Interesting article but one big assumption made by author is unfortunately so wrong as to invalidate the whole piece. On what evidence do you say that there is anything that is wild in North America? We know from much research that even before the arrival of Europeans, native Americans had already transformed much of nature. When the first waves of European immigrants arrived in the late 16th century, the native population had already been reduced drastically by disease and farmland and forests had reverted to nature. Afterwards the introduction of many species of plants and animals did the rest. Sorry but there is no such thing as true wilderness in North America. However we can talk about leaving parts of the country to a "natural" state which is a very notion.
4
An excellent summary of how the ascent of the human species has inevitably changed the natural world. The current status of the world is in fact the "natural world", a world that has been changed and molded by the dominant species, homo sapiens. As pointed out in the piece, the effect of humans on the world started long ago and we will continue to affect the biosphere. The concept of returning the world to a "natural state" is thus meaningless because it implies removing any human agency ; the only feasible action is to decide which outcome we want. Preservation of wild places or development, alternative energy management or climate change - I fear that lack of willingness to compromise and commit to some sacrifice will most influence future outcomes.
1
Unlike LongView below, I understand and appreciate the need for the data of tagging and tracking. With that said, however, I am appalled by the rampant overuse of these technologies and projects by many researchers, many of whom apparently do not have the slightest clue about how to analyze and interpret such information. Not to mention the same being done by many conservation-oriented NGOs and other random groups... Where I work you rarely see a see turtle that is not dragging a cumbersome satellite tag on its back, most often for the entertainment of the internet public. The overuse of such technologies has become invasive, counter-productive, and even destructive.
10
The focus of all these commendable efforts to preserve wildlife remains us. The national parks and wildlife refuges resemble giant zoos, protected so we can enjoy visiting them. One reader mentions Professor Wilson's recommendation that we set aside a major part of the planet for wildlife. Such an ambitious project would require a dramatic change in our outlook on the natural world.
We would have to jettison our passion for domination and envision our world as a shared habitat, one in which other species enjoyed the right of eminent domain over a significant area on which we long ago planted our flag of conquest. Since these creatures have no capacity to enforce their claim, we would have to voluntarily relinquish possession.
Such forbearance contradicts human nature, especially when energized by the capitalist ethos. The drive to possess ever more of nature's bounty leads us to penetrate even areas not suitable for large-scale human habitation. The ingenious vision behind our national parks recognized this insatiable hunger and sought to restrain it in favor of a parallel desire of millions of people to enjoy nature without destroying it. In both cases, however, the passion for possession remained dominant.
Since human nature seems immune to basic change, the efforts described by Mr. Duane probably represent the best we can do to preserve something of the natural world. If we persist in damaging our climate, however, these efforts may come to naught.
We would have to jettison our passion for domination and envision our world as a shared habitat, one in which other species enjoyed the right of eminent domain over a significant area on which we long ago planted our flag of conquest. Since these creatures have no capacity to enforce their claim, we would have to voluntarily relinquish possession.
Such forbearance contradicts human nature, especially when energized by the capitalist ethos. The drive to possess ever more of nature's bounty leads us to penetrate even areas not suitable for large-scale human habitation. The ingenious vision behind our national parks recognized this insatiable hunger and sought to restrain it in favor of a parallel desire of millions of people to enjoy nature without destroying it. In both cases, however, the passion for possession remained dominant.
Since human nature seems immune to basic change, the efforts described by Mr. Duane probably represent the best we can do to preserve something of the natural world. If we persist in damaging our climate, however, these efforts may come to naught.
2
Obviously we have a Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle thing going on with wilderness. Wilderness is our description for something we see and that we distinguish from non-wilderness, but the act of observation changes it, which means by an absolutist definition that it’s not wilderness anymore.
At a slightly less absolutist level, I gather from Terborgh’s “Requiem for Nature” (1999) that existing land reserves are too small to maintain the top predators that we first observed, meaning that those areas are now turning into something else, even if at a rate slow enough that it’s not obvious to us. He recommends adding to reserves’ areas, including through purchases like The Nature Conservancy and others undertake.
In any case, it’s a question of good management vs. bad, as although it’s hard to decide what’s good it’s clear that benign neglect isn’t really feasible (and thus turns out to be bad).
At a slightly less absolutist level, I gather from Terborgh’s “Requiem for Nature” (1999) that existing land reserves are too small to maintain the top predators that we first observed, meaning that those areas are now turning into something else, even if at a rate slow enough that it’s not obvious to us. He recommends adding to reserves’ areas, including through purchases like The Nature Conservancy and others undertake.
In any case, it’s a question of good management vs. bad, as although it’s hard to decide what’s good it’s clear that benign neglect isn’t really feasible (and thus turns out to be bad).
1
The central question about technology and wilderness only makes sense if we pretend that humans haven't already been altering the planet for centuries. To paraphrase Stewart Brand, we've been playing god for a very long time, we might as well get good at it.
Why give credence to the handful of head-in-the-sand voices who think that tracking, tagging, or reintroducing wildlife to its former range is somehow not fixing something we've broken long ago?
Surely, the first time one of these naysayers encounters an adult grizzly in Yosemite or a pack of wolves on Mt. Lassen, they won't question for a second whether they're having a "true wilderness experience." Whether the animal in question has an ear tag or telemetry collar will be the least of their concerns!
For California anyway, shouldn't we be asking the more future-focused questions of where we should release the first grizzly bears, what else can we do to encourage the recovery of bighorn sheep populations, why aren't elk allowed to roam free here, and shouldn't we be encouraging the recolonization of the state by wolves and wolverines?
Why give credence to the handful of head-in-the-sand voices who think that tracking, tagging, or reintroducing wildlife to its former range is somehow not fixing something we've broken long ago?
Surely, the first time one of these naysayers encounters an adult grizzly in Yosemite or a pack of wolves on Mt. Lassen, they won't question for a second whether they're having a "true wilderness experience." Whether the animal in question has an ear tag or telemetry collar will be the least of their concerns!
For California anyway, shouldn't we be asking the more future-focused questions of where we should release the first grizzly bears, what else can we do to encourage the recovery of bighorn sheep populations, why aren't elk allowed to roam free here, and shouldn't we be encouraging the recolonization of the state by wolves and wolverines?
2
We live in a garden, not a wilderness. We have responsibility to care for the earth. Not taking action is, in this case, a form of action--and pretty irresponsible, given the mess we've made so far.
1
Inasmuch as "wilderness" in the official US government sense is a cultural construct (no motorized vehicles and so on), it's a bit surprising that telemetry-collared wildlife is allowed in wilderness areas. I don't know that anyone much wants to see that kind of proposal get mauled in the Republican House of Representatives.
Years ago, Daniel Janzen demonstrated in Costa Rica that ecological restoration required gardening. His attitude was rather close to that of Rene Dubos, who was convinced, perhaps a bit innocently, that people could live in harmony with ecosystems, and perhaps even contribute to them through their activities. His example was the Ile de France, whose soils had become far more productive as a result of a millenium or more of cultivation. Of course most of that prime farmland is now suburban Paris.
Here in Florida, the state government is moving toward encouraging panthers to go extinct. Every bit of knowledge of how these animals behave is needed to make it possible for them to coexist with people. Not to mention that the booming Naples metro area can't be allowed to consume much more of the available habitat.
Years ago, Daniel Janzen demonstrated in Costa Rica that ecological restoration required gardening. His attitude was rather close to that of Rene Dubos, who was convinced, perhaps a bit innocently, that people could live in harmony with ecosystems, and perhaps even contribute to them through their activities. His example was the Ile de France, whose soils had become far more productive as a result of a millenium or more of cultivation. Of course most of that prime farmland is now suburban Paris.
Here in Florida, the state government is moving toward encouraging panthers to go extinct. Every bit of knowledge of how these animals behave is needed to make it possible for them to coexist with people. Not to mention that the booming Naples metro area can't be allowed to consume much more of the available habitat.
3
Back when we called ourselves wildlife ecologists, not managers, our priority was to diseminate Dr. Paul Ehrlich's (Emeritus Prof. of Population Ecology at Stanford) brave voice on human overpopulation. Then perceptions and economic forces changed: some ecologists (and environmentalists) thought as soon as people get educated they will have fewer kids and everything will be fine. Others decided that the population was unsustainable but people were not going to stabilize our numbers, much less decrease them--so they opted for preserves and corridors so rare animals would not be left only in zoos, and ecosystems could be partially protected but would need more intense "management". To be fair, there are so many introduced diseases, fragmentation and genetic bottlenecks that even public "wilderness" needs some management......But our numbers continued to rise to the present 7.4 billion, an increase of nearly three fold, just since the 1960's. Only recently have people agreed that this is not sustainable and needs to be reduced to one billion for our species to be in a semblance of balance with our natural environment. Our present numbers fuel climate change, mass extinction and depletion of resources including air and water. But there are economic forces that keep our leaders, the 1%, from voicing concern about our numbers as we race to sell more cars and antacid pills--which requires more consumers. please visit populationmatters.org
10
I have no answer, only the image of the Peaceable Kingdom. Man's creation aims toward the right number of predators, the right terrain protecting balanced number of the vulnerable, carbon controlled for species protection grown in protected areas to insure survival. Eventually we get it all just right.
