In chapters 1 and 2, Marris presented us with conservationists and ecologists past efforts to conserve nature by attempting to return it to its pristine baseline before human interference, which frankly proved to be futile. And its failure was mostly due to the culturally engraved incorrect understanding or romanticized view of wilderness. In chapters 3 and 4, Marris offers another method focused on not only conserving what’s left of the environment around us but making more nature. Such approach is called rewilding. The goal of rewilding is to restore the “top-of-the-food-chain predators” back to the ecosystems they were part of 13,000 years ago and naturally the large animals will balance out the population of the ecosystem bringing the area to its “pristine” state. The idea here is that, yes, humans take the role of bringing the large wild animals from different parts of the world, mainly from Africa and Asia, but they don’t have a role in the actual work of restoration in the ecosystems. The animals do that. As Vera puts it, “The only thing man did was create the conditions, and nature filled in (71).” Predators in the top-of- the- food chain will preserve diversity and balance of the various prey species, ultimately restoring all aspects of the ecosystem.
As Marris puts it, rewilding sounds like a reasonable idea to many (61). Only nature itself can heal itself or restore itself. I mean after all isn’t that what all conservationists strive after? Nature that’s “untouched” by humans and isolated from civilization. But there are many concerns and “slippery steps” to this method. First, many of the large predators that inhabited the areas are now extinct, mostly because of overhunting. They are being replaced with proxy animals, similar to the extinct ones and they are being brought into the ecosystem. There are a few major problems with proxy animals. First, the “ecosystems have changed” since the extinctions. Second, no one knows how the proxy animals will adjust and behave in the new environment. Dustin Rubenstein from Columbia University expressed a deep concern on this matter saying, “attempting to fill gaps that closed long ago with proxy animals could generate unpredictable results (65)” Proxy animals “could become invasive pests, or escape their parks and cause trouble with local landowners…(65)” There’s a lot of possibility but also risk in placing wild large animals back in the ecosystems.
Not only are there risks but proxy animals raise questions about ethics. Donlan asserts that if the large predator he brings into a new area becomes a “runaway invasive species”, it is no big deal. He can just kill them. “We killed ’em once, we can kill ’em again (65).” Is rewildering ethical if we are choosing what species to protect and are introduced to the ecosystem and killing them if they don’t give us the positive results that we seek? The possibility of proxy animals successfully replacing the role of its extinct original will always be unpredictable.
Rewildering allows the presence of death in the wildlife. And despite its problems, has attracted rare species to the area that was rewildered. “Carcasses have attracted a pair of rare white-tailed eagles to the Oostvaardersplassen (59).” Without human involvement, animals are finding their way to the rewildered ecosystem themselves because it offers what they want. Vera is also expecting wolves to make its home in the Oostvaardersplassen. The idea here once again is that humans just set the stage for wildlife in America to find its way back to the ecosystems that is balanced and diverse. And so mainly for this reason, rewildering’s potential to naturally attract more rare as well as common but equally important animals to its environment, I believe, even with its problems, rewilding might just work.
