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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sue Lani Madsen: ‘Rewilding’ movement is misguided

Sue Lani Madsen, an architect and rancher, will write opinion for the Spokesman-Review on an occasional basis.  Photo taken Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015.  JESSE TINSLEY jesset@spokesman.com (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
Sue Lani Madsen,columnist

Costco Connections magazine runs a regular feature called “Informed Debate.” The May edition posed the question, “Is rewilding a good idea?”

Rewilding is the opposite of taming the wilderness. It’s often been code for removing people and their domesticated herds from rural areas to create a utopian wilderness untouched by human activity. The rewilding movement focuses on returning keystone predators – other than humans – to the ecosystem.

Just 288 people weighed in on Costco’s online poll, a tiny, nonscientific sample; 64 percent said yes to rewilding and 36 percent said no.

To inform the debate, Costco Connections provided pro and con statements from experts in the field. The “Yes” statement was written by John Davis, an advocate for the Wildlands Network, which calls for a “Pacific Wildway” that sweeps across Central and Eastern Washington to connect Alaska with Baja California. It is one of four North American Wildways promoted by the organization.

The “No” statement was written for Costco Connections by Martha Hoopes, a biology professor from Mount Holyoke College who points out several ways ecosystems are incredibly complex, dynamic and self-adjusting.

We humans have always tamed the wilderness around us to suit our needs for food, shelter and security, and for that reason have been a keystone species.

Keystone species have an impact on their environment out of proportion to their numbers, and may be predators, prey or plants. Human hunting was a decisive factor in controlling wildlife numbers and limiting their range at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, regardless of habitat quality, according to Professor Charles Kay of Utah State University. Whether by the prescribed burns and buffalo jumps of the earliest North American settlers or logging and hunting of modern humans, we have always been an integral part of the ecosystem.

But rewilding in the “hope of restoring ecosystem functions that operated during the Pleistocene epoch” is likely to have devastating and unpredictable effects, Hoopes says. Well-intentioned attempts to re-engineer and correct ecosystems have turned into invasive-species nightmares. Hoppes points to cane toads and Nile perch as prime examples.

The concept of pristine wildlife corridors ignores the history of human interaction within the ecosystem. Lewis and Clark found wildlife abundant in the buffer zones between tribes in eastern Montana, but nearly nonexistent in the relatively heavily populated Columbia Plateau where hunting kept prey numbers down and predators at bay.

Wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park has been held out as a success story in restoring aspen and willows along stream banks. Elk herds that hadn’t had to be wary for generations were no longer adapted to heavy predator pressure. The impact on herd size and behavior was immediate, giving riparian areas a rest.

Still, plant regrowth wasn’t as vigorous as expected. Scientists have been cautious about attributing the recovery to the wolves, since Yellowstone was recovering from a drought at the same time. Changes in the watershed could have played a more significant role.

Longer-term studies have found that beavers may be the missing species. What other unknown unknowns are hidden in the complexity of ecosystems?

Another study looked at the interaction between moose and whitetail deer sharing habitat with the endangered woodland caribou after hunting was restricted. Human hunters can distinguish between species and selectively protect the one we’ve decided to favor. Wolves don’t care if the woodland caribou are on an endangered species list; they’re on the menu. It’s not only humans and their domesticated animals that have a stake in the discussion.

Animals have always adapted to human activities. Urban sightings of moose, coyotes and wild turkeys are examples of wildlife adaptation as much as human encroachment. There is no way to set back the clock to an arbitrary time when the context and species balance were perfect.

The irony is hard to escape: The same progressive movement that insists the world is the result of blind chance and natural selection wants to step in as the intelligent designer.

Columnist Sue Lani Madsen can be reached at rulingpen@gmail.com or on Twitter: @SueLaniMadsen.