I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe.
Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephants. Declines notwithstanding, it's amazing that such a population still exists. Consider how much impact a herd of elephants have on human interests.. agriculture or whatnot. Imagine how hard it would be to get buy-in for a dozen elephants in spain. The african savannah's megafaunal systems still exist! They really are an amazing thing to still have. It's the system we came from.. most of our most ancient art is about them. The first famous french painting features extinct and extirpated megafauna, lions for example.
I agree, it seems like this might have something to do with it. I recently heard some speculative but reasonable (I thought) theory about early Levant humans.^ Basically, elephants were these people's primary prey until populations dwindled and the lifestyle died out.
We often note that our bodies are so weak relative to animals' but that really understates how game changing the human species must have been. First, bodies have all sort of potential that most people never experience because we don't grow up outside and chase elephants. More importantly, people are is good at figuring things out. We're impressed by inquisitive animals, bears or honey badgers, relentlessly try to get what they want by trying everything. That's nothing compared to humans.
A hippo-or-walrus-like thing might avoid getting eaten by a cat-or-bear-like thing by having really thick skin. Humans can't be deterred that way. We don't need to wait until we evolve longer teeth.
Real people must have been a holy terror.
^Fascinating old human stomping grounds... Early Sapiens predate neanderthals in the region. A rare situation where they displace "us," or at least people with skeletons similar to ours.
It's crazy that we're talking about genetically re-engineering mammoths to help revitalize cold climates when we have such trouble preserving these elephant populations.
erm... Idk. I see this as similar to the "we need to solve poverty before we can go to mars" issues. Things just work independently of one another.
On one hand we have conservation, on the continent with the biggest poverty and governance issues. Wilderness, land-use & habitat issues are key issues. Outside of the artic, there just aren't many habits to support those kinds of far ranging species. African land tracts are unique.
Elsewhere we have rewilding, in its infancy. The US seems to be transitioning from one to the other. Europe is very slowly opening up to the idea.
Elsewhere we have some eccentric ideas about engineered hybrids using paleo-genetics, like the idea of bringing back mammoths. The ecological implications are complete unknowns. It's more of a genetics science project, with futuristic zoo implications. It's far from being a wilderness question at all. Resources don't compete.
Projects like the Russian Pleistocene Park don't really need mammoths. They've had a lot success using "closest available substitute" species instead of extinct ones. Maybe African or Asian elephants can (or can be bred to) tolerate that kind of cold and eat local plants.
Probably easier for Canada and the US and the Nordic countries to protect these reintroduced species than some of the more desperate and developing areas of the world. Russia, well I'm not sure. They'd probably benefit the most from the reintroduction of these species but I'm not familiar enough with Russian attitudes towards this sort of project.
It would be amazing to be able to see the megafauna in the wild though, along with protecting the wildlife we currently have.
Every mention of rewilding Scotland I've come across has been talking of reintroducing extinct native species such as Lynx and Wolf. That's along with smaller animals and reducing deer numbers.
Yep... Every serious discussion. All sorts of eccentricity on the less serious end. Technically though, there are a lot of animals most wouldn't see as native to Britain which went extinct at some point in the last 60ky.
Lynx and more raptors are the two on the immediate agenda. Wokf and moose (elk) may be at some point relatively soon. Wolves would likely be big game changers for red deer population dynamics, and livestock farming.
As a bow hunter I am keenly aware of the prowess of animals to know their environment and all its dangers, humans at the top of the list. These animals are wired to survive and adapt. When people are surprised that they exhibit these behaviors it is much more a condemnation of their lack of understanding of nature then it is a novel or new behavior on the part of the animals. These animals exist in a life and death struggle every day.
The effect of elephants (or generally wildlife) being aware of where they are in danger is starkly visible in South Africas Krüger National Park: It's right on the border to Mozambique. On the South African side, wildlife is abundant and fairly well visible, but once you cross over the border, there's no visible wildlife. Some elephant droppings on the road, that's all.
