Bringing an endangered species back from extinction is “an illusion”

Returning an endangered species to the wild is far more difficult in practice than it appears in reports and meeting documents. “Begin, by all means, but be prepared for failures and a long road,” says Monica Vasile, a Romanian environmental historian whose dissertation, “Saving Species. A History of Wildlife Introductions and Recovery,” examines the history of such efforts.

Vasile completed her doctorate at Maastricht University in June. She argues that people often develop an exaggerated sense of control and sometimes act as if they can play God. Yet her research also found many people involved in reintroduction projects who approach the work with humility. They disagree about how much human intervention is desirable, she says, but those who remain involved for longer often become more modest as they see how much lies beyond their control.

Around 12 years ago, Vasile worked on a project to return European bison to the southwestern Carpathians in her native Romania. The organizers wondered whether local residents would accept the plan. Four to five hundred bison were expected to return, a large number for an area with many villages. The communities’ response surprised the organizers: local residents were overwhelmingly positive.

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Begin, by all means, but be prepared for failures and a long road.

Her doctoral research focused on three different species in widely separated parts of the world. She chose Mongolia’s Przewalski’s horse project because it involved many groups and political issues. In Canada, she studied the Vancouver Island marmot, a case with relatively little historical research. In New Zealand, she examined the takahē, a flightless bird on the South Island whose recovery project began in the 1940s. People rediscovered the species in 1948 after believing it extinct.

The source ends as Vasile agrees that reintroduction projects require sustained effort. Her research’s central lesson is that recovery depends on a long commitment and repeated learning from what goes wrong.

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But in the reintroduction projects I studied, you also encounter many humble people. They have different views on the desirable degree of human intervention. And the longer people are involved in projects, the more modest they become. Because they see how much they cannot control.