Translocation of at-risk species raises many questions about what belonging will come to mean in a changing world.
Excerpt from this story from Earth Island Journal:
Translocations do raise many questions about what belonging will come to mean in the Anthropocene. For instance, to what extent does being “non-native” affect an animal’s relationship to place and the other creatures around it? How do we acknowledge the importance of preserving indigeneity while accepting the need for migrant or introduced species to colonize regions they previously did not inhabit? Reckoning with these questions requires a degree of empathy we rarely show each other, let alone other living beings. And with any call for empathy comes a chance to explore new modes of understanding.
We have to recognize that these are strange and tragic times, in which conservation methodologies that conflict with typical notions of what is right or natural may become unavoidable if certain species are to persist into the future. We exist in a world where albatross chicks may find first flight on airplanes thrumming from Midway to James Campbell, cradled in crates or the arms of compassionate caretakers. A world where, over time, we may have to entangle new and seemingly unrelated species in the albatrosses’ plight and thus further complicate the network of reliance that binds all living things. Our attempts at understanding must therefore extend into and beyond the ecology of each prospective translocation area, to inform us of impending interactions on both local and global levels.
Perhaps most importantly, we need to understand that assisted colonization cannot stand as a solution in and of itself. For unless it complements more robust and comprehensive conservation measures that actively counter climate change, it will merely crowd creatures destined for extinction closer and closer to us, until they truly have nowhere left to go.