Good goal considering for it to happen, hate must be understood and overcome. Conditions leading to war must be "altered" long before conflict drains the blood of future conservationists and those tending endangered species.
Can we do it? Only "intention" can keep us on course.
Good goal considering for it to happen, hate must be understood and overcome. Conditions leading to war must be "altered" long before conflict drains the blood of future conservationists and those tending endangered species.
Can we do it? Only "intention" can keep us on course.
To paraphrase Pogo - The problem is us - we just keep breeding and building and polluting and breeding etc etc. Every now and then before things get totally out of hand Mother Nature [I know not scientific] steps in and significantly reduces our numbers, see Bubonic Plague. Recently she tried Aids and then Ebola, but being so darned smart we temporarily beat her. Zika is pretty nasty stuff but eventually it might help some of those other creatures. Meanwhile we try with wars and stuff like Nukes but they kill off everything else too and if Nukes are used it would take Mother Nature thousands of years to straighten it out, not that she cares, she's got all the time in the world, that is until the sun blows up.
3
Sierra Nevada Big Horn Sheep should not be tagged, collared, GPSed, mapped, scoped, bothered or disturbed. The eastern Sierra Nevada is their bio-evolutionary home range and sans the ever increased reach of the hand of man will do fine if they are left alone. As a scientist trained in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology I have yet to understand the gain in 'instrumenting' animals such as these sheep save filling the trough of public money and promoting toward tenure-ship or higher pay grade of those scientists that profess to be driven to 'obtain' more knowledge' in the profound badgering of these, and many other, 'endangered or threatened' animals. The problem, if there be such, is less the decline in the quality and quantity of these animals habitat and their numbers -- rather the unrelenting fiddling of humans with these animals by our driven intellectual hubris that only human intervention can somehow 'save' the sheep and other such species.
As the late great poet Robinson Jeffers stated when man stinks, as he/she/it does in the matter of Sierra Nevada Big Horn Sheep, turn to god. The delusion of god likely goes further to preserving the biogeophysical integrity of Earth than any that of a stupid self-centerd Ph.D. at some 'major' University.
As the late great poet Robinson Jeffers stated when man stinks, as he/she/it does in the matter of Sierra Nevada Big Horn Sheep, turn to god. The delusion of god likely goes further to preserving the biogeophysical integrity of Earth than any that of a stupid self-centerd Ph.D. at some 'major' University.
5
As Edward abbey said, nothing that is wild or beautiful or free is going to survive if we don't control our own population. A planet of diverse, sustainable species is absolutely incompatible with the billions of humans here now and will be less so with the billions more soon to be added this century. The evidence is all around us in the accelerating loss of species and worsening global warming. It may give us a warm fuzzy to save a few members of some charismatic species but in the long term were wasting our time if we don't come to grips with the only number that really counts- the number of humans sharing the planet with all the creatures who will have to dissapear to make room for more of us.
2
I like the idea of tracking wild animals, but I don't like the collars around their necks or rings around the feet of birds. I wonder if it is possible to replace them by tiny tracking devices inserted under their skin. They will look natural instead of marked animals as it used to be the practice in the past.
We don't know how uncomfortable, cumbersome or hurtful they are to the animals who have to live with them.
We don't know how uncomfortable, cumbersome or hurtful they are to the animals who have to live with them.
1
While I enjoy the reporting on the application of digital technology to conservation biology, the author should not have situated the piece in the context of the long out-of-date wilderness debate. It unnecessarily complicates what is otherwise a nicely researched article. The existence of wilderness depends upon the way we think about our place in the world, not whether or not a drone herds elephants or a collar tracks a grizzly.
I plead readers (especially millenials to whom a version of wilderness has been rediscovered) and the author to find and read William Cronan's 1995 essay, The Trouble with Wilderness or Allen Weiss's 1998 essay, No Man's Garden - New England Transcendentalism and the Invention of Virgin Nature. Our debate on how to exist and persist on this planet cannot move forward unless we leave behind unhelpful ideas like wilderness, Eden, and nature.
I plead readers (especially millenials to whom a version of wilderness has been rediscovered) and the author to find and read William Cronan's 1995 essay, The Trouble with Wilderness or Allen Weiss's 1998 essay, No Man's Garden - New England Transcendentalism and the Invention of Virgin Nature. Our debate on how to exist and persist on this planet cannot move forward unless we leave behind unhelpful ideas like wilderness, Eden, and nature.
3
Dear Dan (we've met): Get over yourself. Yes, viewing a radio-tracked bighorn through binoculars would be "a deeply human cultural product," but viewing anything through binoculars is "a deeply human cultural product." Take away the binoculars, and everything is still "a deeply human cultural product" because we interpret life through culture. Get over yourself. For that matter, all North Americans need to get over themselves. This continent is the last refuge for the conceit of wilderness. Everywhere else people understand and value that people and nature meet; only here do we get our knickers in a twist over such blurring. As The Offspring song says, "we gotta keep 'em separated," even though that's not only not possible but, in the case of bighorn sheep, wolves, salmon, and other species, utterly necessary to keep some populations alive. My larger question is why are white, upper-middling Americans and Canadians so devoted to the misanthropic quest to create and expand landscapes without humans? This, it seems to me, is the question that Duane as much as the rightwing occupiers of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge effectively avoid, since both Malheur and the Sierra were once occupied by humans. Put another way, our present "empty spaces" were once filled with busy people. Hard to see that, though, when you get all worked up about seeing tracking tags through binoculars.
The wilderness without humans "empty spaces once filled with busy people" strawman, while a favorite of the neo-environmentalists, fails. A simple look at population density of humans tells us this as a fact. And few who advocated for wilderness hold on to any notion that such lands are no go zones for humans. And one hardly needs binoculars to see what large densities of humans do to the habitat that the rest of biodiversity calls home. Habitat fragmentation, destruction, removal of carnivores, climate change are all driving an extinction crisis that threatens the extirpation of 50% or more of the species on earth in the next few decades. It would make sense to consider that we could be in the "loser" rather than "winner" column in that winnowing of life. This should be reason enough to protect those "empty spaces" where the rest of the biotic community lives.
4
The wild spaces here were not filled with people historically. There may have been 1-3 million humans on this continent when white people arrived and they definitely had an effect. However, we now have well over 320 million and more arriving daily. Our lifestyle and numbers are not compatible with the long term survival of most species, including ours. In the end our hubris and arrogance of thinking we're above and immune to these effects will be our downfall.
6
This piece is reminiscent of invasive plant folks who proudly go in and "restore" habitats to their original state. No you haven't. You've restored that stream or field or woods to what will attract people to the park, or serve a specific species or is someone's idea of beautiful.
Don't get me wrong, weeding out a wetlands and making it neat and tidy is fine. Just admit that what you're doing is artificial and human centric. You are picking a set of species and a point in time and expecting that not to change. This is not the way Nature works.
The balance between assisting and meddling in this rapidly changing world is a difficult thing to determine. This article points out examples of species re-establishing themselves with the barest minimum of human intercession. From my perspective, looking at how our National Parks have become drive through zoos, I fear all those GPS equipped species are going to become the next Disneylandesque commercial development. Glamp in style, hop on the helo-tram and ride in air conditioned comfort to see the Big Horn Sheep in their natural environment. And of course, the marketing will continue, your entry fee is helping to conserve these struggling species.
Humans are destroying their own habitat, not the Earth. We'll take a lot of species with us, but Earth will recover and a new dominate species will emerge. Some speculation says it will be octopi. How fascinating! I wish I could be around to see that.
Don't get me wrong, weeding out a wetlands and making it neat and tidy is fine. Just admit that what you're doing is artificial and human centric. You are picking a set of species and a point in time and expecting that not to change. This is not the way Nature works.
