Between 25 September and 4 October 2014, Frans Schepers and Wouter Helmer visited Wyoming and Montana in the United States, where they were invited to speak about Rewilding Europe at the 2014 Annual Gathering of the American Prairie Reserve. Apart from the American Prairie Reserve, they also visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. This is a first out of a series of blogs, presenting some of the impressions of their visit.
On the morning of September 29, a horse transport was made in cooperation with the International Association of Bosnian Mountain Horse breeders, for release in Malo Libinje, at Petar Knežević’s farm in the Velebit rewilding area. I accompanied the truck carrying this first group of five new Bosnian mountain horses.
Well-known German wildlife photographer Solvin Zankl is on a photo mission for Rewilding Europe in the Oder delta. Here is his update from the field.
The Danube Delta rewilding area team decided to make use of the emotional power of great photography in the Danube Delta. This is what happened when we did.
The 17 European bison who in May made their way back to the Romania’s Tarcu Mountains, after the species had been extinct there for 250 years, are getting closer and closer to full freedom in the wild.
“Reversing defaunation: Restoring species in a changing world”, this new article in the Science magazine reviews the full spectrum of conservation translocations, placing rewilding in the same framework of methods to reduce the depletion of animal species.
I went for a walk along the old hiking trail towards Modrić. Walking along the periphery of the main pasture and into a part of the trail that was thick with wildflowers and grasses until I could no longer see the trail.
Malo Libinje is a rugged, stony part of the Velebit Mountains in Croatia, that borders the Paklenica National Park and overlooks the sea. It is also the home of the Knežević family. I was there to observe the behaviour of the Istrian Boškarin cattle that they received earlier this year through Rewilding Europe. The Knežević family kindly and graciously accepted me as a guest from America.
Finally, He came. It had been already five or six afternoons with me there waiting, lurking under a juniper in the anonymous valley at the edge of the beech forest. I was feeling the fatigue from the many hours of waiting, but I really didn’t get bored.
There is a growing demand from society to cover the costs for nature conservation in more efficient and sustainable ways. Meanwhile, there is also a demand for new jobs in the often depopulating agricultural regions in Europe. To meet these demands, new education is needed to help develop a new breed of entrepreneurs who can start up and run new businesses based around wildlife, nature reserves and other wild or natural areas.