As we enter a period of time where predicted changes regarding global climate patterns are huge and many ecosystems are expected to fail to adapt to their new environment, should we be assisting our plants and animals into new locations where they are better equipped to handle the climatic conditions?

 

Changes in the distribution of plants and animals have already been observed in a number of ecosystems. Many plants are predicted not to be able to disperse into new areas fast enough to survive the predicted climatic changes over the coming century. The loss of habitat will undoubtedly have significant ramifications for native wildlife around the world.

 

The idea of assisted migration assumes that our ecological understandings of plants and animals are good enough to predict the outcome of intentionally moving exotic species into new environments. The concept also assumes that our predictions on global climate changes will be correct. History can warn us of the risks associated with falling victim to our egos and believing we understand the processes that govern the natural world and how nature will react to our interference.

 

Are we playing with fire? Or are the predicted losses too high not to take action?

Edited August 18, 201411 yr by swansont
remove url that violated rule 2.7

Basic Biology makes important points. BTW, would they then be called antipolar bears:)

We have a term for species that have been introduced to non-native areas by human interaction. They're called invasive species, and they tend to be destructive to the local ecology.

You realise that polar bears would decimate the penguin populations. Within a couple of decades, at most, there would be no Antarctic penguins left. Don't you like penguins?

Who doesn't like penguins? Just to make it clear, I don't actually think we should move polar bears to Antarctica. That is just the most extreme example of assisted migration that has been proposed. Save the polar bears from melting ice caps by moving them to Antarctica

If you ignore the fundamental stupidity of moving the bears to the Antarctic, you come to another problem.

The polar bears are not the only Arctic creatures which will suffer due to the loss of their environment.

If you "save" the bears you will, in some sense, have less incentive to save the ice and, in doing so, you condemn all those other creatures.

 

The only sound way to save the bears, is to save their environment.

Excellent switch of perspective.

If you ignore the fundamental stupidity of moving the bears to the Antarctic, you come to another problem.

The polar bears are not the only Arctic creatures which will suffer due to the loss of their environment.

If you "save" the bears you will, in some sense, have less incentive to save the ice and, in doing so, you condemn all those other creatures.

 

The only sound way to save the bears, is to save their environment.

There is not much hope of making the changes necessary in time to save the polar bears habitat. That said, polar bears have survived previous global warming events moderately well on their own. They might not need so much meddling. Other species may need more help though.

@ the OP, as the environment changes the best chance any species has for survival is adaptation. Our (humans) ability to impact that should be focused on disrupting the environment little as possible. We should not transplant animals into different ecosystems any more than we should be destroying ecosystems.

Climate change is happening but what that means changes as humans change. We can not reverse the weather but we can stop burning down rainforests, putting insane amounts carbon in the air, and killing endangered animals simply because we can. Transplanting polar bears increases our role in the equation at a time when we need to be finding ways to reduce our role.

@ the OP, as the environment changes the best chance any species has for survival is adaptation. Our (humans) ability to impact that should be focused on disrupting the environment little as possible. We should not transplant animals into different ecosystems any more than we should be destroying ecosystems.

Climate change is happening but what that means changes as humans change. We can not reverse the weather but we can stop burning down rainforests, putting insane amounts carbon in the air, and killing endangered animals simply because we can. Transplanting polar bears increases our role in the equation at a time when we need to be finding ways to reduce our role.

 

OK, but if you consider that the many species, not just polar bears, are endangered because of our actions and that a lack of action to save them will inevitably lead to their extinction, do you not think that we have an inherent responsibility to do what we can to protect them?

 

I'm not arguing that we should move polar bears to Antarctica, but I am concerned by the idea of simply leaving species to sort themselves out in the hope that they can adapt to their new environment that we have so kindly altered for them... We've put the world's flora and fauna in a position where many species simply cannot sustain their populations. Plus we have altered the climate so that optimal habitat conditions are no longer present in the historical locations where species thrived.