Seems humans having a tough time these days. Elephants better at directions, goldfish have a longer attention span, and orcas are better at mimicking speech. And given that humans (so far) the only species to knowlingly destroy its own habitat, one has to wonder if climate change isnt our own reward.
Having gotten that off my chest its an intersting article about group learning.
I wonder if having for-profit organisations/startups who's core mission it is to protect these fantastic animals would be more successful vs non-profits or government projects. Not necessary to make a buck, but in many cases, for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.
> for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.
How is it possible that changing the primary existential goal from "save animals" to "make profits" will lead to more efficient animal saving rather than loss of efficiency in animal saving for the sake of profit? That seems like the exact opposite of what would happen.
Is it really necessary to explain that people desire to enrich themselves, therefore they seek profit, therefore they will do things which resulted in profit?
It necessary to explain when you magically hand-wave in that it's going to benefit the environment and natural animal populations when all evidence and logic indicates the opposite.
There's no particular evidence that "for profit" organisations do better at handling "common goods". And the very definition of your 'for-profit' organisation is that this is what is providing 'pressure to perform'. If they didn't have that pressure they'd just be the same as non-profit. You'd have to explain how a "profit motive" could impact these common goods - which would mean they wouldn't be in public ownership.
If elephants are smart enough to recognize an enemy, avoid it, and warn other elephants that have not seen this enemy first hand... do they qualify as people?
They certainly seem at least as smart as dolphins, and their trunks allow for a crude form of tool manipulation that dolphins lack. We humans define our personhood in terms not just of raw intelligence, but also by our ability to modify our environments, so...
Tangentially related, but if this train of thought interests you, you may be interested in the "Great Ape Personhood" project. From [0]:
> Great ape personhood is a movement to extend personhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of the Hominidae or great ape family: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.
As "people" is quite a bar and one I don't think is relevant.
I think they do require agency/respect/laws fitting of a properly conscious being though. Often people put humans on a pedestal, but in reality, we aren't special in regards to morality.
Yeah, but we're special in regards to human morality. There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight. It derives quite naturally from us being the result of self interested genes.
> There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight.
Without reason, I'd say there absolutely is something wrong with that. In fact, I'd argue there's no such thing as "human morality", only morality, which applies to humans (and other species). There are certainly some applications of moral law that only apply to humans, but that also applies to other species as well. Again, there's no rightful pedestal to put humans on.
> It derives quite naturally from us being the result of self-interested genes.
You're making an implicitly claim here that what results naturally from our DNA is morally right. You'll have plenty of people arguing that as well.
Everybody treats different categories of living things differently. Most of us would save ourselves before a stranger. We prefer family to non-family, our in-group to our out-group, human life to non-human life, and dog or cat life to rat or cockroach life.
You can argue that all of these different categories have inherent moral worth and that moral worth is not dependent on the perspective of the person making the judgement about moral worth, but almost nobody actually behaves that way. And I would argue that the people who do behave that way are mostly confused.
Elephants are known to knock down trees and vegetation to make it easier to get to the things they want. If you have ever been on a safari you will see how easy it is to spot if there are elephants near by, they destroy just about everything in their path. AFAIK the only animal that regularly does this.
I don't know if modifying the environment for your purposes is consideration for being a person, but as humans we are often poor at understanding intelligence, comprehension, and empathy when something doesn't speak our native tongue.
Their whole point in mentioning that is that humans already do it. Look at their second paragraph. Not sure how you thought someone else didn't know that.
I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe.
Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephants. Declines notwithstanding, it's amazing that such a population still exists. Consider how much impact a herd of elephants have on human interests.. agriculture or whatnot. Imagine how hard it would be to get buy-in for a dozen elephants in spain. The african savannah's megafaunal systems still exist! They really are an amazing thing to still have. It's the system we came from.. most of our most ancient art is about them. The first famous french painting features extinct and extirpated megafauna, lions for example.