When the slaughter stops, they often thrive
The hand-drawn map of Lake Massawippi shows all its fishing-spot locations and quirky place names. I bought a copy years ago in Ayer’s Cliff and, while it is colourful, it tells a sadly familiar story. Among the notations scrawled along the edges of this country fishing chart, one stands out:
“Sturgeon, 50 to 75 lbs., once swam in this lake. Last seen about 1927. Almost extinct here: bobcat, bear, moose, otter, eels, turtle, lynx, big turtle”
Now, I have seen turtles sun themselves on logs every summer in the Massawippi River. Moose have appeared there recently, too. Some of the animals cited above are clearly not “extinct”. But the message is clear: fish and animal numbers are way down. Like everywhere in the world.
In conservation circles, doomsaying often predominates. Rightly so, they argue. The figure 95 per cent recurs in wildlife decline numbers: as in, the last two centuries have seen 95 per cent drops (or more) in the number of buffalo, beaver, elephants, tigers, whales and, in some oceans, fish stocks such as salmon and cod. That pioneer/industrial era could be called the Great Slaughter.
So it’s hard to be optimistic, try as you may.
Surprisingly, there is a recent counter-trend, dubbed alternately animal recovery or wildlife resurgence. Some animal numbers have jumped back quickly in recent decades. These leaps can be astounding.
How species rebound
After chronicling wildlife-recovery stories throughout Europe and North America, environmental philosopher Christopher J. Preston, author of Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries that Change How We Think about Animals (MIT Press, 2023), sums up his conclusion: “Stories of abundant wildlife are not hard to find.”
“Bobcats in New England have increased tenfold since the 1970s thanks to the regrowth of forests. Bald eagles in the U.S. have climbed from just over 400 nesting pairs in the 1960s to more than 70,000 today after a ban on DDT. Common cranes are again nesting in Ireland after 300 years, courtesy of the rewetting of peat bogs. Saiga antelope in Kazakhstan have nearly tripled since a 2015 die-off. River otters are back in the San Francisco Bay. Harbor porpoises are increasing 10 per cent a year off the Washington coast. Northern elephant seals have recovered from fewer than 100 to nearly 200,000. Europe’s golden jackal population has increased more than 30 times, with jackals now breeding in France and Denmark where they have never lived before. Not every [species] is doing so well, of course, but the list of recoveries offers hope,” he writes.
Some of the stories Preston recounts are amazing. I knew that wolves had recovered to some degree in Western Europe, with the growth of forested areas and hunting restrictions. But I did not know that, after establishing themselves in a 1,000-square kilometre forest preserve in the Netherlands, wolves had since been sighted – and are breeding – in neighbouring Belgium, of all places. This is a first in 100 years.
Bears have roamed from the former Yugoslavia into the Swiss and Italian Alps. Elsewhere in Italy, a rugged national park in the Apennine hills east of Rome is home to a growing number of Marsican brown bears. Since the area is delimited by farms in intensely cultivated Italy, teams of “rewilding” volunteers have worked with farmers to put up electric wires around sheep pens, and to prune and plant apple trees so these bears have alternative food sources.
As for whales, which were decimated by the whaling industry for their oil over 3-4 centuries, some populations are still seriously threatened. These include the North Atlantic right whale, the bow whale and the blue whale. At the same time, humpback whales, down to a low of 1,200 in the North Pacific when hunting was banned, have surged to over 20,000, almost pre-exploitation numbers. In the western Indian Ocean, humpbacks have soared spectacularly, from just 600 to a reported 36,000. In the Southern Ocean, passengers on a ship sailing near Antarctica were recently witness to a rare “superpod” of more than 1,000 fin whales, reports Preston.
The lessons seem clear: ban or severely restrict hunting and respect wildlife habitats of endangered species. Animals can do much of the rest, with some helping hands from humans.
Conservation framework
A decade ago in Geneva, I interviewed Australian John Scanlon, the Secretary-General of CITES, a UN agency created by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species pursuant to the Stockholm Conference of 1972. The convention was signed and ratified by 175 countries.
Scanlon was cautiously optimistic, especially given the number of States that had cooperated with CITES. The agency’s initial goals were framed by illicit trade (the elephant for its ivory; the rhino for horns). Herds of the biggest and most photogenic species continued their downward spiral. The idea of creating an alternative, commercial harvest spread steadily. The future of animal and plant commerce had to be either regulated, CITES noted, or it would stagger on amid the anarchy of poaching and threat of extinctions.
Today in Canada, we can condemn this pillage by poachers in Africa and ivory merchants in China, but our history is no less problematic. The beaver trade, which founded the country, led directly to their decimation — collapsing from perhaps 60 million beavers in the 17th century down to 100,000 or fewer by the early 1900s. This was a real slaughter that ended only when demand for beaver fur collapsed. Recovery started once public opinion was aroused, hunting was limited and natural habitats partially protected. Beaver numbers have since jumped to over 10 million in Canada, with some estimates much higher.
The collapse and extinction of wildlife species is not inevitable. Protective action and reintroduction of wild animals can lead to resurgent populations. Even some day, one hopes, around Lake Massawippi.
Originally published July 7, 2023 in the Sherbrooke Record weekend supplement.
