Is life too short for predator conservation research?

Introduction

Colorado State University chose to begin the review of an important article on apex predators with this erroneous statement: ‘removal of apex predators from an ecosystem can create lasting changes that are not reversed after they return’. This is simply not true. Is life too short for predator conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More research? The study, which looked at the impact of predators over 40 years, has wide-reaching connotations. But it’s the inherently poor understanding of why animals are needed that leads reviewers to make these rather unhelpful and cynical statements.

Lead author Hobbs went on to say: ‘All we can be sure of is what’s observable now — the ecosystem has not responded dramatically to the restored food web.’ That may well be true but taken out of context, this adds to the confusion. The reality is much simpler. Animals are humanity’s best hope and we must accept this fast, if we’re to reverse the ecological damage already done over the last 50 years.

I’m mindful of this particularly insightful piece of research quoted by re-insurer group Swiss Re:

Recent historic loss of fish life has already had a greater impact on coastal processes than most major environmental issues such as climate warming and nutrientEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More pollution. (Hooper, D., et al., 2012.).

The same applies for all animals, since they are the basis for entire ecosystem structures and function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More. Without animals we have no functioning ecology, we have no nature-based solutions, and no livelihoods in future.

Science is part and parcel humility

Carl Sagan once said ‘Science is part and parcel humility’. This statement appears in my book Wildlife in the Balance.

In the case of the aforementioned paper it’s not what the authors could describe that was most significant. It was what they couldn’t. To be fair, another of the paper’s authors Cooper was quoted differently. They said “Over the next hundred years, they’ll [meaning predators] have a greater role in regulating some of the ecological processes that we’ve been studying.” 

But the dominant rhetoric is that we don’t know how. That fact is too all-consuming for the more important message, which is, ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More cannot function without predators. We definitely know this, but we’ll never prove it.

To be humble, therefore, scientists ought to simply say this: ‘we can’t use research to prove the obvious fact that predators are needed in ecosystems’. But even that’s not the whole point.

They would also recognise that we don’t have the time to prove it. That life is too short for predator conservation research and that animals are humanity’s best hope in addressing most of the problems the world faces today. Also, that there is already over-riding wisdom and knowledge to establish this as common sense. We know that predators are a principle reason why ecosystems function, if not precisely how. This is the difference between natural philosophyNatural philosophy concerns itself with the question of 'why' things work [1]. Natural science tries to work out 'how' [1]. Understanding the difference is fundamental to conservation but is largely missing . Natural philosophy has more in kin with ecological wisdom, such as the beliefs, cultures and traditions of first nations peoples all over the world. It embraces an understanding More and natural science.

How can science believe in something it can’t prove?

Which begs the question. Is life too short for predator conservation research? If a single person’s lifetime is hardly long enough to prove that predators are essential, what role can research play at all?

I’ve covered this subject in a few blogs – see ‘Science is only part of the solution in’. A belief system is essential to avoiding what scientists call Type II ErrorsUnderlying almost all conclusions in scientific studies is a presumption that something is 95% likely to occur. But that threshold could just as easily be 50:50, or less. By setting the bar so high, researchers can be quite certain that their results stand. But what if the threshold isn't met and an idea is rejected? What if that presumption is More. That’s when you wrongly disregard something that was actually true.

The type of beliefs that have enabled human civilisations to last for tens of thousands of years weren’t based on research. They formed around the understanding of nature’s inherent complexity, written into a culture, that formed the blueprint for survival. Modern science tends to increasingly disregard anything it doesn’t believe. This creates a do-nothing mentality. It plays into the hands of those who would rather not accept that people and wildlife are co-dependent.

We need research to help steer civilisation into the action needed to restore systems, not to argue whether it works or not.

Three important matters overlooked by the findings

#1. Culture takes a long time to rebuild

Counting the number of deer, proportion of trees etc. is used as a surrogate for how ecosystems function. But the part that is more essential to restoration (and takes longer to reform) is culture. Culture is intangible and impossible to describe. By using a language we cannot comprehend, animals transfer(of nutrients) the thing that sets animals apart from plants, is that they can move. Some of the biggest migrations on Earth every day, are the movement of insects like caterpillars, from the stem of a plant to a leaf and back, before turning into butterflies and transferring the energy elsewhere. Large-scale migration of grazing animals and migratory songbirds moves More knowledge to others of their species. When animals are first reintroduced, the knowledge is absent.

#2. Animals make their own food supply systems

An absence of predators causes the decline of entire food webs. Animals have to make their own food on-site because they don’t have artificial supply chains. Predators can’t order more food to be shipped-in to compensate for population increases. Instead it takes many generations of animals moving energy around the environment for patches to reform. I describe this in more detail in my book. The processes of energy transfer, concentration and amplificationAmplification (of nutrients and energy). Animals consume plants and other animals and in doing so, reintroduce important energy-containing nutrients back into the environment, at even higher concentrations and in patches. Amplification of energy is driven by migration and happens at every scale, from insects moving daily in and out of your vegetable patch, to African wildebeest herds and the seasonal More depends on a hierarchy of species working together.

#3. Culture is not species-specific

Culture is shared. Humans are biased by our isolationist attitudes. We think culture is all about ‘us’. But it’s not. Culture is shaped by the landscape and biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More that surrounds us. It’s a blueprint or manifestation of the pressures and support our outside world places upon us to survive. Humans, like all animals, need to be supported by those around them. Predators may drive an increase in herbivore diversity or alter abundance. But the predator’s role in the ecosystem won’t settle down and become culturally-sustainable until everyone else has settled down too.

Conclusion – rebuilding ecosystems is messy and unpredictable

When any system is disrupted, things get messy. But when rebuilding occurs it also goes through a similar period of readjustment. Nature does not design to build something to exact specifications. The approximate design will be the same. A house needs a roof, rooms and a door. Ecosystems need animals present in the right proportions. Exactly what colour and texture it will be, or which components are chosen for specific roles, is unknown.

Perhaps life is too short for predator conservation research after all. Many researchers have a tendency to assume an ecosystem will reform quickly in a certain way but we can’t control that. Neither, as this recent study establishes, can we see it reach its conclusion in a lifetime or more. It’s possible it will never happen as some parts of ecosystems need to be dynamic to provide the nutrientA substance that contains the raw materials for life. At a chemical level, these are contained inside compounds that are absorbed into the body and essential energy-containing molecules are extracted, so that energy can be transformed into other chemical processes that use the energy for living. More and energy turnover humans require for survival.

Seth Godin has also described this, in a round-about way. As we struggle to work out how things work we risk falling off the cliff. Instead, we need to make informed choices. Godin’s ‘The Dip’ is the period of hardship we have to go through before we can master an outcome. Predators have to go through this before they become part of an ecosystem. Some will win, some will lose. It’s not by design it’s in their biology. It’s in ours too and we will ultimately live in a world with more predators and more intact ecosystems in time.

Meanwhile, if we want to make our lives more comfortable in the long-term, we can make a choice. Do we simply accept that ecosystems require predators and push through the dip, or do we fall off a cliff?