Assisted migration is the moving of one species to another environment to ensure their survival as a species. Unlike rewilding, assisted migration saves the species rather than the location. Both of these methods have very different objectives. However, like any solution, there are always complications with executing these projects.
The goal of many of these projects involve saving something that was harmed by human interaction. In assisted migration, humans “guide” these animals to a better location to thrive. Migration is when a specie move to a different location due to climate changes. Sometimes species may not necessarily know when or where to migrate to because of all the damage that humans have caused. Many other problems can arise from assisted migration. Animals are not guaranteed survival at the location they are “guided” to. Since they are almost brought there, the environment may not contain all the necessities for this particular species to live. Some people believe that if a species were supposed to die out, then they should have rather than preserving them. The problem can also arise that the new species will alter the current environment that they are brought to.
Therefore, assisted migration is an extremely complicated issue. Ecologists believe that they should only help animals that are extremely close to extinction. Time, money, and effort is always an issue. Trying to save many species can result in a lot of time and money used. Most of these times, these projects are not always successful. Assisted migration can provide benefits. It would allow a particular species to survival when they would have otherwise perished. I still believe that such an idea is not going to be successful. Moving many animals at once may cause them to be confused. They may not recognize the environment introduced to them since they aren’t used being around species that may have not been there before. It is also difficult to decide and choose where to move these animals.
Many people believe that since humans have caused many changes in nature, that we should be the ones to try and save it. Assisted migration may not be the best idea for this. A lot of species would need to be migrated if they were drastic climate changes in an area. I believe that all animals should continue to live the way they do. Humans will always be changing the Earth. There can be no guarantees that the time, money and effort put into such a project would come out beneficial. Therefore, I think that there is no use in trying something that will only affect such a small part of nature.
