Re-Wilding vs Human Safety

The effort to resurrect extinct animals
exhibits antipathy to human exceptionalism

 

At a crucial point in Jurassic Park, Dr Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, says: “You worried so much about whether you could, you never stopped to wonder if you should.”

The fearsome depictions of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park franchise are overblown for movie drama. A running theme in all the movies is human terror and carnage, as the extinct reptiles treat people like rats to step on, slash, eat, or kick over a cliff. It’s an old fear tactic in movies going back to Godzilla and early dinosaur animations. It is useful for entertainment, but not likely to ever happen—so people think.

These days, however, reintroduction of dangerous wild animals is almost treated like a holy obligation, even if they pose risks to humans. To a point, the preservation of wild ecological balance is a human responsibility. Wiping out a species for sport or entertainment can hardly be justified. But should the largest wolves the world has ever known be brought back to terrorize Los Angeles? Why would anyone wish such a thing? Let’s look at some news on the subject of rewilding and resurrecting extinct animals. Just because we can, should we?

Scientists genetically engineer wolves with white hair and muscular jaws like the extinct dire wolf (AP News, 8 April 2025). A company called Colossal Biosciences has claimed to “de-extinct” the dire wolf, a tall, muscular wolf that is larger than the gray wolf, the largest living wolf. They used a technique of comparing the genome of fossil dire wolves to living wolves, and then introduced 20 of the genetic differences into the pups of a gray wolf using Crispr/Cas9 technology.

Timothy Hearn at The Conversation says that even though it’s an impressive feat of genetic engineering, it is not really a de-extinction since millions of base pair differences remain. [But what does he know; he repeats the myth that human and ape genomes are 98.8% similar (see rebuttal here).] Michael LePage at New Scientist agrees with Hearn; they are not really dire wolves, but gray wolves made to resemble dire wolves. Three pups raised with the genetic modifications, all with white coats, are being kept in 2,000-acre enclosure at an undisclosed location.

The attitude for now seems to be one of praise for the genetic engineers. Live Science calls the “majestic predators” engineered by Colossal Biosciences “adorable.” But should they be released to their former habitat, such as in west Los Angeles, where hundreds of skulls of dire wolves have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits? Should these pseudo-dire wolves be given back their land? The large, muscular breed would likely wreak havoc on the livelihoods or ranchers and farmers and might even attack humans with reckless instincts.

And if you think that’s a risk, wait till Colossal Biosciences reintroduces woolly mammoths: their next de-extinction project.

Other Wolf News

Wolves make a rapid recovery in Europe, increasing by 58% in a decade (Public Library of Science via Phys.org, 17 March 2025). As wolf populations have climbed by 60% over the last decade, incidents of livestock slaughter have also increased. Wolves have killed “56,000 domestic animals per year” the article says. That may be a tiny percentage of all the livestock in Europe, but put yourself in the place of a rancher waking up in the morning to find dozens of his livestock, on which his livelihood depends, lying dead. Wolves kill more than they eat, adding insult to injury. Consequently, hearing the outrage from the ranchers and the pleas for wolf protection from the environmentalists, governments are finding themselves having to insert themselves into the balance of nature. Aren’t humans natural, too?

California announces plans to relax protections for wolves as population grows (Phys.org, 4 April 2025). Visitors to Yellowstone Park are given the consensus story that the reintroduction of wolves to the park has been of great benefit to the balance of nature, keeping the elk population in check and extending blessings to the entire ecosystem. Photographers go to Yellowstone with great exuberance, hoping to capture a wolf in the wild. Not as often mentioned is the great harm to ranchers outside the park who have seen their sheep, goats and cattle slaughtered indiscriminately by these beasts. Dr. J.Y. Jones, an avid hunter who knows wild animals better than most, has a different take on the wolf project:

Putting wolves back in Yellowstone has decimated the elk there, and that loss is felt all over the Rockies, with many, maybe most, elk hunting outfitters being forced to shut down for lack of game. When most wildlife is gone, wolves will turn on domestic stock, like sheep and cattle. Numerous instances of this have already occurred. Wolves don’t take from livestock only what they need to eat, in the case of sheep they often destroy the whole flock. Ask any rancher how much good his wolves are doing, and you’ll most likely get a pretty negative answer.

