To Take Wilderness In Hand

While this article poses a very interesting theory of how to save a species by relocating them to a less dangerous environment for them, at the same time I wonder: What happens to the plant/animal life that lived in this relocation site originally? I commend the effort to save an endangered species but I feel like this relocation idea simply puts the native life in the relocation site in danger of becoming endangered as well. Then one ends up with two endangered species as opposed to one, not to mention the unknown effects of introducing a new species in an area would be.

I’ve heard about the idea of assisting migrations before, and while, again, I think it’s commendable that people are willing to do that, I’m not really sure that we are capable of it. There are hundreds of different species that migrate all over the world. We probably don’t know much about the habits of the more endangered species simply because there aren’t that many of them left to study. Can we really reliably say we have the information necessary to help them with one of the more important parts of their lives? It’s like trying to help your best friend through his/her daily routine when he/she is no longer capable of doing it his/herself. You may think you know them well enough to do it but there will be things you’re going to miss and some of them may be unimportant but others might be vital. And even if we were to succeed we risk the species forming a dependence on us to survive which may not go over so well.

I think we should focus on what our own species can do to minimize its effect on our world. Try to control our emissions and waste, spend more effort on staying “green”. If we did that then most of these problems with other species that stem from our messiness would not exist.