With the growing push to plant native and create space for wildlife in our own smaller properties, I’ve been seeing the term ‘rewilding’ more often. Articles that call readers to “rewild your yard” encourage us to plant native plants so a diverse insect population can thrive to help pollinate plants and feed a larger population of birds, lizards, and small mammals. This term isn’t only used in relation to making our properties more environmentally friendly, but is also associated with much larger scale interventions. One of the more well-known of such projects was the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park.
Some additional rewilding efforts include reintroducing European Bison in numerous European countries, restoring a major wetland ecosystem in Spain, protecting land in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, Affric Highlands in Scotland, and rewilding a 450,000 acre stretch of prairie land in Montana. It definitely gives me hope to see the efforts and success that many of these rewilding projects are having.
Rewilding not only recognizes the need to maintain healthy, biodiverse ecosystems by protecting land, but that thriving keystone species and apex predator populations are critical to the health of those territories. Apex predators are those animals that are often called the ‘top of the food chain’ – think wolves, sharks, and lions. ‘Keystone species’ are those species that have an enormous influence on a certain ecosystem. They are often apex predators, but don’t have to be – think beavers and how they create/transform a wetland ecosystem with their dam. Removal of a keystone species will cause what is known as a ‘trophic cascade’; the partial or complete destruction of an ecosystem from its balanced state. An example of this can be seen in kelp forests in the north Pacific. Kelp forests are rich, biodiverse ecosystems that are home to myriad fish and mussels, as well as otters and urchins. Additionally, kelp helps sequester CO2. Islands in the region without healthy otter populations were found to also have no kelp forests, since the sea urchins would decimate them. Sea otters help keep the urchin populations in check, which allows kelp to thrive and therefore create an environment for fish to hide, etc.
With continued human development through urban sprawl, mining, agriculture, grazing, deforestation, fishing, and even encroachment for recreational use like cycling and four-wheelers, the amount of pristine natural lands remaining for wildlife is in serious decline. The current rate of extinction is twice that of 100 years ago, which was already double that of 100 years prior. Rewilding then is an important effort to slow that rate and help protect the biodiversity and beauty of the world in which we live. One way to help with rewilding efforts is to create wildlife corridors, paths that wildlife can navigate with minimal human interaction. These corridors can connect several larger protected regions with safe paths of travel which expand the available food and shelter for animals, as well as help populations avoid inbreeding within their single population.
On a smaller scale, individuals can help and be a part of creating wildlife corridors by planting more native plants and making our yards more environmentally friendly through minimal pesticide and fertilizer usage. Having a safe space for migratory birds to find food and shelter is a great way to help. When multiple yards start offering a wider range of native flowers and berries and seeds and have diverse shrubs and snags to find shelter in, then we start seeing a return of more and more interesting wildlife right in our own backyards.
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