The Scottish countryside will soon be home to creatures which is strange to Britain. This spring, 17 beavers (海狸) will be released into a remote area of rivers and forests. Hunted to extinction throughout Europe, beavers haven’t roamed Britain’s wilderness for almost 500 years. Ecologists would like to invite back other long-lost species to help restore the natural balance. To save the country’s plants from deer, which have doubled to 2 million since the start of this decade, an Oxford University biologist late last year called for reintroducing the lynx (猞猁)—a wildcat that died out in Britain 1,300 years ago.
Nature has long been a popular cause in Europe. British people love their countryside of fences and fields, the French their vineyards (葡萄园) and the Germans their hiking forests. But in recent years conservationists have set their sights on the more distant past, when Europe’s forests and meadows were full of elephants, hippo-potamuses (河马), rhinoceroses(犀牛) and big cats. Some ambitious conservationists are now advocating a return to norms of wilderness that date back to 11,000 years ago when the biggest mammals were at the top of the food chain.
Nobody is advocating allowing elephants and lions to run crazily in this densely populated region. But wilding supporters would give free control to a long list of lesser mammals, including the beaver and the lynx, which some people fear could be destructive. Some landowners withdraw at the thought of beavers cutting down trees with their teeth and flooding their property; the Scottish Parliament rejected several earlier efforts to reintroduce the mammal. Proposals to set loose wolves and bears in Britain have also encountered resistance.
Although rhinos and hippos thrived in Europe thousands of years ago, no one is sure what effect they would have on ecosystems now. "The idea of bringing back big mammals is interesting, but when you get down to the nuts and bolts, there’s a lot of questions," say some biologists. For example, elephants could destroy what little forest and grassland Europe has left.
The beavers of Tierra del Fuego provide a cautionary tale. When a failed commercial fur farm released its few remaining beavers into the wild 60 years ago, the population exploded, and they are still revenging the local people. Is this Britain’s future Supporters say no, the beaver will fit right in. Destroying nature is not a job for the mild.
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