The balance between assisting and meddling in this rapidly changing world is a difficult thing to determine. This article points out examples of species re-establishing themselves with the barest minimum of human intercession. From my perspective, looking at how our National Parks have become drive through zoos, I fear all those GPS equipped species are going to become the next Disneylandesque commercial development. Glamp in style, hop on the helo-tram and ride in air conditioned comfort to see the Big Horn Sheep in their natural environment. And of course, the marketing will continue, your entry fee is helping to conserve these struggling species.
Humans are destroying their own habitat, not the Earth. We'll take a lot of species with us, but Earth will recover and a new dominate species will emerge. Some speculation says it will be octopi. How fascinating! I wish I could be around to see that.
I've been quite happy with results from clearing Australian pines and Brazilian peppers from Florida coastal islands and replacing them with natives. The first large-scale project of the sort was at Cape Florida on Key Biscayne after the 1992 hurricane had leveled the "pines." The restoration was done crudely and cost a lot, but the area has gone from being a bird desert to a bird magnet, important because migrants use it.
4
Once upon a time technology aka tool use and making was believed to mark the divine division between the animal kingdom and human kingdom. Now that we know that many animals in addition to humans make and use tools what is wild and natural includes technology. Selection of the fittest by DNA genetic biological evolution over time-chronology- and space-ecology- is the normal way of the world.
1
Has the author read Ellen Meloy's "Eating Stone"? The thesis seems awfully similar (down to the species), but I don't see her work referenced.
Sometimes the management ends up different than intended. Hatchery raised trout dumped into streams for human fishermen often attracts fish eating birds.
Much of the "environmentalism" exhibited in these comments is misanthropic luddism, wrapped in scientism and le bon sauvage, tied with a bow of Gaia religion.
In other words, typical fauxgressive claptrap.
In other words, typical fauxgressive claptrap.
1
Dear Mr. Duane,
As dispiriting as essays of this kind by their very 'nature' must be, let us be philosophical for a moment and remember that the earth in relation to the known universe is not even a grain of sand in relation to Mount Everest, so even if we have turned wilderness into bewilderness, the twin eternities of oblivion behind us and before us will have the first and final word.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
As dispiriting as essays of this kind by their very 'nature' must be, let us be philosophical for a moment and remember that the earth in relation to the known universe is not even a grain of sand in relation to Mount Everest, so even if we have turned wilderness into bewilderness, the twin eternities of oblivion behind us and before us will have the first and final word.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
3
This article just makes me want to sing Rudolf the red nosed reindeer. Well , that story turned out okay but only if you believed in Santa.
I guess where charity and love prevail, there the great mystery is ever found.
I guess where charity and love prevail, there the great mystery is ever found.
Haven't you seen 'Jurassic World'. creating our own fiction into reality is what we have left. genetic engineering our new tinker toy set? when it goes awry we wonder what a spectacle is worth but as long as there is a view or vista to be had and a technological solution we can anticipate a future with a memory as short as the last sequel. Drought be damned!
The answer: no.
In my opinion, I think that we should let the animals be in thier own house and of course let them be. If we don´t want to destroy them, we all should let them be. They are free in their habitats. We should be less selfish and respect them by not trying to hunt them and in order to this we won´t need to protect them anymore.
1
As long as man desires to exploit or destroy our natural environment, some things must be done, so I guess this is a good thing.
Wondering why the NY Times editors classified this as an opinion piece? There is certainly some opinion offered, but this is journalism, in my opinion.
2
Good read. The competing priorities problem is never going to be easy or simple. People want wolves but forget they eat the elk and deer they find "so pretty" until one gets taken down just yards from their home. Others don't want wolves and forget the important role they play in conservation ( we can have wolves and huntable elk populations, but management must be hands on.
1
Man has destroyed the environment and killed a lot of its animals and people.
We have the duty to try to save the world now, since man has almost destroyed it.
We have the duty to try to save the world now, since man has almost destroyed it.
4
All the technology, all the industry, all the expertise to manage so many diverse species, when there is truly only one animal that needs management.
11
I think that it is not correct that humans take control of other species like the bighorns and sheeps with that collars that allow us to track them. We can take care the animals with other methods like only making them a safe reserve in order to let them be more free and without seeing or monitoring every thing they do.
2
The original Great Wild, as it was once called, is all but gone from our planet. But to the extent technology might help to mitigate the negative effects of human life on our natural systems, bravo, Ironically, one of the most dramatically natural places I’ve seen in North America is the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, site of the recent anti-government invasion and stand-off. Managed, yes, but to go there is to get a glimpse of Eden, as it were. As we saw, the biggest threat to our natural world is human foolishness, selfishness, and greed.
4
Beyond what's permissible under the balanced dynamics of the human-nature symbiotic relationship, conservation efforts whether through traditional methods or the technological intervention are neither possible nor desirable. Moreover, since the wildlife involving the flora and fauna, like other species of life is subject to the Darwinian theory of natural selection of species and evolution, it's well nigh impossible to keep intact the original form of life, however hard the conservation efforts are invested.
1
There are hundred, thousands, more, of little events and indicators that our world has changed and we will be the poorer for it. As long as we don't keep on pretending things are not a big messy mess, all these fiddles are, I suppose, OK. We can only do what we can. But to not do those little things, to pretend that it's all going to be magically fixed, that if we only do something like getting Bernie Sanders elected, is nonsense.
There are a wide range of things that can be done, but only if we stop deceiving ourselves that there things will somehow come out OK if we all abdicate our direct responsibility to do our possible.
Since the industrial revolution, we've been plundering, looting, accommodating, and ignoring that our earth is finite. The dues coming in should not be subject to denial and argument.
Actions have consequences.
There are a wide range of things that can be done, but only if we stop deceiving ourselves that there things will somehow come out OK if we all abdicate our direct responsibility to do our possible.
Since the industrial revolution, we've been plundering, looting, accommodating, and ignoring that our earth is finite. The dues coming in should not be subject to denial and argument.
Actions have consequences.
16
Beautiful illustration!
4
Yes. But, all animals plunder. We must make ourselves different by taking the design of our minds out of the hands of natural selection, which they are now in. See my primary comment.
"but only if we stop deceiving ourselves" you should stick to what "you" believe and leave the rest of us out.
A very interesting piece that raises the concept of trade-offs...trade-offs made more challenging in an ever-changing world. Years ago, in a previous job, I helped write the emergency petition to have the Sierra Nevada Bighorn listed under the Endangered Species Act. That too was a trade-off, because at that point in time, one of the key reason the bighorn population was crashing, was mountain lion predation. That imbalance eventually righted itself. Today, I work for the Student Conservation Association. One of our programs is to place college-age Conservation Interns with land management agencies. At Yosemite, these interns serve alongside wildlife biologists such as Sarah Stock. In my opinion, Ms. Stock and the other biologists she works with are heroes...protecting species of wildlife that define the "wilderness," bighorn sheep, Great Gray Owls, Red foxes, black bears, peregrine falcons, and more. It is a complicated world in which habitat has been compromised, resource management conflicts increasing, and yes...serious challenges to wilderness-dependent wildlife caused by CLIMATE change. If technology helps Sarah Stock and other dedicated wildlife biologists maintain the wildlife icons of the wilderness, well, that is a tradeoff that is worth it. Because the Sierra Nevada, California's "Range of Light," a place I have spent 30 years helping to protect would be far less wild without those species.
16
My guess is that genetic engineering, will be used in ever more desperate efforts to prevent extinctions of numerous species. You may already have read of the new genetic engineering method called CRISPR-Cas9, which allows genetic engineers to edit an organism's genes by selectively removing the exact gene they want, and inserting whatever segment of DNA they desire. Its cheap, relatively easy, and reliable.
So, what is likely to happen is that we will be faced with the dilemma of allowing an animal or plant that is threatened with extinction (because we have either destroyed its habitat or over harvested it) to just go away, or, we can tweak its genes to allow it to survive. One example is salmon. Many of the runs of salmon in the west coast are struggling to survive because water temperatures in the fresh water streams where they spawn are increasing in temperature, above the limit these fish can tolerate. So, if it were possible to switch some of their genes with genes from a warmer water fish, enabling them to survive warmer temperatures, could we say no? Or how about a rhinoceros with no horn, so there was no reason for superstitious fools to kill them?
Once we get to the point where these kind of dilemmas are presented to us (as well as many more that global warming and overpopulation are making inevitable), we will have so many more pressing problems that such things will certainly be done. There will likely be unintended consequences.
So, what is likely to happen is that we will be faced with the dilemma of allowing an animal or plant that is threatened with extinction (because we have either destroyed its habitat or over harvested it) to just go away, or, we can tweak its genes to allow it to survive. One example is salmon. Many of the runs of salmon in the west coast are struggling to survive because water temperatures in the fresh water streams where they spawn are increasing in temperature, above the limit these fish can tolerate. So, if it were possible to switch some of their genes with genes from a warmer water fish, enabling them to survive warmer temperatures, could we say no? Or how about a rhinoceros with no horn, so there was no reason for superstitious fools to kill them?
