The news caught my eye. The European Bison, or 'wisent,' will be reintroduced to Southern England. The Wilder Blean Project plans to use a small herd of bison to regenerate a former pine plantation. They will be the first bison to browse an English forest in six thousand years. Together with some wild ponies and …
How to Keep Returning Wildlife Wild
For the latest post on the Plastocene, I'm linking to a piece I published yesterday in The Atlantic on the complicated question of how to keep wildlife wild on a crowded planet. We go to restoration sites in Italy and the UK, before bringing the lessons back to Montana. Saving nature clearly ain't what it used to …
A Small Brown Bear with A Big Weight on Its Shoulders
On Tuesday of this week, Rewilding Europe relaunched their work in the Apennine region of Italy. Together with their partner Salviamo L’Orso, the organization is beginning a campaign they hope will lead to a growing population of one of the signature species of the region, the Marsican brown bear. An additional goal is to provide …
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Camera Traps and Lynx in the Age of Humans
The attractant made me gag. We had just finished setting up the motion-activated camera in the snowy Montana woods. We were putting the finishing touches to a site that we hoped might lure in an elusive lynx or fisher. The final task was to suspend from nearby trees a couple of small sponges soaked in …
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Gene Drives and the Hijacking of Origins
Over the last thirty years, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have struggled to gain the confidence of consumers. In the European Union, many member states have maintained virtual moratoria on their use in agriculture. Even in the less precautionary U.S., where only the weakest of labeling laws have ever made it through Congress, surveys show that …
Of Wolves and People
The bloody standoff was over in just a couple of seconds. The old wolf lunged at the cow elk’s neck, twisting his jaws at just the right second to deceive the elk about his trajectory. Offered just a glimmer of an opening, he clamped down with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure on her throat. In …
A Sussex Castle Rewilded
Drive past the gatehouse and head up the private, single lane road towards Knepp Castle and you do feel a little like you have arrived on the set of Downton Abbey. Pastures studded with magnificent oaks flank the narrow roadway that leads you to the main house. The landscape on both sides conveys a deep …
Wild Wolves on Tamed Landscapes
The old hunter leaned on his truffle-digging tool and took a drag on his cigarette. “Duemila lupi,” he said. Two thousand wolves. He scanned our astonished faces and then looked down at the dirt and shook his head, not even trying to conceal his disgust. We were standing in a young oak forest in Umbria …
Sailing on Oceans of Grass
“Prairie schooners” they called them. The covered wagons that moved across the tallgrass prairie of the American mid-west in the nineteenth century would have revealed no daylight under their carriage. Their wheels would have been completely obscured by grasses and forbs that stood five or six feet high. The only objects visible from afar would …
To Rise From the Dead
“Extinction,” as they say, “is forever.” It is the threat that has launched a thousand environmental campaigns. Despite being the ultimate fate of all species, extinction remains universally appalling in its finality. The thought of extinction serves as a chilling reference point for almost all conservation thinking. Technologies being developed in the emerging Plastocene epoch …
