Summon Up the Dead (Quolls and Lynxes First)

There was an article in the paper the other day titled "the Passionate Conservationist".  The article had something to do with quolls which I thought were a subatomic particle but are apparently small fuzzy cute things.  They are also something at least on conservationist is passionate about.

What really grabbed me was the title; "the Passionate Conservationist".  I have to admit I thought that being passionate would be part of the job description for a conservationist.  It's quite difficult to imagine a dispassionate conservationist.  "Yeah, save the trees I guess but, you know, whatever".  I can't imagine too many quolls being saved with an attitude like that.

Actually quolls don't need to be saved so much as reanimated.  The quoll in question is extinct on the Australian mainland (Tasmania being somewhat behind the times still has some left) and this apparently passionate individual is passionately breeding them in the hopes of being able to reintroduce them into the wild where apparently they will be able to breed without supervision.  One can't help thinking they might do it a bit better without supervision.

Still on dead things breeding apparently the eurasian lynx has been reintroduced into the Harz Mountain region of Germany over a century after the last one died.  Its early days but experts are hoping that a viable colony can be built in the Harz.  Which leads to an interesting point about conservation.  Quite often we don't actually have to do all that much to ensure the preservation of endangered species.

Take the Harz Mountains.  Yes, they it is of the least developed parts of Germany and the area is a nature reserve now but that's actually a recent development.  While we may not have built huge cities there the Harz have been used by humans for centuries for farming (where it was flat enough) mining (where it wasn't), timber, hunting and V-2 missile factories.  Much of the tree cover was artificially introduced to replace those stripped out by mining operations which also added their own unique and difficult to remove ingredients to the water table.  Despite all of this the Harz is one of the most beautiful "natural" regions of Germany.  Even the dying out of the lynxes had less to do with environmental degradation and more to do with the fact that farmers persisted in shooting them.  There is actually a plaque commemorating where the last one was shot.  A sort of "hooray the lynx is dead" monument.  The principal role of those reintroducing the lynxes was to get guarantees from the local farmers that they wouldn't start shooting them again.

Despite comments on the fragility of ecosystems nature will tend to find a way to survive if its given half a chance.  In many cases it would seem that the most effective conservation measure we can take is to stop actively killing the animal in question.  Nature will take care of much of the rest itself.