Once we get to the point where these kind of dilemmas are presented to us (as well as many more that global warming and overpopulation are making inevitable), we will have so many more pressing problems that such things will certainly be done. There will likely be unintended consequences.
8
CRISPr-CAS6 has made many people dream of such solutions, but mass-producing enough individuals to produce a viable population would be extremely difficult, especially as genetic manipulation is not as easy a procedure as you think it is. The genes regulating heat tolerance are themselves dependent on other factors: suppressors and enhancers in the genome, methylization of some parts of a given gene, which means that this is not just switching one gene for another one.
You also have to consider that, if you are successful with your heat-tolerant fish, your new fish may just crowd out another species that is adapted to that very biotope, so, in essence, you'll have a whole chain of save one - push another out - save that one push...
While it is terrible to consider how many species in all realms of life we have driven to extinction, and there are so and so many gone we don't even know about, our duty to ourselves and to the future of the entire biosphere is to protect what is left, see that these lives are saved.
Knit a pullover and drop a stitch - not so bad, just a little unevenness. Drop an entire series of stitches, and the whole thing will unravel. We are unravelling the fabric of life even as I type this, and even as you read my answer.
You also have to consider that, if you are successful with your heat-tolerant fish, your new fish may just crowd out another species that is adapted to that very biotope, so, in essence, you'll have a whole chain of save one - push another out - save that one push...
While it is terrible to consider how many species in all realms of life we have driven to extinction, and there are so and so many gone we don't even know about, our duty to ourselves and to the future of the entire biosphere is to protect what is left, see that these lives are saved.
Knit a pullover and drop a stitch - not so bad, just a little unevenness. Drop an entire series of stitches, and the whole thing will unravel. We are unravelling the fabric of life even as I type this, and even as you read my answer.
3
There are an enormous number of questions here that are simply moot- and need to be recognized as such. Oh, and a fantasy, that we need to abandon.
What should we do? The best we can. Is this better than that? Moot.
Should we strive to re-create "the original", and settle for nothing less?
There's the fantasy- with 2 parts; A) we don't know what "the original" really was, and B) - it's an utter waste of time working to re-create a fantasy that fit perfectly - the world of 200 or 500 years ago. This is NOT that world, and never will be again. What a waste to agonize over an illusion.
Should we strive to see that our fellow species, fox, sheep, and all- find a place in this world and tomorrow's? Of course. Do our best. And don't look back - it's gone.
What should we do? The best we can. Is this better than that? Moot.
Should we strive to re-create "the original", and settle for nothing less?
There's the fantasy- with 2 parts; A) we don't know what "the original" really was, and B) - it's an utter waste of time working to re-create a fantasy that fit perfectly - the world of 200 or 500 years ago. This is NOT that world, and never will be again. What a waste to agonize over an illusion.
Should we strive to see that our fellow species, fox, sheep, and all- find a place in this world and tomorrow's? Of course. Do our best. And don't look back - it's gone.
8
This article exactly represents what is wrong. It is our arrogance that man is the center of the universe and that technology will fix everything. Technology creates more problems than it solves. You are only speaking of a very small number of known species. The fact that Biologists can pollute the environment with their plastic tags, etc. and then turn around and say they are trying to save some particular species, just means they by into the corporate world where you can have it both ways. We are not saving anything we are just monitoring it's demise. We are nearing the point where enough of the Wild will be lost and with this the human species will either be greatly reduced in number or will go extinct. We are well past midnight and this article is a boat load of lies.
5
Hi Jim: I'm afraid the article is saying it's even worse than you think - that point when "enough of the wild will be lost" actually came and went some time ago - the original idea of setting aside areas to preserve might not have been high tech, but the meaning of it was totally the same as the cameras and collars of today - it was us consciously deciding that for our own preferences we would save some elements of a nature that we recognized as having some value - although it couldn't save itself...
You're right to be angry - it has all the elements of an ancient tragedy - but I think your anger should be directed at all of us, and at the relentless energy of life itself, as it expresses itself in human form - rather than at these particular people...
You're right to be angry - it has all the elements of an ancient tragedy - but I think your anger should be directed at all of us, and at the relentless energy of life itself, as it expresses itself in human form - rather than at these particular people...
I appreciate Daniel Duane's article on the role of (some) technology in protection of wilderness. However, his focus is on acquiring knowledge for monitoring and possible use in helping protecting species by getting them listed under the Endangered Species Act. The larger problem, however, is the one left unsaid in the article, which is that to manage wilderness areas under threats of increasing populations and habitat destruction requires substantial use of science. And, as Aldo Leopold said, science thus used requires knowing what makes the 'natural' world 'tick." We don't really know what makes them work, how to 'fix' them if we have altered them too much. Unfortunately, the ecological sciences are mostly descriptive and not predictive. This means that the better course of action is to leave wilderness areas alone as much as we we can.
8
Or don't turn those few wilderness areas into playgrounds for tourists who feed the animals, leave waste scattered around, or, when watching turtles lay their eggs on the beach, give their kids rides on the turtles backs... Have well-marked paths through wilderness areas, observation points where those who are truly interested in this area can watch wildlife without bothering the animals, and have receqartion areas on the outskirts. This Disneyfication of each and every wildlife area is not educational, it is destructive. Nature is definitely not a Disney World or a theme park. It belongs to itself, as do the birds, plants and animals who live there.
3
Interesting story. The notion that killing one wildlife species (lion) to benefit another (bighorn) is beneficial assumes a value judgement attached to one animal versus the other. While the Sierra bighorn issue may be somewhat unique, in Nevada, lions are killed randomly in areas of bighorn populations to "protect" the sheep, even though Nevada has more bighorn sheep than any state other than Alaska. Biologists now say Nevada has no place to put bighorns and a population reduction would be beneficial. Yet, the management agency insists on valuing ungulates above iconic carnivores such as the lion without any sensible public debate about whether this makes sense. Furthermore, given what modern science regarding lion population dynamics has produced in the past decade, random killing of the animal (as is done in Nevada) makes no sense and probably worsens any perceived problem. And then, there is the whole business about putting collars on animals and using the collar to find the animal to kill it...done in this story and being done now in Canada with wolves. Technology has gotten out ahead of our system for deciding about values, who decides and how, and when is enough really enough.
10
We are part of "wild." We are part of the natural world. What we do is natural. Will the natural world be the same after us? No. Living things have been transforming the earth and each other for billions of years (or at least a paper-thin layer on the top of a ball of magma). Argue and try to control (if we can) what we natural creatures do. But fly out from the planet a little and stop the false dichotomy. A human engineered world is just as natural and wild as if humans were not there. It's just a different world.
4
Nope.
2
Dear Dude, mankind's numbers have increased beyond the sustainable. I would have agreed with you, had the world not changed so much as to technology, industry, tearing energy sources out of the ground, yes, and taking natural selection out of everything connected with humanity. Mankind is the single most destructive species that has ever developed.
Look at the world from above: our cities and suburbs are like so many proliferating cancers eating their way into the land that supports us. Nature is considered wonderful as long as we needn't curtail our activities to preserve it.
Dude, please look around you and see what is left of the natural beauty your continent once had ... save what is left.
Look at the world from above: our cities and suburbs are like so many proliferating cancers eating their way into the land that supports us. Nature is considered wonderful as long as we needn't curtail our activities to preserve it.
Dude, please look around you and see what is left of the natural beauty your continent once had ... save what is left.
1
Dude is right.
Humans are not separate from nature.
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Your-Monsters-Postenvironmentalism-Anthropoce...
Humans are not separate from nature.
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Your-Monsters-Postenvironmentalism-Anthropoce...
1
Sadly, the natural kingdom is incompatible with 7.4 Billion humans who prefer freedom, limited government and economic advancement to environmental preservation. Hence, we either have managed, segregated, protected and carefully promoted habitats or soon we will have no "natural" places at all. As Stewart Brand noted in the Whole Earth Catalog in 1968, "we are as gods and might as well get good at it."
All future generations will have reason to thank the unsung heroism and dedication of biologists and wildlife managers.
All future generations will have reason to thank the unsung heroism and dedication of biologists and wildlife managers.
12
We human beings seem like a weird race of amnesia inflicted apes. Sampling, measuring, analyzing but somehow never quite able to remember the essence of the thing itself. We've apparently forgotten we are made of the very stuff we're so obsessed with measuring, and as we measure and tweak the populations of the earth, we forget to measure ourselves against them or account for all the damage that we continually inflict on the wonders we want to quantify.
