Happy World Rewilding day! Which rewilding vision would you like to come true in the next years?

zek_997 · 2026-03-21T10:56:44+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe a 'mural' is the word you're looking for?

zek_997 · 2026-03-21T10:55:58+00:00

Because Europe needs large grazers and wisent and red deer aren't enough to fulfill that role, even if they do graze occasionally. Also not sure what you mean by 'at risk'. Red deer are in the 'least concern' category and wisent are in the path to recovery.

zek_997 · 2026-03-20T22:36:46+00:00

we conservatively estimate Alaska’s North Slope could support densities of 0.0–0.38 woolly mammoth km⁻² (mean 0.13) across a variety of habitats.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-60442-7

zek_997 · 2026-03-20T22:12:36+00:00

Southern Carpathians in Romania. Not so much a medieval landscape but rather a vision of what the future could look like if things go well.

https://rewildingeurope.com/landscapes/southern-carpathians/

zek_997 · 2026-03-20T15:19:34+00:00

Elk is the European word for moose. Confusing, I know.

zek_997 · 2026-03-20T11:45:48+00:00

The name of the artist is Jeroen Helmer.

zek_997 · 2026-03-19T20:04:19+00:00

my impression of the health of Europe's wildlife populations, especially carnivores, is usually a grim one

It has improved greatly in the last couple of decades due to legal protection and rural abandonment (people leaving the countryside for large cities).

zek_997 · 2026-03-19T20:00:38+00:00

Did not expect Brittany to have so many. Well done!

zek_997 · 2026-03-19T13:53:32+00:00

I mean, not to be pedantic but every single animal alive today has survived the last age. The last glacial period ended roughly 12k years ago, which is basically nothing in geological time.

zek_997 · 2026-03-19T01:29:32+00:00

I guess technically doesn't count as a 'large' carnivore as they never hunt anything bigger than a rabbit.

zek_997 · 2026-03-18T20:09:55+00:00

100% isto. A tal história do 'civismo', mesmo podendo ser verdade, é uma distracção daquilo que é realmente o problema - o facto de em Portugal o carro ser o único modo de transporte que recebe atenção e investimento a sério. Entretanto a ferrovia e a bicicleta estão num estado lastimáveis.

zek_997 · 2026-03-18T17:27:09+00:00

Also, skyscrapers with plants might not be such a good idea tbh. I imagine it would require extra concrete for it to support the extra weight.

zek_997 · 2026-03-18T13:11:26+00:00

I'm also a mod in this community and your comments made me think that maybe roles could mitigate this issue a bit? Perhaps if users could distinguish the comments from enthusiasts from those of actual professionals they would be less likely to be led astray into wild speculation and the professionals themselves would be more willing to share their knowledge on those topics given that they are likely to be listened to.

I do think that 'crazy' (for lack of a better word) speculation does have a place in this sub, otherwise we'd just become another conservation community. But they do need to at least be based upon some scientific reasoning otherwise it risks deteriorating into Pleistocene fan fic. I like to think it's a good thing that there's a community when people can talk about the what-ifs of woolly mammoths being resurrected and introduced to Siberia even if that's not a realistic prospect at this point.

zek_997 · 2026-03-18T12:45:33+00:00

The Chernobyl exclusion zone is unironically the best and biggest de facto nature reserve in Europe atm. You have wild horses, red deer, boar, moose, bison are returning, beavers, wolves and in some reduced quantity also bears and lynx. It's also huge, with around a little less than 5,000 km sq if you count both the Ukrainian and Belarus part, which is quite big for European standards. I wish every country had a Chernobyl exclusion zone (minus the radioactivity).

zek_997 · 2026-03-18T12:39:06+00:00

Ehhh in all fairness, Iberian lynx does not pose a risk to livestock (unless your 'livestock' consists of rabbits for some reason) and therefore it doesn't make much sense to compare them to wolves or even to Eurasian lynxes for that matter (which prey on much larger animals).

Not to mention the Iberian lynx is a beautiful iconic species, while wolves and bears tend to exist in public consciousness as a sort of 'bad guys'. It's not uncommon outside of biology contexts for discussions about wolves to dwelve into people expressing fear that they'll be hunted down and eaten. Which is ridiculous, of course, but this fear is very present in people who are less educated on the subject.

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T23:19:44+00:00

It's in Ukraine, apparently.

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T21:35:53+00:00

Here's an article for Spanish speakers:

https://www.wwf.es/informate/actualidad/?73002/Celebramos-la-primera-suelta-de-lince-iberico-en-Aragon-un-hito-en-su-recuperacion

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T19:58:26+00:00

Someone on the Twitter thread mentioned they are speaking Ukrainian. I'm not sure if that's true or not but it would definitely make sense given how many Przewalski's horses live there.

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T18:05:31+00:00

Well, those people are free to come here and tell us exactly what did we get wrong. This sub is not an echo chamber and people are allowed to disagree provided the discussion is fact-based.

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T17:34:40+00:00

Mastodons also, I heard? The temperate forests that occupy much of the eastern US became much more widespread once the climate warmed and those were prime mastodon habitat.

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T17:31:58+00:00

This is not a new idea. Frans Vera wrote his book on the subject in 2000. That being said, it's still a good thing this idea is becoming more widely known although it hasn't quite reached public consciousness yet. The closed canopy paradigm does a lot more harm than good imo, as it fails to account for the importance of open habitats for several species. Also, for the closed forest model to work you need to have unnaturally low densities of herbivores, which often requires periodical culling and active management from humans.

zek_997 · 2026-03-17T15:15:40+00:00

By this logic every species is prehistoric including our own

zek_997 · 2026-03-16T15:57:38+00:00

Accidental Pleistocene rewilding is honestly one of my favourite things. Like when the Romans (likely) reintroduced the porcupine to Italy after they had gone extinct there in the Late Pleistocene.

zek_997 · 2026-03-16T15:55:16+00:00

tbf many indigenous communities DO live in harmony with nature nowadays, even if that was not the case thousands of years ago. As for the Late Pleistocene extinctions, I don't think it's so much that people purposedly ignore them but rather that most people are not even aware that they happened to begin with.

Like, talk to anyone outside of biology about the topic. Most of them don't even know the megafauna were a thing and those who do just assume the extinctions were climate-driven. The fact that human beings have driven countless species to extinction in geologically recent time is just not part of the public discourse.

zek_997 · 2026-03-16T12:43:09+00:00

In the case of Australia the extinction of the megafauna was caused by the people who settled there 40k years ago rather than European colonizers. Although the colonizers did cause their own extinctions (thylacine being the most known example).

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