A number of years ago I found myself in northern Argentina being chased through a grassland by a giant anteater. It was a large mammal with a tapered snout and nails on its front paws like curly fries. In Spanish he’s known as oso hormiguero gigante. He (I believe it was a male) had been radio-collared and reintroduced in an area of wetlands called the Esteros of Iberrá in the province of Corrientes.
My guide was a veterinarian from Europe working with Tompkins Conservation, now known as Rewilding Argentina. She carried a hand-held tracking device that looked like a small satellite dish. What the oso hormiguero really wanted was one of the milkshakes the recovery team had been occasionally feeding him since his release to the wild. This afternoon we didn’t have one. Hence our dash through the overhead reeds once we’d spotted him from a safe distance. This was a surprisingly agile animal who really wanted his milkshake. My heart was literally beating out of my chest with both fear and excitement.
If you’ve ever seen ant hills in northern Argentina you can understand why someone might want to reintroduce a giant anteater. The ant colonies are unlike any I have ever seen. They move in caravans carrying blades of grass and other materials three times their body length, basically carving inch-wide super highways out of the grasslands. Their ant hills are equivalent to skyscrapers, maybe bigger than ours on a relative scale, about chest high to a human and made of red clay that bakes like adobe. You need a tractor to knock them down and they can cover acres of land. Giant anteaters have thin straw-like tongues and eat ants and termites. They are also endemic to this grassland habitat.
Rewilding is a concept that has been around for many decades. The team at Rewilding Argentina refers to this work as restoring a landscape to “Full Nature.” They are master puzzle solvers who study how ecosystems have been torn apart and then find ways to restore habitats and species and communities to some semblance of natural balance. This idea is gaining interest all over the world. Integral to these efforts are species reintroduction projects on every continent: tigers in India, lynx in Spain, wild horses and donkeys (Kulan) in the Ukraine, wolves in North America, beavers in England, jaguars in Argentina, various marsupials in Australia, large animals in southern Africa. This is an extremely abbreviated list.
We recently spent two days in an auditorium listening to speakers at the First Global Meeting of Translocation Practitioners in Valencia, Spain. The conference was organized by Ignacio Jimenez, who has worked for decades to save endangered animals and spearheaded the giant anteater (and other species) reintroductions for Rewilding Argentina. It took place in the Oceanogràfic, an aquarium complex that is part of the Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias in the city’s old river bed. The backdrop of the stage was the glass wall of an aquarium. Speakers from around the world recounted their tales of relocating wild animals to protected landscapes. Behind the speakers was an ever evolving scene of swimming and twirling and gliding fish and sharks.
Their stories were the stories of the heroic struggle to reverse the extinction crisis. We heard in great detail about their trials and tribulations, successes and failures. All kinds of factors can derail reintroduction efforts: diseases that affect prey and move up the food chain; hostile communities who poison or hunt wolves and tigers; years of successful gains wiped out by drought; the hybridization of wild animals with other species (red wolves mating with coyotes, for example); bureaucratic road blocks.
One of the presenter’s slides was deeply alarming. At the dawn of the human era, 99 percent of the weight of the Earth’s vertebrates and landmass consisted of and supported what we today call wildlife. Out of the wild came domestication. Most of the species that didn’t suit human needs for food, fiber, traction, companionship, indulgences or our sense of security were exterminated or driven to increasingly remote places. Today livestock account for two-thirds of the Earth’s vertebrates and landmass and humans about one-third. Wildlife are down to 1 percent.
The speakers highlighted many lessons learned about Rewilding over the last four decades:
- much of the work is political rather than biological in nature;
- stories matter more than data;
- people are threatened by the concept of rewilding — especially of large carnivores;
- talking about community- and nature-based economies is far more relatable than “rewilding”;
- there is a bias that farming, ranching, forestry or development are economically superior to land conservation;
- biologists are becoming more flexible (and less purist) about the introduction of species from other regions, countries and even continents;
- zoos may become important sources of species genetics through captive breeding programs;
- the true measure of success for a rewilding effort is the ability to translocate “surplus” populations to other areas;
- you can never be too complacent, challenges are always right around the corner.
It’s difficult to hear that restoring the beauty of the natural world is not a compelling enough reason for communities and governments to get behind rewilding efforts. Yet this is what we heard over and over for two days. Local communities must become partners in these projects and they must see that the economic benefits will outweigh the risks.
The good news is that Rewilding is extremely effective at job creation. Meanwhile, agricultural areas around the world are being dewatered, depopulated, poisoned and are dependent upon billions of dollars of government support. Many conservationists have learned that, in addition to identifying and preparing animals for relocation, their main challenge is political. Communities need to understand the natural legacies they have lost. New businesses can be incentivized. And politicians sometimes must be allowed to take the credit once all the work is done.
While Argentina is a relative newcomer to the rewilding movement, South Africa has been at it for decades. Wildlife protection has been monetized on a variety of levels. They have developed an infrastructure of helicopters and other equipment to transport elephants, rhinos, cheetahs, and other very large animals across countries and continents. Conservation organizations and government agencies have invested considerable resources in defending themselves and wildlife against well-armed and sophisticated poaching operations. Most of the conference presenters acknowledged the enormous contributions of the South African conservationists.
There is a sane vision for the future: nature-based economies centered around resilient rural communities, eco tourism and creating the most biodiverse landscapes we can imagine.
Say whatever needs to be said to rewild hearts and minds. Release whatever you can. Save whatever you can. Don’t hesitate. And offer a prayer for the conservation translocation practitioners. Their work is beyond inspiring.
Photo: Oso hormiguero gigante (notice its tongue!), Jackie Russell, DVM
©2022, Dan Imhoff. All Rights Reserved.