14
Further, our opposable thumb complex deludes us into believing we can take those measurements and re-create what has been altered. Too often the solutions merely trigger more damage.
E.O. Wilson in his new book has the right idea - dedicate 1/2 earth to the non-human life world.
Why do this? Because, left to itself, it is so incredibly beautiful and tells us what life is, and keeps on telling us, stop, and be complete.
Stop the mindless overshoot and realize that our power is provisional.
Why do this? Because, left to itself, it is so incredibly beautiful and tells us what life is, and keeps on telling us, stop, and be complete.
Stop the mindless overshoot and realize that our power is provisional.
51
Good luck with that as mankind grows by billions more.
1
Ah, such a simple solution. You are asking, of course, that some humans give up real estate in order to make that happen. A century of conflict will start over deciding which bits will make up that half.
We can't even discuss reducing immigration in this country (the easiest way to reduce our exploding population) without triggering calls of "racism" xenophobia"! How can we possibly get to a point where we can live in harmony with all the other species we are driving to extinction?
1
This is a really exceptional article. Of particular interest to me was the description of the work performed by John Wehausen. While living in California I was able to see a two hour presentation that John gave. It was outstanding. In addition to working with the sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, John's cutting edge DNA analysis of Desert Bighorn Sheep determined critical habitat requirements for these majestic creatures. In the southern California desert there are isolated mountain ranges. Researchers had long been concerned about the genetic diversity in Desert Bighorn Sheep populations. John's studies showed that rams were moving across the desert floor to different isolated mountain ranges in order to find ewes to breed with. This movement is critical to the future of the species, as it insures genetic diversity. Without the knowledge of where these male sheep move, development activities such as industrial solar and wind power facilities could've destroyed critical habitat.
I applaud the New York Times for science reporting like this, and would very much like to see more.
I applaud the New York Times for science reporting like this, and would very much like to see more.
42
According to the Center For Biological Diversity, we all play a role in this disaster. The worst thing we do is eat animal products. Excerpt:
"Wild animals suffer not only the collateral damage of meat-related deforestation, drought, pollution and climate change, but also direct targeting by the meat industry. From grazing animals to predators, native species are frequently killed to protect meat-production profits. Grass-eating species such as elk, deer and pronghorn have been killed en masse to reserve more feed for cattle. Important habitat-creating animals such as beavers and prairie dogs have been decimated because they disrupt the homogenous landscapes desired by livestock managers.
"'Predator control' programs designed to protect the livestock industry helped drive keystone predators like California grizzly bears and Mexican gray wolves extinct in their ecosystems. Adding insult to injury — and flying in the face of modern conservation science — the livestock industry remains the leading stodgy opponent to otherwise-popular efforts to recover species like the Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and New Mexico."
http://www.takeextinctionoffyourplate.com/meat_and_wildlife.html
We can all start helping tremendously, right now. Boycott cruelty.
"Wild animals suffer not only the collateral damage of meat-related deforestation, drought, pollution and climate change, but also direct targeting by the meat industry. From grazing animals to predators, native species are frequently killed to protect meat-production profits. Grass-eating species such as elk, deer and pronghorn have been killed en masse to reserve more feed for cattle. Important habitat-creating animals such as beavers and prairie dogs have been decimated because they disrupt the homogenous landscapes desired by livestock managers.
"'Predator control' programs designed to protect the livestock industry helped drive keystone predators like California grizzly bears and Mexican gray wolves extinct in their ecosystems. Adding insult to injury — and flying in the face of modern conservation science — the livestock industry remains the leading stodgy opponent to otherwise-popular efforts to recover species like the Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and New Mexico."
http://www.takeextinctionoffyourplate.com/meat_and_wildlife.html
We can all start helping tremendously, right now. Boycott cruelty.
8
While I greatly enjoy wildlife and nature, I have very mixed feelings about efforts to reintroduce and protect grizzly bears and other potentially human killing predators in the wild. There are some good, valid reasons why they have been hunted and killed previously.
If you're not willing to tolerate large, dangerous preditors you don't really like wildlife or nature. This is not a value judgment, it's just that without them you might as well visit a zoo or watch a nat Geo show. It's not really nature or wild without them.
The author states, "People have always manipulated the natural world." This is an odd claim and I don't see how it stands up. Humans evolved with the natural world and the natural world evolved with humans so that there was an interdependence. This was a win-win situation. It is true that about ten thousand years ago or so, humans began manipulating the natural world with agriculture, but, before that stretching back hundreds of thousands of years, humans acted upon the world around them, but were also acted upon by the world they lived in. It was not one-sided.
4
10,000 years ago there were only a couple million human beings in th world
today, more than 7 bill
th world is th same size
and th technology man has developed for manipulating th world has increased a billion fold
trouble brewing, any way you look at it
today, more than 7 bill
th world is th same size
and th technology man has developed for manipulating th world has increased a billion fold
trouble brewing, any way you look at it
10
We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Onwards to 20 billion!!
Onwards to 20 billion!!
1
as a people, we fail to see that a loss of privacy in the digital tsunami of the 21st century is a loss of our freedom. the current battleground underneath the feet of apple, e.g., as they prepare to face off against the federal government, is just one of many little big horns to come as it regards our privacy... one can hope the underdog of apple carries the day against the big brother of government (and even if they gained a victory today, there are so many tomorrows, laced with certain losses), but this hope is only a day long... 'the man', uncontrolled by a drowsy citizenry, is destined to win in the end. so too with our wilderness areas and creatures that inhabit them. we are already moving in the wrong direction with our wild lands and creatures: wolves, bison, grizzly bears... these creatures are fighting for their lives as the walmarts and the highways and the subdivisions and the 'progress' emerges... from these pock marks on the land comes the perceived need for safety, for more information -for more 'progress'. this article captures that phenomena well as it regards the wild of north america, but i fear the people are not aware of the one-day-at-a-time death that our 'city freedoms' (privacy) and our 'wild resources' (the ever changing/degrading definition of what is wild) are undergoing. when we have paved the place over, and are without both privacy and anything resembling wilderness, our wonderment about where it all went will have come too late.
4
I spend a fair amount of time in Yosemite, and must confess I've never seen a Sierra Nevada Red Fox. I'll even confess I never knew the species ever existed. But this motion-activated camera shows there's at least one – and there must have been at least two at some point, since that fox presumably had a mother and father. Not much choice in the marriage department, I suppose, but at least someone is out there (or was).
2
I'm not really sure what the author's message is here. He seems to lament that the willderness is not big enough or wild enough anymore to interact with wildlife that is present without help or interference resulting from human interaction and management. My first suggestion would be that if your goal is to interact with wildlife in a natural setting then get out of Yosemite National Park. California along with the rest of the intermountain west is comprised of millions of square miles of "wild country". Though not all of it is perfectly pristine and untrammeled, even the less adventurous have ample opportunities to interact with wildlife in a wild setting. In Montana, we often joke about the wildlife we have seen in the wilderness versus sightings in Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks which are fondly referred to as the Zoo. If you want to really see wildlife, get off the beaten path and go the the wildernes; and most importantly get out of your car and out of the parking lot.
8
Well said! Humans want their wildlife to be "safe", to be neat and pretty and to be accessible on demand. Driving down a road with the windows up and the AC blasting is the perfect way to see but not touch dirty, smelly animals, right?
I'm reminded of a story told at a "Living with Wildlife" workshop I attended in CA many years ago. The wildlife officer said she responded to a resident's call of a brown bear that had taken up residence on the home's deck. When she showed up at the posh home and pulled out a rifle to shoot the bear, the homeowner threw a fit saying she assumed the bear would be darted and "taken away". The wildlife officer, having gone through the same scenario countless times at countless other homes, replied "Lady, if there was an 'away', I'd be living there!"
I'm reminded of a story told at a "Living with Wildlife" workshop I attended in CA many years ago. The wildlife officer said she responded to a resident's call of a brown bear that had taken up residence on the home's deck. When she showed up at the posh home and pulled out a rifle to shoot the bear, the homeowner threw a fit saying she assumed the bear would be darted and "taken away". The wildlife officer, having gone through the same scenario countless times at countless other homes, replied "Lady, if there was an 'away', I'd be living there!"