 

I struggle with the idea that we just leave species in the hope that they adapt to their new environment or migrate into new, more suitable habitats, when it is our fault that they are in this situation in the first place and we have the ability to help them. Or is that just life? We've made our bed, now the rest of the world's biota must sleep in it. Survival of the fittest.

@ Basic Biology, let me first say that I deplore what we humans are doing to this planet. We have over exploited the planet and a lot life is now suffering as a result of that. With that said what is done is done. Habitats have changed. Only life capable of thriving in the modified environments will survive. Natural selection doesn't care that humans are to blame. We can work to reduce our impact on environments but that is about it. Picking and choosing which species to save off the endangered list is not simple. Are mammals more important than plants or birds more important than fish? Everything in an ecosystem has value. There is a natural balance. I don't think we can replicate that balance by moving animals around. It would merely be a game of saving one species at the expense of some other species.

Not quite true. We can decide which species to save and we can save quite a large number of them. Cockroaches and rats are probably not in need of help just yet. White rhinos and bush elephants are in much greater need of help. While the preferred method is to keep them alive in their natural habitats, their natural habitats are vanishing. During previous environmental changes, large animals like these just moved to new habitats that suited them better. In this manner they populated 5 separate continents and evolved into numerous species. We would merely be using nature's own techniques to spread life and increase biological diversity. Diverse ecosystems are stronger and more responsive to climate changes than more spare ones.

 

Re-wilding is not the only method but is the best in my opinion as it revitalizes ecosystems that have been damaged for hundreds or thousands of years and is something we can do right now with careful planning. De-extinction of some species is another method that could be done but can not be done reliably right now and probably not for a hundred years or more on a steady basis. Collecting and preserving DNA from thousands of specimen of thousands of species can be done now and they can be saved for the future when we can bring them back and give them wild homes.

 

Doesn't mean we should let the ecosystems go to pot though. In the mean time we should re-wild with different species of plants and animals to fill the missing niches in the changing areas. Desert plants should be introduced into drying areas as well as salt-tolerant species since many desert areas will form in our croplands where irrigation is used too much with too little drainage. It should not matter if they are native or not. All species were invasive species at one point. They destroyed habitats for another species that they displaced and extincted species that could not adapt to them. Granted few were as invasive as mankind but they were also guilty of the damage they did to their environments. With our help they can all contribute to keeping our forests green and absorbing CO2 and releasing O2. They can contribute to holding water in soil and fertilizing the soil. They can spread seeds and control weeds and other pests. Clean air, water and food are important and more easily and cheaply done by living ecosystems. It does not matter if the ecosystem is the native one or artificial. Biological diversity is the key and many environments on this planet have lost much of their diversity of plants and animals both.

 

If we do not help them, we will be more culpable than if we spread them and something else gets ruined. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. It's better to be damned for doing than for not doing.

Migration is just an 'escape' not an 'answer'. The main issue is that we, "HUMANS", are corrupting our planet. If the Arctic melts away, do you think how long Antarctica will survive?

Rewilding is a very controversial idea, the american midwest has been suggested for elephants, rhinos and other african animals. I have been involved in conversations with some of the people who are going to be making these decisions, I doubt it's going to go over well, elephants roaming the midwest is not something Americans are going to sign off on, wolves and coyotes are controversial enough.

Edited September 22, 201411 yr by Moontanman

Migration is just an 'escape' not an 'answer'. The main issue is that we, "HUMANS", are corrupting our planet. If the Arctic melts away, do you think how long Antarctica will survive?

 

We're not "corrupting" it. Just improving it, by getting rid of dangerous wild animals, such as wolves, elephants and polar bears. These animals don't seem to contribute anything to human civilisation. So why bother with them? We could keep a few specimens in zoos, for people to look at, if they want. But surely we don't want them running around all over the place. I mean, suppose herds of elephants were let loose in the US Mid-West. They'd keep trampling down the cornfields. What farmer would want his crops ruined like that? The farmers would soon get mad, and start shooting the elephants. And who could blame them? The elephants would be a pest, to be got rid of. Just like insect pests are got rid of by spraying modern insecticides.

