There was another estate releasing a herd of water buffalo for habitat improvement for similar aims as this case. It is interesting how the release of large herbivores has such a positive effect on habitats and biodiversity. It is often the large herbivores that have the biggest, positive effect on an ecosystem IIRC. Elephants for example. I think theres similar large fauna in the seas that are considered keystone species. I think the beginnings of right whales is something like that but I only half recall the documentary on it.
Pine martin release on dartmoor.
- Thread starter Woody girl
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Large herbivores are far from a universal improver when there are too many. Elephants maintain grassland by destroying acacia trees, but can push an area towards desert. Elk in Yellowstone eating all the willows, depriving moose of forage and other creatures of habitat. Camels in Australia. Red deer in Scotland. The list goes on and on.
Yes, but everything in balance works. If it didn't then earth would have been a mess long before we evolved!! Guess who messed up a lot of the balance? Clue, we're in a geological era based on the animal that's the answer.
Every living thing is working just as hard as it can to upset the so called "balance". Well...maybe not sloths, but everything else is working hard 
No living thing is self limiting, given the opportunity everything goes for growing its numbers, even trying to overshadow others of its own species. It has only been since humans have started to see their success as a global problem that we have really diverged that part of our behaviour from all other life.
No living thing is self limiting, given the opportunity everything goes for growing its numbers, even trying to overshadow others of its own species. It has only been since humans have started to see their success as a global problem that we have really diverged that part of our behaviour from all other life.
If you are worried about poor little pine Martins, - a native species being reintroduced in areas where they once were,...
Just wait untill they bring woolly mammoths back. Yes the science buffs are seriously considering it and are keen to do so. Was listening to inside science today, and some American "scientist boffin" reckons they can and will do it very soon.
Just wait untill they bring woolly mammoths back. Yes the science buffs are seriously considering it and are keen to do so. Was listening to inside science today, and some American "scientist boffin" reckons they can and will do it very soon.
One example of mammals controlling their numbers. Am abstract of research by the university of Toronto. This took less than 1 minute to find through bing. it was one of many I could have linked too as well.Every living thing is working just as hard as it can to upset the so called "balance". Well...maybe not sloths, but everything else is working hard
However I was refering to the control systems the whole ecosystems had. Boom in small rodents is follwed by a boom in predators. Apparently there is a weight limit for predator mammals which below it the population is controlled by predators and above it they are self regulating. Appparently researchers say it is about 15kg.
Humans are slightly out of that control systems that ecosystems have not least because we just change the environment to suit our needs. Whether it is the neolithic tree clearances that came along with beginnings of the switch from hunter gatherer to farming or much later with industrial revolution and on towards canals, trains and on to ICE vehicles. We upset the balance and the big evidence of this is that the international body that determines such things has finally determined that we have so affected the geology of the planet since the industrial revolution that we are in a new geological era. That is epic achievement in a negative way. It is huge!!
