Re: RFI: "Status" of birds on Tiritiri Matangi Island New Zealand

On the topic of "reintroduction"..............

Sorry, going to respond with an unbirdlike comment here.......

Interesting to follow this thread.  I save things like this for my  
students.  I love it!

Not bird related but also following the whole "re-introduced" vein,  
Bison in Alaska have been big in the news here for about 5- years  
now.  Well, actually, they have at least two "transplanted" herds; one  
near Flat, an old gold-mining town, and one in Delta, on the highway  
system south-east of Fairbanks.  They've both been around at least 35-
years.

Recently, Fish and Wildlife biologists have been pushing for, what  
they are calling, a "reintroduction" of bison to certain areas of  
Alaska. They are able to make this claim based on (correct me if I'm  
wrong) oral stories of people who's ancestors actually hunted bison in  
the Yukon Flats area, and archeological evidence. Many, many times the  
biologists mentioned that "there were bison here before" and claim  
they are not invasive.

Proposed herds are designated to be brought in to the Yukon Flats area  
and into our area, the Innoko drainage area.  Several years ago some  
wildlife biologists and others came in to discuss the plan, gather  
public opinion and "sell" the idea to people in our 4-village area  
(Shageluk, Holy Cross, Anvik and Grayling).

The biologists  were providing data, current trends based on the  
existing 2-herds and speculation about the "positive" outcomes.  They  
would leave the herd for several years to build up stock, monitor the  
herd for disease, etc.  and then do some kind of draw or lottery hunt  
based on herd size.

Well, sitting in the meeting with my students,  I figured "this all  
sound too good to be true" and (no offense to any biologists out  
there), I DO know that if you believe passionately enough in  
something, and you really want to see it work, you're going to sell  
that idea any way you ethically can (again, no offense to any  
biologists out there).  I just know that these biologists here  
passionately want the bison herds to work for Yukon Flats and our area  
on the Innoko.

After one of the meetings I had my students do research on the  
internet regarding the Canadian herds, the Delta and the Flat, Alaska  
herds.  We called it "Pros and Cons to the reintroduction of Bison in  
Interior Alaska".

First off, was the fact that well, yes, there were herds in Yukon  
Flats as late as 300 years ago.  However, this stunned me; evidence of  
Ancient Bison in the Innoko drainage area  occurred 6-10 million years  
ago, HARDLY basis for use of the term "REintroduced" which I thought  
was rather misleading on the part of the biologists!

At any rate, the kids found out many "cons" to the bison  
reintroduction sell-job that were not mentioned during the splendid  
presentations and data the biologists had presented to the community.

I don't necessarily like to become part of an argument for or against  
on this subject of "reintroduction" but I do try to teach kids to DO  
YOUR RESEARCH before making any changes to the environment to decide  
its impact.

Last fall Fish and Wildlife decided that pike had become invasive in a  
popular fishing lake within the municipality of Anchorage so they  
decided to throw some kind of poison in there to kill off all the pike  
and in the spring, restock with, I guess, "approved" fish in the  
spring, which they did. I haven't heard anything since but that  
created a stir as well.

The list goes on and on, interesting and sad, too, of many species of  
plants, birds, beasts and fish that have decimated a "natural"  
populous and how people want to "reclaim" the environment or habitat  
for its original inhabitants all over the world.

It's good to discuss and I have been enjoying this thread.

Joyanne Hamilton
Shageluk, Alaska





On Jun 25, 2009, at 12:12 PM, Tim Boucher wrote:

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