 

I can't understand why some people seem so keen to reverse human progress. We humans have spent 10,000 arduous years cleaning the planet up, and making it a nicer place. With our farms, parks and gardens. The gardens are a good point. They have neat well-trimmed lawns with tidy,pretty flower-beds, and are very pleasant. Should we regard them as "corrupting Nature", and let them turn into rank masses of weeds, thistles, and stinging-nettles? Has any gardener here intentionally "rewilded" his own back-yard, and thought it an improvement?

 

On the business about the Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps, I don't see why we should be terrified if they melt. We'll cope. Humans are too great a species to be overwhelmed by a few hundred foot rise in sea-level.

But we've cut down trees and burnt out forests.

I appreciate the way we've come through, but I think Human hasn't made the earth a nicer place. He has made the Earth a nicer place for himself.

Migration is just an 'escape' not an 'answer'. The main issue is that we, "HUMANS", are corrupting our planet. If the Arctic melts away, do you think how long Antarctica will survive?

Escape is an answer for them. Or are you one of those who wants to let nature collapse so you can say "told you so?" Yes huans are collapsing the ecosystems as we know them. That does not mean we should let them collapse. I for one am working to preserve them.. I m not one of the evil ones.

We're not "corrupting" it. Just improving it, by getting rid of dangerous wild animals, such as wolves, elephants and polar bears. These animals don't seem to contribute anything to human civilisation. So why bother with them? We could keep a few specimens in zoos, for people to look at, if they want. But surely we don't want them running around all over the place. I mean, suppose herds of elephants were let loose in the US Mid-West. They'd keep trampling down the cornfields. What farmer would want his crops ruined like that? The farmers would soon get mad, and start shooting the elephants. And who could blame them? The elephants would be a pest, to be got rid of. Just like insect pests are got rid of by spraying modern insecticides.

 

I can't understand why some people seem so keen to reverse human progress. We humans have spent 10,000 arduous years cleaning the planet up, and making it a nicer place. With our farms, parks and gardens. The gardens are a good point. They have neat well-trimmed lawns with tidy,pretty flower-beds, and are very pleasant. Should we regard them as "corrupting Nature", and let them turn into rank masses of weeds, thistles, and stinging-nettles? Has any gardener here intentionally "rewilded" his own back-yard, and thought it an improvement?

 

On the business about the Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps, I don't see why we should be terrified if they melt. We'll cope. Humans are too great a species to be overwhelmed by a few hundred foot rise in sea-level.

 

Actually there are still areas suitable to mammoths and wooly rhinos Alaskan and Canadian wilderness areas are almost untouched by man and have a dearth of large herbivores and I wonder how siberian tigers would complete with kodiak bears. Room could be made in the midwest but strong fences to keep them out of populated areas would be necessary. The fences do work but in africa and india malasia there is simply not enough land to fence off. It could be done, it would cost trillions but create jobs as well. The malaysian rhino is the closest relative to the wooly rhino, indian elephants are the closest to mammoths.

 

It would be an interesting experiment to see if humans can create instead of destroy, there are lots of creatures on the edge of extinction that could use a helping hand as well, musk oxen come to mind but there are fishes as well. The dwarf sturgeon could use some help from habitat loss and is small enough to breed in captivity for the aquarium trade, the aquarium trade has keep populations of fish alive no one else cared about http://www.fishbase.org/summary/8764,

 

Pseudoscaphirhynchus hermanni[/size]

 

 

or this sturgeon Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni [/size]

 

 

I don't think it's unreasonable to move animals around, in fact it's what we do, more than any other animal on the planet we spread our domestic animals that often go wild and and even intentionally spread wild animals for various reasons, sport hunting and sport fishing being big incentives.

 

Generally extinction is forever, we humans have both directly and indirectly caused the extinction of many animals, I don't think it's too much to ask to apply our resources and technology to saving the wild animals we have left. Manatees are a particular favorite of mine as well.