Environmentalists say that wolves were there first, and were removed by humans (the bad guys, as usual), so it’s only ethical to bring them back. Now, other states and countries want to follow suit. What could possibly go wrong? Well, as the wolf population has grown, so has the damage to humans and their livelihoods.

Protections drop for wolves in most of Europe (Phys.org, 7 March 2025). European governments have also heard from ranchers and farmers about the harm done by wolf reintroductions, and are backing off from calling wolves “strictly protected” to just “protected.” This allows them to be shot under certain circumstances. The experiment in moral posturing by environmental activists has angered many having to face the consequences. “In some European regions, wolf packs have become a real danger especially for livestock,” the article says.

Reintroducing wolves to Scottish Highlands could help address climate emergency (University of Leeds, 17 Feb 2025). Here’s one of the most misanthropic articles on this subject of wolf reintroductions. In the name of climate change, bring in the wolves! “Reintroducing wolves to the Scottish Highlands could lead to an expansion of native woodland which could take in and store one million tonnes of CO2 annually, according to a new study.” But what about the human cost? Oh, people will get used to it.

“We recognise that substantial and wide-ranging stakeholder and public engagement would clearly be essential before any wolf reintroduction could be considered. Human-wildlife conflicts involving carnivores are common and must be addressed through public policies that account for people’s attitudes for a reintroduction to be successful.”

Even if wolves help forests regrow, trees in northern climates grow very slowly. Rapidly-growing trees in more temperate climates store much more carbon than trees farther north, so what is the point of reintroducing them into Scotland?

How a surprising twist on rewilding could help settle our carbon debt (New Scientist, 24 March 2025). Striking a similar theme, Graham Lawton thinks primarily about how much carbon wildlife (including wolves, bison and other large mammals) can store, but has precious little to say about the damage “rewilding” can do to humans and livestock.

Other Rewilding News

Tiger recovery amid people and poverty (Science, 30 Jan 2025). Tigers are beautiful mammals in zoos, on posters, and on cereal boxes, but they are killers, too. The Editor’s Summary of this paper in Science puts forth the rationalizations often given for letting tigers live near human prey.

There are currently 8.2 billion humans on the planet, leaving little room for wildlife, especially large carnivores. Ensuring that nonhuman species persist is important not just because they have a right to exist beyond human value, but also because they are essential to the maintenance and integrity of ecosystems. India, the world’s most populated country, has been successfully working to recover one of the largest and most iconic carnivores, the tiger, for decades. Jhala et al. found that tigers persisted most in high-quality protected areas. However, they were also found in adjacent areas shared with humans where war, poverty, and extensive land alteration were minimal.

In brief, tigers don’t know to stay in protected areas. They move in next to peaceful people. This paper tries to strike a balance between land sharing and land sparing, but gives a substantial emotional preference to the tigers and their “rights.”

First beavers from Scotland released in England (BBC News, 5 March 2025).

Wild beaver release approved for England (BBC News, 17 Feb 2025).

These two articles praise the reintroduction of beavers into Scotland and England. Conservationists are glad, saying that these industrious ecosystem engineers, with their dams, will promote biodiversity. The farmers, though, are not happy. Beaver dams are cute and exciting to see in the remote mountains, but not where people live. Beavers are messy. They chew down more trees than they need for their dams, strip bark off of desirable trees, and leave tree trunks lying across the ground. Their dams flood farmland needed to grow food for humans. “The farmers union has said the release is a mistake and that beavers damage agricultural fields.”

The beavers will be released under a licensing system overseen by Natural England.

It says long term plans will need to be in place to avoid impacts on farming, food production and infrastructure.

That’s something the National Farmers Union say is vital. It wants culling beavers to be an option if they prove disruptive.

NFU Deputy President David Exwood said that while beavers could provide certain benefits, “we are concerned about the negative impacts beavers can have on productive farmland, as well as the management requirements, costs and risks involved”.

