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The Viability of Pleistocene Rewilding

Robben, Ramon (2019) The Viability of Pleistocene Rewilding. Master's Thesis / Essay, Ecology and Evolution.

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Abstract

A core ideal within wildlife conservation is to revert to a time in history with less human impact, usually within a few hundred years. However, during a spark of public interest in conservation, a rather controversial idea was published to instead use the timeframe of the Pleistocene era, around 13,000 years ago. This ‘Pleistocene rewilding’ would introduce surrogate species into North American landscapes to mimic extinct megafauna from that era. Now, almost 15 years later, this essay looks at the viability of this conservation method. Through numerous back-and-forth publications, criticizers of Pleistocene Rewilding have debunked many of the method’s arguments. Although the method never had a proper case study of its own, it was clear the method’s scientific integrity had been compromised in favour of sparking public interest through sensation. As such, by using Pleistocene Rewilding as a prime example, I hope to show that although important, public interest should not come before scientific viability of conservation methods.

Item Type: Thesis (Master's Thesis / Essay)
Supervisor name: Mols, B.
Degree programme: Ecology and Evolution
Thesis type: Master's Thesis / Essay
Language: English
Date Deposited: 01 Nov 2019
Last Modified: 20 Mar 2023 08:53
URI: https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/21173

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