wild release doesn't work?

Tish Silberbauer & Dave Britton xadeb at magna.carbuncle.com.au
Sat Feb 14 19:43:02 EST 1998


On Sat, 14 Feb 1998 12:13:13 -0500, "John V. Calhoun"
<bretcal at gte.net> wrote:

<snip trials and tribulations of reintroducing Atala lycaenid in
Florida - success, but only after many attempts over a long time,
along with suitable habitat creation which was more fortuitious than
by design>

Is it possible that this represents the "middle ground" in regard to
re-introductions etc?  Having tracked down Neil Jones original post in
Deja News where he says in response to Harry Parvulaan (I think!).

>> 2) The best way to conserve endangered species is to allow licensed
commercial
>> breeding of such species for managed release, in conjunction with #1, above.
>> Breeding/recovery experiments conducted by institutions or universities are
>> usually of limited scope and are usually part of a study.  Commercial
>> operations, by nature, would likely be much more aggressive and successful
in
>> their goals.

>Science has shown conclusively that for the majority of species,
>THIS DOES NOT WORK. Sorry to shout but I have repeatedly quoted he researh
>with references. Furthermore as someone on the sharp end of conservation
>I am repeatedly having to fight just this kind of idea from develpers wishing
>to destroy habitats. For example to  one Environmental Statement
> says about a Red Data Book  beetle says that little is known about its
>ecology but that it can easily be moved elsewhere. I hope that I never get
>treated by a doctor with ideas like that. :-) We don't know anything
>about the disease or what it is but we will just prescribe some asprin
>and it will go away.

I would follow on from this and say that re-introductions are
definitely a last ditch effort rather than a regular method of
conserving leps.  I'm sure Neil could have gone on and cited the
Andrew Pullin paper from Restoration Ecology
(Pullin, A.S. (1996) Restoration of butterfly populations in Britain.
Restoration Ecology, 4:71-80.) where he has documented the attempts
and the failures.  I think this is particularly relevant rather than a
special case which only applies to Britain.  Here we have a fauna
which is well-studied compared to many other countries, with a large
number of well meaning persons prepared to make an effort, and a long
history of re-introduction attempts, yet the number of failures is
quite dramatic (I think it is less than 11% of attempts succeeded in
the sense that the re-introduced species was still present after 3
years).  Now, if it is that hard to do it in Britain, it is doubly
hard when we are dealing with (in many cases in my country, Australia)
species where the life history is incompletely described, the
interactions between plant hosts, ants and other organisms poorly
known, and the number of concerned persons low and poorly funded.

Sorry to be long-winded about this, but in short, it is a *much* more
economical approach to preserve habitat and existing populations.  All
re-introductions do at the moment is give an "out" to developers and
governments who are ignorant of the realites.  They should always be
at the back of the list of "things to do" rather than a legimate
option.

just my fifteen dollars and twenty cents worth,

Dave Britton.

--
Dave & Tish
IRC: Mutah. Remove the offensive skin condition to email



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