1
Good article. I learned a lot. I don't know if the analogy I'm about to make is correct, but I would think that using technology (human ingenuity in general) would be fine to manage the wilds provided we understand limits of our ability--that we understand, say, we can help a top of food chain animal provided the ground, ecosystem it is supposed to live in, is relatively intact, but if the ground we are to work with is too far gone (destroyed by natural or human causes) we can do little (for now in human technological development) to fix it let alone cultivate it with top of food chain animals. What I mean is, take your average musician. The musician knows the hard part is the "ground" (complex and deep food chain weave of interaction in natural environment, in music the compositional structure). Provided the musician has ground the musician can then go ahead and introduce soloing over structure, which is equivalent environmentally to the introduction of top of food chain animals. But everything depends on correct ground. And it is difficult in any field to get your ground right. When it comes to the environment humans seem vastly deficient in getting ground right, but are ok in helping this or that top of food chain animal. In music the analogy would be that we are pretty good soloists provided we have a decent tune to work with in the first place (if just good soloists we depend on a bandmate or other composer for composition). If done right, managed wild can be wild music.
2
A good analogy and take it a step further. What is that ground and how to we know it's stable. The smallest animals and plants control much of the biosphere from out gut bacteria that allow all these large animals to thrive to the algae that produce the oxygen that we breathe. We would benefit from focusing on maintaining that ground of small biota. Second, we have a cultural bias toward humans being human, but until we start to see ourselves as part of the biosphere in a non-binary way, our solutions will not ring true and our solo will be out of tune with the rest of the planet. But how do we change how we think about ourselves? That appears the far larger and more important problem since we are overloading our ecosystems with our special behavior.
Regardless the methods employed, the time when large populations of wild animals could live in natural habitats according to their untamed nature without human permission is long past. Wild things and wild places can now only exist when a human support system provides the financial, political and cultural commitments required. This is why "leaving them alone" is the path to extinction. This is why ideologies and cultural bigotry that divide people who profess good intentions toward the wild are social pathologies that slowly destroy rather than heal.
If the author had included information about who is paying for all the technology described we would have a better starting point for discussion. Virtually all wildlife conservation work is paid for by hunters and anglers -- those widely despised atavists. Meanwhile, the universe of wildlife species beyond legal game seek their permission to live among a public of animal-lovers who contribute little while preaching loudly.
If we really want to keep wild things and wild places in the future we must pull people together and deliver that necessary human support system.
If the author had included information about who is paying for all the technology described we would have a better starting point for discussion. Virtually all wildlife conservation work is paid for by hunters and anglers -- those widely despised atavists. Meanwhile, the universe of wildlife species beyond legal game seek their permission to live among a public of animal-lovers who contribute little while preaching loudly.
If we really want to keep wild things and wild places in the future we must pull people together and deliver that necessary human support system.
2
I would like to refer everyone to the revolutionary perspective on conservation recently published in Science magazine, as well as the associated eLetter authored by myself.
"Evolution in the Anthropocene"
François Sarrazin & Jane Lecomte
Science 26 Feb 2016:
Vol. 351, Issue 6276, pp. 922-923
DOI: 10.1126/science.aad6756
In the critically important ongoing debate on the use of emerging genetic engineering technologies on humans, we have to begin, now, to consider the potential of genetically engineering OURSELVES, pan-culturally and pan-ethnically, for sustainability. In order to save our own and the planet's other life form's evolutionary potential, i.e., to make it through our technological adolescence without destroying ourselves (thank you, Dr. Alloway for that turn of phrase, in the great movie, "Contact," featuring Jodi Foster, and inspired by Dr. Carl Sagan) we have to wrench the genetically-based functional design of our minds out of the hands of natural selection. We have to learn of ways, as would ANY sustainable technological species, of tuning our own minds to approach conservation in a way requiring much less contingent compassion, prosociality, and biophilia than we would ever be able to manifest if we keep passively allowing natural selection to design our psyches. Really successful conservation will require that we carefully institute a program of Intentional Compassion-Centered Genetic Evolution, on all of us, and our progeny.
"Evolution in the Anthropocene"
François Sarrazin & Jane Lecomte
Science 26 Feb 2016:
Vol. 351, Issue 6276, pp. 922-923
DOI: 10.1126/science.aad6756
In the critically important ongoing debate on the use of emerging genetic engineering technologies on humans, we have to begin, now, to consider the potential of genetically engineering OURSELVES, pan-culturally and pan-ethnically, for sustainability. In order to save our own and the planet's other life form's evolutionary potential, i.e., to make it through our technological adolescence without destroying ourselves (thank you, Dr. Alloway for that turn of phrase, in the great movie, "Contact," featuring Jodi Foster, and inspired by Dr. Carl Sagan) we have to wrench the genetically-based functional design of our minds out of the hands of natural selection. We have to learn of ways, as would ANY sustainable technological species, of tuning our own minds to approach conservation in a way requiring much less contingent compassion, prosociality, and biophilia than we would ever be able to manifest if we keep passively allowing natural selection to design our psyches. Really successful conservation will require that we carefully institute a program of Intentional Compassion-Centered Genetic Evolution, on all of us, and our progeny.
3
You want to bring back Eugenics? No thanks!
1
Robert: Watson's impulse has always been a subtext of some of the figures (including E. O. Wilson) since the dawn of what was called sociobiology in the 1970s and 1980s. Clearly, it hasn't gone away.
Realizing as you do that humans are a natural phenomenon, what is the culture that we need to produce to think of ourselves as we actually are in the biosphere--connected to everything else as for example dependent on oxygen generated by algae and plants. Integrating ourselves into the biosphere will be the most effective use of technology. Building a culture that includes humanity and nature as a single complex organism will be crucial to making the right decisions about what to do with our technology.
All that is necessary for the predators to return is for the rest of us to do nothing. 'Natural" or not Griffith Park in Downtown Los Angeles has a Mountain Lion(s). We know this because a few days ago one of them ate a Koala Bear at the L.A. Zoo. Los Angeles boasts a "Target Rich" environment of pets feral or otherwise to support predictors. The Predators will prosper and multiply. Sooner or later the residents will discover why their ancestors hunted down the lions, bears, wolves, coyotes and other predators.
Personally, I'm for protecting the Predators and letting people learn to co-exist with them!
Personally, I'm for protecting the Predators and letting people learn to co-exist with them!
5
spot on
1
The notion of "wilderness" in quotes, as something to be preserved, is a uniquely American expression of 19th century Romanticism, which was possible in the New World precisely because much of it remained unexplored, or at least unsettled. I worked as managing editor of The Sierra Club Bulletin back in the '70s, when wilderness preservation was both urgent and intellectually satisfying. Today, it is not enough. Duane does a great job of explaining the difficulties and compromises that now must be made to preserve not pristine wilderness per se, but rather its creatures and the habitats they require. Diversity is essential to our own survival, and it starts in those areas that still remain wild enough to support us and a variety of plants and animals on whom our survival may ultimately depend. Kudos to Duane for a fine essay on this critical issue.
Stephen Whitney
Former Managing Editor of The Sierra Club Bulletin
Author, A Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada, Sierra Club Books, OP.
Stephen Whitney
Former Managing Editor of The Sierra Club Bulletin
Author, A Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada, Sierra Club Books, OP.
7
Thank you to The NY Times for addressing such a vital subject for our planet and its inhabitants. I was born in the wilderness and have been a front-seat witness of its rapid destruction by men in the last fifty years. As a kid, I was taught to grab my gun and shoot whatever game animal was in sight and reach of it. In no time there was no more animals around our land : wolves, foxes, crows, rabbits, prairie dogs, name it ; gone ! At that time I didn't know I was a predator of the worst kind along with loggers, miners, roads, water and air pollution, noise, industrial fishing, poaching, etc. Today, I wish my father had bought me a camera instead of a gun to shoot animals. As a teacher, I try to repair what I once destroyed by teaching kids respect and admiration for every living creature. On my land, no hunting is ever allowed and I see the forest and its habitats as the most precious pieces of jewel I possess. I teach my children to protest and obstruct, at all cost, the destruction of our environment for money.
29
If we don't save the wilderness will people keep asking irrelevant questions?
I have no problem with a rapidly-refined technological approach to the preservation of wild species. We must do what we can against the mass extinction we have initiated. We need sanctuaries first. Re-wilding remains a possibility if we have preserved species and genetic diversity.
6
"Unsightly collars on all those predators might well diminish the romance, but that would be a small price to pay for the pleasure of their enduring company on this earth."
I can envision a small addition to the growing sensor system: a video feed for the public like the one that has operate for some years at the Panda House in the National Zoo in Washington.
Unsightly collars can be removed from the video feed by digital signal processing software.
I can envision a small addition to the growing sensor system: a video feed for the public like the one that has operate for some years at the Panda House in the National Zoo in Washington.
Unsightly collars can be removed from the video feed by digital signal processing software.
