Status Updates From Wilding: Returning Nature t...

The argument for soil restoration could work as well advocating for organic farming as for rewilding.

Yes! We need corridors of native plants for wildlife… “more, bigger, better, joined” not just little islands of habitat threatened from all sides

I am amazed at the story of the Purple Emperor butterflies. As the author says, “had we set out with the intention of creating the perfect habitat for purple emperors, we would never have achieved the numbers that have spontaneously emerged through rewilding.” Wish we had an advisory panel of esteemed scientists to track progress on our land!

Fascinating. Migrating butterflies take out the thistles. Each herbivore eats at different levels, so cattle, ponies, and pigs all get something and actually help the others. In America, we have the Yellowstone wolves, and attempts to reintroduce bison to the plains and the Grizzly bear to the Cascades. But we don’t have anything to eat the nonnative invasive weeds…

This is very British, with different species of plants, birds, insects etc than in America. But sometimes the problems are the same…weeds that threaten pasture and the value of crops, but can be beneficial to wildlife.

Okay, now they are letting some fields go…no expensive replanting of native seeds…and neighbors are complaining!

Rewilding is quite a complicated process. They actually had to spray with glyphosate before reseeding with native grass and wildflower mix. And introducing grazing animals involved several government agencies, research, proposals, restrictions, etc. Not as simple as stop plowing or stop mowing.

Interesting so far.