I was looking into the glowing eyes of a medieval, primeval predator. A ghost of the once great forest. A real beast of the chase. Its speckled-dun pelt fluttered with the elegance of a butterfly, yet it retained the supreme prowess of an African Lion.
But this feline was ultimately a caged bird. A confined relic of its former glory, its extent across the wilderness. And in this very moment, we exchanged glances. Glances of fear, glances of hope. Hope for what the future may hold – what the future may make of us. But both of us shared a dying urge, an energy to tear down the fences, fill the drainage ditches, break through any barrier – we wanted to run wild.
I haven’t seen this beast since my last encounter, but for those wondering, it was a lynx, Eurasian. And unfortunately, it called a zoo home. But what most people can’t reconcile is the fact that the lynx would have called the rolling hills of Britain home – since the Pleistocene. Lynx are ours. They are as British as cod and chips, yet we fail to make the link. But in failing, we fail the landscape and fundamentally, as I have illustrated before, ourselves. But why are large carnivores important in an environment like Britain? What is the point having sharp teeth back to places they disappeared? The answer is unusual and well, paradoxical. Its one of fear.
In the presence (or reintroduction) of large meat-eaters, grazing animals, whether it be deer or donkeys become, fundamentally, scared or paranoid. In fear of both the constant threat of attack but also the presence of a carnivore – the smells, run ins and witnessing the deaths of their own kin (yeah, dark). And this creates diversity. By scaring, and ultimately keeping grazers on the constant move, they create niches – habitats for more vulnerable animals and plants occupy.
Furthermore, I have spoken about the necessity of keeping large herbivores, or megafauna, in an ecosystem – but this is only enhanced by the presence of a predator. One complex example emerges from the Shamwari game reserve in South Africa because, what happened in Shamwari is one of restoration and repair. Where a visionary reinvigorated the dying land.
Business man, Adrian Gardiner, reintroduced the many charismatic yet missing animals of Africa, that perished due to hunting and over cultivation of the land in the eastern cape, into a large 60,000 acre to-be game reserve. Elephants were added, giraffes too. Also joining these beasts were huge herds of impala and zebra. But crucial to the whole system were the predators – lions, hyenas, leopards and cheetahs.
This is explained, as previously mentioned, by fear creating niches but also the variety of carnivores themselves. For instance, lions being able to take down larger prey such as buffalo, while cheetahs dash to exploit animals lighter and capable of running much faster than bigger game. The ecological implications went even further. Because of the variety of introduction, every single different category of grazing animal was on the move. In fear. In paranoia. But – as a by-product – creating habitats unfathomable by man for other creatures. The grazers would avoid areas where they could be ambushed, this would mean thick brush, forests and valleys. Resulting in these areas re-growing, sprouting with tree saplings. Yet, buffalo impala and the like, would gather in flat areas of the park, plains in other words, meaning these parts of the land would be dunged more frequently allowing plants that favour more nitrogen rich soils being able to occupy. Birds came back, so did smaller mammals, and the ponds, rivers and streams ran with fish once more. This is truly remarkable.
Africa maybe one place but Ireland is a totally different environment. The rugged coasts, the cool climate, the misty woods. Yet a mighty ecological shift, albeit much smaller and more nuanced, has been observed – yet again with an introduction.
Many people have never heard, let alone seen a pine marten; an elegant tree weasel, an acrobatic otter, a yoga-attending badger, all descriptions (hopefully compliments) that I have voiced and used to detail their looks. Yet no one would have realised that pine martens, when they used to rule the British Isles, would have literally held the forests together. You see, the pine marten was heavily persecuted due to its propensity to conquer chicken coups, barns and game sheds, where, unfortunately, they would gorge themselves.
However, and recently, pine martens have made a comeback in Ireland - due to introductions and natural range expansions. As a result, the population of the invasive grey squirrel (an escapee from America that constantly kills off veteran trees by ring barking them with their teeth) collapsed. Gone. Finished. And now falling in other areas.
Yet the native, rare, red squirrel that declined dramatically, due to a highly infectious disease carried by grey squirrels, rose. Why, would be the obvious question. Yet, it turns out that the pine martins are constantly chasing the grey squirrel because it is larger than the red squirrel. Meaning that even if a pine marten does not catch a grey squirrel, it will become so stressed that it will not survive winter. The greys’ unfortunate demise obviously leaves space for the red squirrel population to rebound. and those veteran tree seedings will grow without unfortunate ring barking, allowing the vast forest to regrow once more.
Moreover, what is more interesting to me is that it seems too much of a coincidence that when pine martens were heavily exterminated and culled, grey squirrels’ numbers rocketed simultaneously? Maybe this evidence, from Ireland and myself, creates an argument for the suggestion that pine martens are a keystone species – a supreme stabiliser in an ecological sense. Maybe it creates an imperative argument for their reintroduction? Who would mind an elegant tree-weasel in their local woods? Maybe not the red squirrels…
Both these types of profound ecological change are often called trophic cascades. Trophic meaning ‘food’ while cascade, being obvious. Because, unlike orthodox studies of food chains and ecosystems where the type of vegetation is determined by the soils and the herbivores are determined by the vegetation, trophic cascades show us a new ecology. Whether Africa or Ireland this ecology is based upon what the living in habitants of earth are literally doing. Their actions. Their pursuits. What cascades allow us to reconcile is that humans and their actions go much further than one should hope, be it removing organisms or adding them.
It really does beg the question, whether one day humans will come to terms with the cruciality of carnivores in landscapes – not just Africa or Ireland – but everywhere. In every land they belong. Because, fundamentally, it’s the ethical thing to do. Allowing life of not just a carnivorous species but breathing dynamism back into our neglected landscapes – the possibility, one day, of running wild into the hills, into the woods, into the forests, with the lynx.
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