The Rewilding Debate: Debating the Extinct to Death

Image created by Sergiodlarosa

Since 2005, due in no small part to a commentary article published in Nature, Pleistocene rewilding has been a source of friction in conservation biology. Pleistocene rewilding generally differs from traditional conservation biology in its support for introducing extinct megafauna or a proxy species to positively impact ecosystems at the landscape scale.

In an edge.org discussion, Ryan Phelan attempts to justify rewilding because extinction primarily is caused by man.  She frames the issue as such:

"One of the fundamental questions here is, is extinction a good thing? Is it "nature's way"? And if it's nature's way, who in the world says anyone should go about changing nature's way? If something was meant to go extinct, then who are we to screw around with it and bring it back? I don't think it's really nature's way. I think that the extinction that we've seen since man is 99.9 percent caused by man."

Phelan’s questions seem to accuse Pleistocene rewilding opponents as being not only the cause of anthropogenic eradication of species but also apathetic to the possibility of reversing that same eradication. There are several underlying assumptions in her questions worth questioning.

1. When does one start the clock on which extinctions should be considered “caused by man”?
2. Does the fact that man caused an extinction necessitate the reintroduction of the extinct species? 
3. Even if we conclude that man has a duty to reintroduce all animals since the Pleistocene, how would one go about it?

Landscape Nostalgia, or, How My Brain Replicates Pulaski County Topography

Certain landscapes will never leave my memory: clouds hustling over the continental divide at Monteverde, cow-spotted pastures in purple-and-gold winter, and the welcoming bluffs on Stadium Boulevard. None, however, are so ingrained or so pure than my childhood world in Dixon, Missouri. Rivers and cliffs direct the curving roads. Foliage looks lusher, the fields more trim than any of their counterparts in my second home of Lebanon. There's the oak-walled house my great-great grandfather built and that little house on the hill where a nice farmboy once lived. There's the east edge of our field where the deer always appeared on misty mornings. The fallen log between two trunks that my cousins and I used as teeter-totter. The country was my playground.

I've returned lately with friends. Even places I had never seen, such as the view from above Riddle Bridge or panoramas across Maries County, strike familiar chords.

Nostalgia comes with some caveats. The drives remain beautiful, but the gas tab hurts (those rivers and bluffs keep good roads away; it would take hefty blasting jobs to change it, and frankly, the government doesn't have that kind of money for backwoods folks). Recently at a Dixon festival, I couldn't help but desire better food, different music and more culture. People gawked at my dreadlocked, colorfully dressed friends. Memories, meet Reality. Suddenly moving to industrial Lebanon when I was 10 years old seemed like a good move for the sake of culture. Thanks, grandparents.

But the landscape abides.

A View Through The Lens of DTC Photography

I recently had the chance to interview the head of DTC Photography, David Crabtree. After years of admiring his work it was great to get a peak into what drives his photography and the thoughts that go into each captured moment.

NM:It seems that a lot of your photography captures the areas between the built and the natural landscapes, are these areas you seek out?
DC:Built and natural landscapes have sort of become my comfort zone shots. I seem to do a better job with these scenes and so I am often drawn to them. I also see the comfort zone as challenge in which I must break out of that zone and try new things that I am unfamiliar with. Lately I have been experimenting with HDR photography and also some photos with more live and movement in them. As an amateur photographer, this can be a real challenge sometimes but hopefully the saying is true: "Practice makes perfect".