Animals on the Move!

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Just as an aside, I’ve found this news article that deals with the translocation (basically, humans moving animals from one place to another) of the Iberian lynx in an attempt to avoid its extinction. When numbers of wild Iberian lynx plummeted to just 150 in 2005 due to habitat loss, drastic action had to be taken. Wild lynx from the Andujar region of Spain were moved by ‘assisted migration’ to a new location a few Km away in the hope that a new population would be created. This was relatively successful and the lynx have now begun to breed. A further 2 sites have been identified in Spain and Portugal and relocation of animals to these will hopefully begin in the near future.

The example of the lynx isn’t particularly relevant to the point I am trying to illustrate, but it got me thinking about how ideas such as translocation may be relevant to future wildlife management with reference to the refugium hypothesis. Let’s just look back to the definition of ‘refugium’ quoted in my first blog post – ‘an isolated area of habitat that retains the environmental conditions that were once widespread’ (Stewart andLister 2001). If future populations of animal species do in fact respond to climate change by persisting in isolated refugial areas, surely it follows that the priority for conservationists (after having acted to preserve the refugial areas) will be to focus on connecting up the refugia and/or allowing the isolated populations to breed in order to maintain a viable number of the species in question. Although quite far-fetched and possibly a little extreme, translocation could be an option here! If animals were transported from one refugial area to another so that they could interact and breed then genetic diversity, and ultimately the species, could be maintained. I realise, however, that this is not something that could be undertaken easily as there are numerous practical, financial, ethical and most importantly ecological issues to be considered first, but if we are going to potentially lose 1000s of species due to climate change then even radical ideas such as this shouldn’t be discounted immediately.