#rewilding

From the article:

Excerpt from this story from Northern Public Radio:

Next year, “rewilding” will officially be a part of the conservation approach in Illinois.

A new state law explicitly includes the concept as part of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ strategy. It’s the first time a U.S. state has included rewilding in its legislation, people working in conservation said.

The goal of rewilding is to reintroduce native species and restore whole ecosystems. Advocates often describe it as helping nature help itself, or putting nature back in the driver’s seat.

Cynthia Kenner is the executive director of Prairie State Conservation Coalition in Illinois. She said the new law formalizes the work happening in the state already.

“It's allowing the continuation of practices that are already in place, but it brings more meaning to really letting nature come back,” she said.

An example of rewilding is occurring in the northern part of the state in Rockford, where the Severson Dells Nature Center is working to transform a former golf course into 170 acres of prairie, forest and wetland habitats. The area will serve as a wildlife corridor as well, allowing species to pass through to other nature preserves in the area.

Rewilding often focuses on repairing habitat suited for apex predators like mountain lions and keystone species like beavers and bison. The idea is when these species can succeed, other species will start to recover around them, said Jason Kahn, board president of the Rewilding Institute, which supports large-scale conservation projects across North America.

Perhaps the most well-known example is the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s. In South Dakota, black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced to Badlands National Park, and bison are roaming prairies in Illinois and Iowa. These keystone species have helped to recover native habitats in the area.

“It doesn't cost a lot of money,” Kahn said. “Nature knows how to take care of itself. If we stop insulting and abusing it, all you would need to do for something is to let it grow, let it mature and let it be. And the wildlife will find a way in.”

Rewilding isn’t just about restoring large swaths of the landscape away from humans, said Cathy McMullen, a faculty member in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University. She said one of the most meaningful approaches to rewilding can take place on your block.

“There's a buy-in for everybody, say, in a neighborhood,” she said. “You plant a pollinator patch, and you maintain that pollinator patch, and if you scale that up to a whole neighborhood, no one person gets overwhelmed by all the work. Everybody's doing their piece. In the process, they’re going to learn some bugs and birds and make a connection to nature.”

“This bill adds rewilding as a strategy that the agency can implement,” she said. “They are also already doing many of these practices, and they already have the ability to consult with their ecologists, the biologists and the folks that make these decisions for the state to add species to the landscape.... This doesn't give them any new authority.”

"A Scottish field once home to mono-crop barley has become a pollinator’s paradise after intervention from a local trust saw bumblebee numbers increase 100-fold.

Entitled Rewilding Denmarkfield, and run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the project has also seen a sharp increase in the number of species passing through the rolling meadows after they were reclaimed by dozens of wildflower species.

The area north of Perth is about 90 acres in size, and surveys of bumblebees before the project began rarely recorded more than 50. But by 2023, just two years of letting “nature take the lead” that number has topped 4,000, with the number of different bee species doubling.

“This superb variety of plants attracts thousands of pollinators. Many of these plants, such as spear thistle and smooth hawk’s beard, are sometimes branded as ‘weeds’. But they are all native species that are benefiting native wildlife in different ways,” Ecologist Ellie Corsie, who has been managing the project since it began in 2021, said.

“Due to intensive arable farming, with decades of plowing, herbicide, and pesticide use, biodiversity was incredibly low when we started. Wildlife had largely been sanitized from the fields. Rewilding the site has had a remarkable benefit.”

Similar increases have been recorded in the populations of butterflies, with a tripling in the number of these insects seen on average during a ramble through the field.

The numbers of both insects are now so high that Rewilding Denmarkfield offers bee and butterfly safaris to visitors.

Local residents told the Scotsman that on spring and summer days, the field is awash with color, and hums with the sounds of bees and birds. Even as multiple housing developments expand around the Denmarkfield area, the field is a haven for wildlife."

“The restoration of bay scallops to their former range along the Virginian Eastern Shore represents a significant societal and ecological achievement,” said VIMS ESL Director Richard Snyder in a media release.

So, here's the thing: ranching in the United States was developed in part by exterminating any large animals that could pose a threat to cattle and other livestock, whether through predation or competition for food. That includes wolves, bears, cougars, bison, etc. While it's likely there was someone along the line who tried to coexist with these wild animals while raising livestock, the prevailing solution was to kill "nuisance" species, whether by shooting, trapping, or poisoning them en masse. These animals were wiped out from much of their native range in the lower 48 states by the early 20th century, and their more recent return represents a reckoning with the way we have used and abused the land since.

Now that we have more understanding of the ecological importance of every native species that exists in an ecosystem, there's no excuse to keep defaulting to killing wolves and other predators. Conservationists have offered ranchers a wide variety of solutions to protect their stock, from wolf-proof fences and hazing protocols to livestock guardian dogs. Ranchers can request financial compensation in many Western states for wolf-killed livestock and other losses, though not every rancher wants to differentiate between a cow killed by wolves, and one that died of other causes but was scavenged by wolves postmortem. And, unsurprisingly, some ranchers file fraudulent claims to game the system.

