Part 8: Losses and recoveries

 

Skylark

Around 40,000 years ago the last glaciation culminated in the Last Glacial Maximum. Modern humans by this time had already reached Australia, and this time saw the end of the Neanderthals, Denisovans and other pre-modern humans who had lived all across the world. They did not disappear entirely however – before they vanished as separate peoples they produced children with modern type humans and their DNA lives on in all of us to this day.

Grey Partridges

How much modern humans were the direct cause of the total extinction or range restriction of the animals I have talked about is not always clear, but a combination of rapid climate change and the selective targeting or large animals by modern humans (who unlike Neanderthals had developed distance weapons such as arrows and other sophisticated technology) must be a main contender. The extinction of elephants and rhinos especially would have resulted in massive expansion of close-canopy forest as the climate warmed compared to earlier periods, a disaster for animals and birds adapted to warmer grasslands. Ironically, it was the invention of agriculture that might have helped them, as fields would have sufficiently emulated the old elephant-created open grassland to provide habitat for what we now think of as “farmland” birds such as Skylarks, finches, buntings, partridges or even Great Bustards.

Great Bustard

In the past few decades an increasing number of different species rendered extinct in this country being reintroduced or having their numbers greatly supplemented by additional released animals. For example, Red Kites were restricted entirely to Wales and were on the verge of extinction until a carefully planned and monitored release programme extended them across the UK and they are commonly seen along many of our motorways as they scan for roadkill. More recently an equally successful reintroduction of White-Tailed Eagles has restored them to Scotland, and a release programme has started on the south coast of England where the first released juveniles are approaching breeding age.

White Tailed Eagle

More problematic is the reintroduction of mammals.  Beaver reintroductions were controversial for a long time – not without reason from the point of view of a farmer whose fields of maize border a river – but they are now in several areas as either fully wild animals or at least as self-supporting animals in fenced areas. The next big areas will be carnivores, of which Wild Cat and Lynx are possibilities. True Eurasian Wild Cats are almost extinct in Scotland as a result of persecution and hybridisation with domestic cats, but their natural range was throughout the UK. There are discussions of possible reintroductions either in Wales or the South West. Lynx are key predators of Roes Deer, which will certainly get them points with arable farmers and foresters, but they are unfortunately also quite capable of killing sheep and as a result sheep farmers are putting up a lot of opposition. Larger predators such as Wolves are talked about, but outside of a fenced enclosure I cannot see wild Wolves being let loos in the UK sadly, although in western Europe Wolves are actually doing very well at the moment – in fact they have already reached the North Sea coast and if they were only slightly better long distance swimmers they would be showing up in southeast England in the next few years.

Eurasian Beaver

The crowded and heavily farmed areas of Britain make rewilding over truly large areas in this country very difficult, but on a smaller scale quite a lot can be done. Conservation grazing is standard practise on reserves to preserve habitat, but usually this involved domestic livestock of various “primitive” breeds such as Exmoor Ponies, Highland Cattle, or indeed, as in the Avon Gorge, Domestic Goat. In 2022 the Wilder Blean Project in Kent plans to use European Bison (inside a large, fenced enclosure) for the same purpose. However, the largest rewilding type project in the UK is currently the Knepp Estate, which has pioneered many new ecological practises by using a mixture of domestic livestock (Longhorn cattle, Exmoor Ponies, Tamworth Pigs) plus deer (Red, Roe, Fallow) to affect the habitats. As a result, Knepp is now home to the largest colony of Purple Emperor butterflies in the UK, and is also a successful site for the Turtle Dove. Knepp is also home to a reintroduction project for White Stork, which became extinct in the UK in the Middle Ages and has now bred successfully (14 chicks fledged in 2021). Knepp is now a role model for what rewilding might look like in a crowded island like Britain in which there is little room for majopr landscape-scale projects in much of the country.

White Stork in Sussex

This brings an end to this series of discussions, I hope readers have enjoyed them, over the next few months I will be looking at the histories of reintroductions in the UK and the lessons that can be learned from how they turned out.