 

This one has to be very cute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_manatee

 

The dwarf manatee is typically about 130 cm (4.3 ft) long, and weighs about 60 kg (130 lb), making it the smallest extant sirenians.^%5B3%5D It is overall very dark, almost black, with a white patch on the abdomen.^%5B3%5D I

 

but we also have manatees on the east coast where i live and I have seen them a few times. We kill them with our boats by running over them! Freshwater dolphins that are being eradicated in their home rivers could be moved to the Mississippi, at least two species could live there quite well.

 

There us a threatened species of freshwater porpoise as well.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finless_porpoise

 

The finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) is one of six porpoise species. A freshwater population found in the Yangtze River in China is known locally as thejiāngtún (Chinese: 江豚, "river porpoise" or "river pig"). In the waters around Japan, at the northern end of its range, it is known as the sunameri (Japanese: 砂滑, "slick sand"). There is a degree of taxonomic uncertainty surrounding the species, with theN. p. phocaenoides subspecies perhaps representing a different species from N. p. sunameri and N. p. asiaeorientalis. Genetic studies indicate that the finless porpoise is the most basal living member of the porpoise family.^%5B2%5D

 

 

 

If we could just stop killing each other just maybe we could save some of the biodiversity of this planet before it's too late.

 

Several years ago i proposed in a science organization a plan to help save the Pseudoscaphirhynchus hermanni and it's close relative Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni by captive breeding them and then stocking them recovering rivers in appalachia, In fact the river I chose as my model was the Poca River.

 

It was given some serious consideration or at least it's merits were but at the time invasive fish were a big item and little support could be had for introducing new species. Even though fish and game do it with some regularity and with variable results just to please sport fishing not to save a species...

Edited September 24, 201411 yr by Moontanman

We have a term for species that have been introduced to non-native areas by human interaction. They're called invasive species, and they tend to be destructive to the local ecology.

Yes, no one wants to encourage invasive species, but they destroy the local environment and create a new one, regardless of what we have establuished as acceptable ecosystem for that area. The new ecosystem evolves, just as it has for billions of years (although man made is different than "natural" forces. We have had ecosystems destroyed in florida from malaleuca from Australia, but now, the ecosystem has to evolve to a new one, although to us, it may be distasteful.

 

We're not "corrupting" it. Just improving it, by getting rid of dangerous wild animals, such as wolves, elephants and polar bears. These animals don't seem to contribute anything to human civilisation. So why bother with them? We could keep a few specimens in zoos, for people to look at, if they want. But surely we don't want them running around all over the place. I mean, suppose herds of elephants were let loose in the US Mid-West. They'd keep trampling down the cornfields. What farmer would want his crops ruined like that? The farmers would soon get mad, and start shooting the elephants. And who could blame them? The elephants would be a pest, to be got rid of. Just like insect pests are got rid of by spraying modern insecticides.

 

I'm not sure if you were being serious or not but "dangerous wild animals, such as wolves, elephants and polar bears" can be a vital part of healthy ecosystems, ecosystems that we depend on for our survival.

 

 

Edited September 24, 201411 yr by Basic Biology

Migration is just an 'escape' not an 'answer'. The main issue is that we, "HUMANS", are corrupting our planet. If the Arctic melts away, do you think how long Antarctica will survive?

As long as any continent. And as for the polar bears, let's move them to the o.p.'s bedroom since our colleague is so concerned about the poor suffering apex predators.

I am pretty damned sure my local ecosystem on the coast of Texas is not dependent of polar bears, elephants or wolves. I also have heard but can't confirm that there are more tigers in captivity in North America than currently live in the wild in Asia.

 

Are these beasts then truly "wild"? In what way are they " vital" parts of the suburban ecosystem?

 

Domestic cats which have reverted to their feral ways are the commonest predators hereabouts. Are they truly "domestic" or merely "commensal" in the truest sense of the word?