Back To Nature. [Rewilding by Monbiot]

[Goatboy]

Seems one of the best ways to rewild/protect to land is to make it useful. Though some don't like shooting estates it's a darn good way to keep sheep off of what would other wise be low fical value land. National Parks is another and oddly to some the vast swathes of MOD training land has some of the best protected environments and archaeology in the UK despite having tanks and ordinance sprinkled over it.
It's a bit like the idea of using hunting or farming to protect rare species. Unfortunately if you whack a fiscal value on things people protect them and let tem thrive. Doesn't have to be destructive, tourism can play a part though some may argue that that takes away the wildness. The Galapagos Islands being a point in fact.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[British Red]

Just so Goatboy. Big game hunting in Africa has, literally, turned poachers into game keepers. When the local villages get the benefit they protect the animals. Many woods on farms are kept as cover for game birds. Get rid of them and it makes financial sense to tear out the wood for wheat

 

[Andy BB]

Interestingly, rabbits are an imported species.......

 

[Andy BB]

..as are hares...

 

[Toddy]

I knew it of rabbits, but not of hares. There you go, you learn sommat new every day

M

 

[Drain Bamaged]

I believe the Mountain Hare is native it's Rabbits and Brown Hares that are/were introduced.

DB.

 

[Andy BB]

I believe the Mountain Hare is native it's Rabbits and Brown Hares that are/were introduced.

DB.

Yup - you're right. Mountain hares are so rare nowadays that it'll probably only ever be a brown hare you'll see.

 

[Andy BB]

Mice, rats and fallow deer are also introduced species apparently.

Re rabbits, I love the idea that they came over with the Normans as food for posh people, got out and became a staple of the general population for centuries after. Who said the aristocracy were useless?!

 

[Goatboy]

Considering their plague proportions these days there are records of bunnies being transported round the country up till the 1700's as there was none and folk wanted them for game purposes.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[boatman]

Some species of mouse came back with the end of the ice age and were a nuisance in the Iron Age whereas rats were not present then.

 

[Toddy]

I didn't know that; I knew there were mice here before the land bridge washed away, but I thought the rats came earlier than around 1730 according to the reading I've been doing. Certainly post dating the 1666 great fire.
Learn sommat new every day

M

 

[dewi]

Rats arrived in London in the 3rd century AD, moved up as far as York by the 5 AD.... two years to get to York... I thought rats spread faster than that.

 

[Toddy]

Brown rats, black rats….Norwegian rats…..confusing

M

 

[dewi]

Brown rats, black rats….Norwegian rats…..confusing

M

Good point... no idea which rat got here first... I presume as it arrived during the Roman occupation, it'd be a rattus

 

[Toddy]

"What did the Romans ever do for us?", eh ?



Introduced rats apparantly

M

 

[Robson Valley]

My home in this village is about 20 minutes away from all the open wildness that you can choke down.
I'll guess the human population density here matches the British Neolithic, if that.
There are various tenures for water, grazing, trapping and so forth but those cannot stop people and
wild animals from wandering around, all over the landscape.

Wildlife conflicts here are commonly economic ones connected with agriculture.
The north-east part of British Columbia is referred to as "the Peace River country".
Open plains, east of the main rib of the Rocky Mountains that I live in.
Anyway, for years there's been a 3-wolf bag limit up there. There are so many wolves now,
with estimates as high as 2,000, that the bag limit cap may be lifted entirely.

Lest you think that the poor wolves don't stand a chance, anybody who can kill 3 wolves in a year
is a hunter of extraordinary skill.

 

[ged]

... Wildlife conflicts here are commonly economic ones connected with agriculture. ...

Another perceptive comment from BC.

It's the same almost everywhere.

Despite all the claptrap we hear from farming supporters about looking after the countryside, when all's said and done, farms, like grouse shoots, are first and foremost businesses. Businesses are run for profiit.

I can boast more contact with businesses than most - I've run a few, and twenty thousand of them (including a few farms) are my customers.

I've never seen much sympathy for environmental concerns from businesses, and I suspect that if there's an adverse environmental impact on consumers' energy bills, most people could be tarred with the same brush.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...n-tell-aides-to-get-rid-of-all-the-green-crap

Whatever else one can say of Monbiot, he certainly seems to have the knack of getting a discussion going. We should give him credit for that at least.

 

[Arya]

Brown rats, black rats….Norwegian rats…..confusing

M

Not at all! The Norwegian rats are the ones with skis on their legs
Easy to catch when the snow is gone.