But there also remains the attitude that ranchers should be able to let their cattle run wherever they want on private or public land, and not have to monitor them or create adequate barriers against predators. The entitlement they feel to enormous areas of land, to include public lands that are supposed to be for everyone's use, has its roots in the assumption that "taming the land" for economic profit is more important than any other use. They want any potential threat to be preemptively removed for their convenience, no matter the ecological cost--or human cost, for that matter. Don't forget that every ranch in the West was once the homeland of indigenous people who were, more often than not, forcibly and violently removed so the ranchers' predecessors could move in with their livestock.

walk barefoot on stones in shallow streams.

talk to the wind and let it carry away your regrets.

forage for wildflowers to place on your altar, press in thrifted books, or give to loved ones —be careful when identifying

watch sunrises and sunsets. wake up before the sun. bare witness to the painted sky.

spend hours in the woods among the wild. take long long walks or sit still and watch the world.

talk to plants and listen to them. make friends.

get field guides to trees, plants, birds, etc. that are native to your area. learn which are which. bookmark pages that you recognize or want to find.

sing back to the robins. caw back to the crows.

journal by firelight and feel the flame burn your worries away.

gather snow and bring a bowl inside. talk to it and tell it your worries. your fears. let it melt, transmuting your stress and worries into healing nourishment. bring it outside and water the soil. see how things can be changed.

dance. run. move your body to sweat, if this is something you can do

collect stones from the river and try to find the best ones. keep them in your pocket. hold onto them to remember that you’re an animal.

go to a lake and float. feel the water carry you. lifting you from your stress. bring a vial and collect some for spellwork.

make a necklace out of an acorn and thread.

stand in the rain. dance in it. lay down in the grass and let it pour. let it wash fears away, transform doubt to hope. start anew.

𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘

Like it's been touched on, the possibility that we're more primal and animalistic than other aliens by their standards. Our evolution is pretty skewed and we've held ourselves back developmentally multiple times in history, so it wouldn't be too surprising.

But I wonder if all the animal in us is something that makes us better people.

The other species might not be pack creatures, or as sociable, but the expectation of evolution is to bypass your primitive origins. So they didn't expect humans to be so.. wild.

But we didn't notice it in ourselves. The messes we make. The tripping and slipping. The noises of joy or confusion or upset in the backs of our throats. The innate instinct to respond to the cries of anyone's young, including other species. The gross habits. The collapsing in the grass and dirt when cooped up inside for so long. Wrinkles and cellulite and scars on healthy aging skin. Locking eyes on a prey animal, even with no intent to hunt. Sneezing. Farting. Napping around your pack when others are awake because they trust you to watch out for them while vulnerable. Getting sleepier in the winter because hibernation!

And the emotions. Oh, so many feelings. We might be exceptionally expressive compared to other intergalactic races. Our feelings just form so easily! And yet, for creatures that might have taut scales or small eyes or casing around their faces, they actually find it's harder to read a human's face. Because we're so used to being expressive, we honed the skills to keep what we're feeling from our face if we want to. If you see a human looking obviously upset, that's because they want you to know they're upset. Their faces scrunch in utter glee, their lips curl and teeth bare in simmering rage, they look at you with soft and sleepy eyes if they trust you- and wide and alert eyes if they don't. And they love so brightly, they can't even hide it.

And we bring this behavior to the stars. They see the accidental spilling of coffee and the hurling into someone to hug them and the decorated cabin because the humans need to nest or they'll get sad! And they ask, "Why do you do that?"

And the humans don't respond initially. Because they don't know how to explain Earth. How the beauty of being a social animal is also the most destructive part of us. That wonderful little mammalian brain is also scared of risks, and of uncertainties. It finds comfort and safety in simplicity, in staying in their little box and just eating and sleeping for eternity. But simplicity doesn't exist when you're a sapient creature with incredible intelligence. So there's this need for sameness and easiness intermingled with the need for community, that created this sad belief that you needed to shut out your individual animal nature if you want to keep a pack of your own.

But even for those souls, who resent in making mistakes and being gross and taking up space- the animal is still there. It rises, clawing it's way out when they feel their safety box is coming down and the people around them are a danger. It hisses, bites, filled with insults and rejection because it doesn't know if these box-destroyers are friends or threats.

The aliens listen to the humans speak. And there again, there are those big eyes and malleable faces that are so easy to understand. One has the stars in their eyes, with wonder and wisdom and intelligence of a thousand years. And another has fire in their eyes, of anger and passion and a fight that lasted their whole life. And another has the green of their planet in them, of a love for life that is reflected in generations of humans before them. And when you look closer, you recognize all these humans look winded, tired, but at peace. Because they all fought to claim their right to their nature. They all stood up and said to their people "I love you all, even if you don't love me. And I am here for you, even if you aren't here for me. But I am not living for you. I am living for me." And they ache for their wonderful planet-sized pack to live for themselves and be happy too.