No, the natural landscape is not dead and done, but foresters, developers and hunters would like to say this. They say, "What problem" of cultural-natural interactions? They say, "There is no problem". Problem solved.
Is nature management done in the Russian Chernobyl? We don't need to do management in true species' forest, but the unethical conservationists don't want to set aside species' forests and species' grasslands. They want the jobs. They give the same answer Bernie Sanders does to the meat industry, "The people want meat", or words to that effect. He gave the same answer to those who want to stop biomass burning of US forests, "The people want to log" or words to that effect.
Who really speaks for the natural world when most field ecologists become mediators. One cannot credibly wear two hats. These compromising mediators are no longer speaking for nature and that is, because scientists truly speaking for nature can't ever get paid. Nature cannot pay for human defenders. Nature cannot offer biologists jobs.
Is nature management done in the Russian Chernobyl? We don't need to do management in true species' forest, but the unethical conservationists don't want to set aside species' forests and species' grasslands. They want the jobs. They give the same answer Bernie Sanders does to the meat industry, "The people want meat", or words to that effect. He gave the same answer to those who want to stop biomass burning of US forests, "The people want to log" or words to that effect.
Who really speaks for the natural world when most field ecologists become mediators. One cannot credibly wear two hats. These compromising mediators are no longer speaking for nature and that is, because scientists truly speaking for nature can't ever get paid. Nature cannot pay for human defenders. Nature cannot offer biologists jobs.
1
I think the region of radio activity is mostly in what is now called Ukraine, and it is not actively managed. The melted reactor structure is in what is now called Belarus, a few kilometers to the north. There are people living in the fallout region. A few aged widows, I think. It is safer there, overall, than in the parts of Ukraine where there is active warfare.
What a cop out response.
Want to see big horn sheep, cariboo, grizzly bears, wolves, mountain goats, moose, coyotes, and much more in an area that has no people or roads?
Step back in time 10,000 years and visit an area in west central British Columbia that we call the Chilcotin Ark. The Chilcotin Ark is huge. At 2.5 million hectares, the Ark is twice the size of Banff and Jasper National Parks combined, three and half times bigger than Yellowstone, larger than Belgium.
Globally, the Ark is an outstanding example of an intact continental ecosystem. This vast stretch of wilderness connects the semi-desert grasslands of Churn Creek Park bordering the Fraser Canyon to the far reaches of Tweedsmuir Park beyond the mystical Rainbow Ranges, over six
hundred kilometers to the northwest. It harbors four major geologic regimes, B.C's highest peaks, dormant volcanoes, lava plateaux and rift valleys that cradle immense lakes up to 100 kilometers long. This medley of elevational extremes, weather patterns, orographic regions, flora and fauna cannot be experienced anywhere else in Earth’s north temperate region.
Step back in time 10,000 years and visit an area in west central British Columbia that we call the Chilcotin Ark. The Chilcotin Ark is huge. At 2.5 million hectares, the Ark is twice the size of Banff and Jasper National Parks combined, three and half times bigger than Yellowstone, larger than Belgium.
Globally, the Ark is an outstanding example of an intact continental ecosystem. This vast stretch of wilderness connects the semi-desert grasslands of Churn Creek Park bordering the Fraser Canyon to the far reaches of Tweedsmuir Park beyond the mystical Rainbow Ranges, over six
hundred kilometers to the northwest. It harbors four major geologic regimes, B.C's highest peaks, dormant volcanoes, lava plateaux and rift valleys that cradle immense lakes up to 100 kilometers long. This medley of elevational extremes, weather patterns, orographic regions, flora and fauna cannot be experienced anywhere else in Earth’s north temperate region.
The references by Daniel Duane to the particular issues associated with mountain lions, gray wolves, and grizzly bears, indicate that one prevailing obstruction in our path toward a more just relationship with wild animals is the prejudice of so many people against predators. At least in California, it seems there is a robust group of knowledgeable defenders of these animals. But that cannot be counted on everywhere -- even in Oregon, newly resident wolves have been stripped of legal protections. To say nothing of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming!
Of course we want animals such as bighorn sheep and elk to thrive as well. But there is no good reason why helping the ungulates must inevitably mean the killing of the predators. Hopefully the wildlife conservationists understand it to be a top priority, to find ways to manage these complex ecosystems in a non-lethal way.
And that has a place alongside that other top priority, instructing people who live near wild areas on how to get along with their wild neighbors.
Of course we want animals such as bighorn sheep and elk to thrive as well. But there is no good reason why helping the ungulates must inevitably mean the killing of the predators. Hopefully the wildlife conservationists understand it to be a top priority, to find ways to manage these complex ecosystems in a non-lethal way.
And that has a place alongside that other top priority, instructing people who live near wild areas on how to get along with their wild neighbors.
1
All our parks and reserves are intensely managed. If they weren't, they would (ironically) quickly become unnatural. There are too many invasive plants and animals and too many of our most beautiful and interesting natives are too sensitive to survive on their own at this point.
3
we are the wild that needs saving
Surveillance and manipulation. Sounds like something we do to each other more and more efficiently except that humans are harder to herd around. Are humans destined to become mere extensions of machines as technology rules our lives and genomics comes to touch each of us.
1
"If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
This was the glassy-eyed dictum we'd hear uttered by MBA students with the sanctity of scripture. Seems to me that our penchant for measuring and managing the Earth over the last 300 years is what got us into this problem in the first place.
But it's exciting to see the next wave of conservationists and citizen scientists embrace these modern tools to protect and restore what's left. Hopefully they'll be used to justify the case for a larger re-wilding and more expansive habitat corridors, which is what these ecosystems need to truly recover and thrive.
This was the glassy-eyed dictum we'd hear uttered by MBA students with the sanctity of scripture. Seems to me that our penchant for measuring and managing the Earth over the last 300 years is what got us into this problem in the first place.
But it's exciting to see the next wave of conservationists and citizen scientists embrace these modern tools to protect and restore what's left. Hopefully they'll be used to justify the case for a larger re-wilding and more expansive habitat corridors, which is what these ecosystems need to truly recover and thrive.
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Growing up in Montana, I saw bears every time we visited Glacier Park, and my dad saw them up close when he went on pack trips into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, almost 50 years ago and earlier. Montana is a unique place as the 4th. largest state, and until recently, less than a million people, now it has inched over that number. That is why it is the last best place on earth. The hope for the earth when it is over populated by double, is that man will no matter how well intentioned or methodical, destroy most of the habitat around the world, as the human factor will overrun most of the environment. That is what nature does, unfortunately, as it is survival of the fittest.
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To what extent can densely populated human terrain begin to look more natural? In Jefferson and Boulder counties of Colorado, a very popular and successful program has added thousand of acres to open space parks. Still more is likely to come, as old time ranchers would rather sell to the county than become subdivisions. Agriculture might change too, If greenhouse ag can be made wind powered and cheap, vast track of marginal land could go back to nature. Wild life corridors get established as special wild life bridges are built over freeways. We can also make"reverse improvements" to our land, removing non discript old houses.
But there has to be a way to measure and evaluate all this. And this land cohabited with humans will not be trully wild, as the aouthor tells us.
But there has to be a way to measure and evaluate all this. And this land cohabited with humans will not be trully wild, as the aouthor tells us.
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Don't forget the flip side, that we also remove significant parts of the natural world to fit our needs. Numerous insects are considered pests and we do everything we can to wipe them out. Same is true for numerous mammals and reptiles. We shape nature to fit our model of what is tolerable and desirable for man. Nature is no more than what we allow it to be; it has been that way for a long time and that is only likely to increase.
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But they, too, are watching us, and like François, le chat tigré, the stories they could tell!
The human race, basically the most cancerous species in existence as altered everything in its path. The invention of gun powder allowed less experienced and not very good subsistence hunters to become prolific at killing animals. Animals with no defenses against a gun. It then turned into a sport - putting heads of slaughtered animals on walls. Subsistence hunting became "sport" hunting. Sport hunting would be fair if the animals knew how to shoot as well. The use of a fluid left over from the dinosaurs gave us gasoline, which in turn allowed the human race to cut down massive amounts of forests in very little time and brought us the car which is now choking the life out of the planet. When a tree or an animal dies, it gives back to the earth while in its respective lifetime took only what it needed to survive. The human race takes and takes and takes, and when a human dies, it leaves nothing back to the earth. Religious zealots claim that animals were put on this earth by god for us to kill and eat. What a crock of dung. We as humans, need to step up and reverse our death march for every other living thing on this planet whether it be a snail, a spider, or a large warm blooded animal. So helping animals survive the killing humans is a must for the survival of this planet.
