarian, who leads something called the Sasquatch Genome Project, has
been conducting an analysis of DNA samples she has collected and concludes that
Sasquatch is a human relative that arose about 13,000 years ago. Unfortunately,
while the Sasquatch Genome Project claimed in a February report to have
submitted 113 samples of hair, blood, saliva and other tissues to laboratories,
including New York University, NYU officials say they never accepted samples. A
professor at the Department of Anthropology at NYU, told ABCNews.com that the
research was "just a joke."
So, is it hope I felt when a small
voice deep within my emotional self tried to tell my rational self that, with the
Sasquatch Genome Project on the case, Bigfoot might be real?
“It’s a JOKE,” says my rational self.
“But let’s release some timber wolves into the area and find out once and for
all.”
Now there’s a Rewilding project to
give us some hope!