“Beavers can flood and waterlog fields, feed on agricultural crops like maize, as well as damage and fell trees such as cricket bat willow.”

In the Old West, beavers were almost wiped out. They were valued only for their fur to make hats for European men during a temporary fashion fad in the early 19th century. Dr J.Y. Jones, a contributor to this site, who has had extensive personal experience with wildlife conservation, describes what beavers are likely to do in Europe: “There is no market for their luxurious fur, they have no natural predators, and there’s no way to stop the avalanche of anguish their introduction into Europe will initiate” (personal communication).

This raises the question of where to stop. If animals’ rights are given equal value to human rights, policies based on that belief could become dangerous. Wesley Smith wrote at Evolution News about a philosopher wishing to grant human rights to microbes. Should rattlesnakes and black widow spiders be given equal rights to your property? Should pest control companies be put out of business? Since dinosaur fossils are not that old (see 20 March 2025), should future generations of people have to endure coexistence with tyrannosaurs?

Bears and berries: Researchers highlight critical role of grizzlies in huckleberry health (University of British Columbia, 10 Dec 2024). We’ll spare you any puns about Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear, but this is another article praising the ecological benefits of grizzly bears but failing to consider the human toll. As usual, humans are the villains, but the gentle, smiling, berry-eating giants deserve all the space they can get.

In turn, bears help huckleberries adapt to changing climates by dispersing seeds into new, potentially more suitable habitats. However, human activities such as urban development, resource extraction and increased recreation in bear habitats can affect this critical ecological partnership.

Clearly, policies must balance the needs of people and those of animals. Here’s one way to wake up radical environmentalists to the feelings of affected farmers and ranchers: let dire wolves loose in the upscale parts of Los Angeles: Westwood, Century City and Beverly Hills. Turn some tigers loose in Mumbai where the rich live. Let some beavers loose in a popular park and let the residents gasp as the animals knock down all the prized trees. Set some grizzly bears loose in Sacramento next to the Capitol. This can get their attention. Then, stakeholders can talk. “We must do something about this!” It’s very easy to set well-meaning policies that only affect others.

Not all conservationists are Darwinists, but the more radical environmentalists are. The majestic beasts they worship were here first, they say, and have just as much right to this planet as the latecomers, Homo sapiens. Animals evolved for their habitats and we nasty humans stole their land. We must give it back. This view that denies human exceptionalism is sometimes called speciesism (see 2 Feb 2023 and 3 Feb 2023). But in this worldview, aren’t humans just as natural as the other animals? Aren’t they proving survival of the fittest by taking over? Conquests of environments by newcomers has happened throughout history. Was St. Patrick wrong to drive the vermin out of Ireland?

Rewilding begs the question whether any period had an ideal ecosystem. Do evolutionists want to go back to the Jurassic? Why not the Triassic or Cambrian? There’s an ongoing debate, by the way, whether the large Pleistocene megafauna in North America were wiped out by early people. Was that wrong? What would Darwin think? What could he say except, “stuff happens”?

Only a Biblical worldview can bring the right balance to these debates. God created the animals. They showcase his wisdom and creativity. But humans have a unique stewardship role over all other creatures. We have a right to live, build our homes, and use technology, but must make wise choices to protect and help all creatures to flourish according to their own needs and the needs of the whole biosphere. Social media is replete with touching stories of people rescuing animals: releasing a bird caught in a fence, cutting a net off a whale or sea lion, taking great risk to rescue a dog from a frozen lake, rescuing and nurturing injured wild animals, and restoring populations of endangered species like the California condor. These show our stewardship role in action. Human exceptionalism, though, means we place a higher value on human life than on animal life. See this video by Dennis Prager for insight.

See Dr J.Y. Jones’ article (11 Dec 2023) about the exercise of stewardship through hunting. He knows from wide experience and working with legislators that controlled hunting policies are the best way to keep problematic animals in check while maintaining healthy populations of both predators and prey. We also recommend his exciting sci-fi novel Lightspeed to Babylon that warns of the consequences of the animal rights movement run amok. The opening chapter will get you hooked.