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Short answer to the title's question: No.
Slightly longer: if by "wilderness" we mean a place uncontrolled by man and not dominated by human development or interactions, then there will always be wild places (I hope). Go more than a few feet into the Pacific Ocean and you are in the wild. But regarding mammals and birds, if all are monitored and managed then no I don't think they are quite wild any longer. At the least, my perception of their state of being has changed.
Slightly longer: if by "wilderness" we mean a place uncontrolled by man and not dominated by human development or interactions, then there will always be wild places (I hope). Go more than a few feet into the Pacific Ocean and you are in the wild. But regarding mammals and birds, if all are monitored and managed then no I don't think they are quite wild any longer. At the least, my perception of their state of being has changed.
The ONLY true solution to maintaining and ever hoping to increase our nations wildlife is with habitat preservation. To survive, they need a place to live.
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How about collars on real estate developers? Keep them out of protected wilderness areas.
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As long as the wild things don't eat us, it's OK.
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Any model of the natural world is suspect if that model requires permanent human management. The key to the Species' Forest Model is the sole control of the forest by natural forces and processes. A species' forest recovering from human control is a variant of the natural landscape, but the natural landscape nonetheless.
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A famous conservationist told me, back in the 80s, that there are no longer any untouched places. We are gardeners now. The trick is to touch lightly.
I fear we may embark on an Oryx and Crake attempt to manipulate DNA to "save nature" but make more species, maybe even homo sapiens, extinct in the process. Luckily, this article is not talking about that sort of hubris.
I fear we may embark on an Oryx and Crake attempt to manipulate DNA to "save nature" but make more species, maybe even homo sapiens, extinct in the process. Luckily, this article is not talking about that sort of hubris.
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The US Wilderness Act defines wilderness as land "untrammeled" by humanity, not "unaffected" by humanity.
http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/WhatIsWilderness
Mr. Duane is shooting down a straw man of his own construction.
http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/WhatIsWilderness
Mr. Duane is shooting down a straw man of his own construction.
There is no wilderness except in places where greedy men and women haven't figured out a way to make a profit fleecing the earth and exploiting the people who live in it. Game long over.
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Bill McKibben nails it with the title of his seminal book: "The End of Nature." One could imagine a major breakthrough in nuclear engineering that would transform society and allow humans, up till now a spreading infection, to retreat to comfortable, concentrated living sites leaving the rest of the globe for true re-wilding. But absent that pipe-dream, it is pretty much over for nature as understood heretofore. "Good Night Gaia..."
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the only species humans do not regulate is their own. As long as people refuse to practice some sort of population control on themselves, the rest of nature will be nothing more than a zoo.
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Human culture must change for us to act as you wish. How can we change the way we look at ourselves. Considering the diversity of opinion around this subject, what is the next step toward seeing humanity and nature as a single complex entity?
1
If people are managing it, it isn't wild. It may be beautiful, it may be breathtaking, it may give us a fleeting glimpse of the natural world, it may be inestimably valuable and worth every effort to save and preserve... but it isn't wilderness any more.
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Keep in mind there is zero 'true' wilderness on earth except for some mountain tops and Antarctica. The entire rest of the planet has been actively managed by indigenous humans since time immemorial. Europeans were not particularly clued in to what they were plunking their own land management schemes on top of, and in fact they still don't recognize it, perhaps because indigenous management has not been as destructive as paving over an entire watershed to better concentrate pollution into rainwater that is drained into local rivers.
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There is no wilderness left in the lower 48. I'm afraid that train pulled out decades ago, perhaps at the end of 19th century. Yellowstone is actually a caricature of wilderness. Big Bend was decimated 100 years ago when all the native grasses were eaten to the ground. The Beartooth wilderness is a small island that is too small to sustain any real wilderness. The coddling of wolves in the Beartooth is destroying the Elk population. Of course, Elk once roamed all over North America. Acadia National Park might as well be the Central Park of Manhattan.
So all of the manipulations of wildlife is like comparing Sea World to the Ocean. Perhaps it is better than nothing, but it produces a lame result. I guess it is better than condos.
So until the next asteroid hits and wipes the slate clean again, wilderness is supplanted by 7.5 billion humans.
So all of the manipulations of wildlife is like comparing Sea World to the Ocean. Perhaps it is better than nothing, but it produces a lame result. I guess it is better than condos.
So until the next asteroid hits and wipes the slate clean again, wilderness is supplanted by 7.5 billion humans.
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Truth. But this does not have to be Homo sapiens' end game. In my opinion, this proves the point of my comment.
Well said. No one talks about population control anymore. As my mother in law said on her death bed: " i'm getting out just in time"
LOL, by your definition, wilderness has never existed. Almost all the environments in the lower 48 have been manipulated by humans for thousands of years. There were a lot of Native Americans in the lower 48 before the white man came and they were not reluctant to burn, hunt and cut. "Wilderness" as you define it is a conceit of modern man.
Assuming Daniel Duane's recounting of the post-Gold Rush history of bighorn sheep is correct, once humans and their disease-ridden domestic sheep appeared in California we unleashed successive reverberations altering the faunal make-up of the region. Perhaps if we could create a societal consensus to evacuate large segments of the Sierra Nevada, or suffer a die-off of our own, nature might drift back toward its pre-19th century pattern. But we are not likely to evacuate the Sierra and if we die off it is likely to be of some manmade disaster also affecting the environment. So to answer Ronald Cohen's question leaving it alone is not really an option because we already have our thumbs on the scale in so many ways, from fragmenting wildlife corridors to spreading toxic materials to fomenting climate change. From the moment humans became an intrusive element the wilderness ceased to be the wilderness if by wilderness we mean free of human impact. If there are attributes of that wilderness we wish to preserve even as we become more intrusive then we must deploy both technology and good judgment as well as recognize we ourselves must accept some of nature's demands on us. While it is cool to see coyotes on a late-night walk in urban Portland the downside is hearing of the mysterious disappearance of a neighbor's little dog that same night. I treasure the sight of the coyote but lament the dog's demise and the pesky raccoons in my attic without satellite collars or management.
5
This information needs to be broadcast to every educational establishment. If we could educate our representatives in Washington that there is more at stake here than profit and loss, it is life itself that we are discussing and no planet is better designed to support life as we know it than planet earth. Let's get a balance on populations. Starting with birth control for Homo Eerectus in the Middle East and Africa, where women have no control over births, and education on the limitations to capitalism. We could also teach the young about their place on the planet, about consciousness and compassion, and the perils of weaponary. We all need to know how to share the earth.
1
Not sure whether the statement on "Homo Eerectus [sic}" was intended to be funny or racist (implying that Middle Eastern and African individuals are somehow a different, more primitive species), but all human beings belong to the Homo sapiens sapiens subspecies. Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived between 1.9 million years ago and 70,000 years ago.
I suppose simply leaving it alone is not an option.
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has there ever been a place where human beings dont meddle ?
1
Yes, it is an option, at least to a much greater degree than is possible now. But only if we take special actions toward Intentional Evolution of our own species' psyches. See my primary comment.
"If technology helps us save the wilderness,
will the wilderness still be wild?" Not exactly, but tho' there will be mistakes made, using technology to preserve wildlife habitat and the creatures who live in it beats standing by, while habitats and the creatures who live in them haphazardly fade from sight.
The title and illustration, The Unnatural Kingdom, suggested how the popular concept of what is a desirable "natural world" can be fickle and oblivious to the real threats of extinction. Many people like pictures of certain animals or wild scenes; but are oblivious to, say, the destruction of wetland habitat - and the reptiles for whom this was home - in the next door development. And they get angry with the fox or coyote in the yard. What many think of as the wild is already a bit of an artificial construct....
will the wilderness still be wild?" Not exactly, but tho' there will be mistakes made, using technology to preserve wildlife habitat and the creatures who live in it beats standing by, while habitats and the creatures who live in them haphazardly fade from sight.
The title and illustration, The Unnatural Kingdom, suggested how the popular concept of what is a desirable "natural world" can be fickle and oblivious to the real threats of extinction. Many people like pictures of certain animals or wild scenes; but are oblivious to, say, the destruction of wetland habitat - and the reptiles for whom this was home - in the next door development. And they get angry with the fox or coyote in the yard. What many think of as the wild is already a bit of an artificial construct....
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Too many now know wild places only from the movies or tv. We don 't have a good understanding of 'nature' and what it is, let alone how to preserve it. I like E.O. Wilson 's idea of leaving half the Earth to the wild. Let it be. As Thoreau famously wrote. 'In wildness is the preservation of the world. '
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