Migration management

In completely natural conditions it is possible that despite the rapid changes there will be species that will manage to migrate/move towards an area that suits their requirements, but the conditions are not natural, in the path of those who try to migrate there will be agricultural fields, roads, rural and urban settlements, all of these constitute artificial barriers that many species are unable to overcome overcome, therefore human intervention is needed.

Global warming and climate changes in different areas create a problem for plants and animals, for whom the new conditions are a risk, because of the relatively high speed with which the conditions change, many of the plants and animals are not enough to adapt, lack of adaptation means extinction.

In completely natural conditions it is possible that despite the rapid changes there will be species that will manage to migrate/move towards an area that suits their requirements, but the conditions are not natural, in the path of those who try to migrate there will be agricultural fields, roads, rural and urban settlements, all of these constitute artificial barriers that many species are unable to overcome overcome, therefore human intervention is needed.

Bodies in charge of nature conservation are facing a problem: is it right to try to help the species by "moving" them "managed relocation" to areas that will suit them. Is it right to help the species perform a "climatic" assisted migration, north or south from their place of residence, a migration that will save the species from extinction?

The problem has gained momentum in the last decades when "invader species" cause damage on a huge scale: the cane toad that was imported to Australia to "treat" a beetle that caused damage in sugarcane fields... The toad advances like an army of destruction and eats everything in its path, the striped clam (zebra) Brought by mistake to North America, clogging water systems and causing damages in the millions, hyacinth and water hyacinth were brought to Africa as ornamental plants and today cover lakes and rivers with a thick blanket that does not allow the movement of boats, fishing and water pumping, the dense cover causes lack of oxygen and fish death.
Invasive species also cause problems here, let's mention only the Indian myna, the Indian crow, the sparrowhawk, the blue acacia that was imported as a sand installation and spread throughout the country and in contrast to the pine forests planted by the KKL-Junk.

The fear of a negative effect of imported/new species on their new environment is a primary reason for avoiding "moving species" as a solution to the deterioration of habitats where the species exist. Until today, "moving species" was considered an extreme action, the results of which are not always predictable and there is a high probability of success.

Many species survived extreme climate changes, but these were changes that happened over a long period of time, enough time that gave the species the opportunity to adapt and acclimatize, the changes today are far faster than natural changes and therefore far beyond the ability of the species - animals and plants - to acclimatize and adapt.

The need to help species adapt to changing conditions such as climate change and other environmental changes that originate from human activity is known and has existed for a long time, now for the first time different ways - sometimes extreme - are positively being considered to intervene in natural processes and help species by moving them to habitats with suitable conditions, habitats in which the imported species will be a novelty. The researchers use names such as "managed relocation" or "assisted migration," concepts based on the introduction/importation of new species into an existing habitat by manually transferring many individuals of the designated species to its new habitat, I have already mentioned the barriers The artificial ones that require manual transfer.

With us: they preceded "we will be heard" and already in the seventies they moved goats from the Judean desert to the Yehudia river in the Golan, populated the Golan Heights with deer captured in the Ephraim mountains, later white and wild rams were returned to the desert nature and populated the Carmel, Galilee and Jerusalem forests with deer, except in this case they are Mammals that have been hunted/extinct in the last few hundred years, therefore their place in the desert habitat or in the groves exists and is protected, the reintroduction of the moose became possible only after some of the pine plantations were replaced with a natural grove. Another case may happen when the authorities come to the conclusion that a tiny species on the edge of the Sea of ​​Galilee is going to dry up, in a species of blind crab that is probably one of a kind and this is its only place of breeding, it is possible that in order to save the species from extinction it will be necessary to move its entire population to another place where the "lineage" will continue .

To this day, most of those involved in conservation and nature conservation have opposed the "moving" of species, a group of distinguished scientists led by Jessica Hellman from the University of Notre Dame, as well as researchers from Brown, California, and Stellenbosch Universities (DRAP), led the writing of an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and is described as innovative because of the approach that says it is right and appropriate to operate "change management" under conditions and in places where this action will save the "moved" species. This is of course after a thorough inspection, the inspection will show that there is no risk to local species, there is no chance that the population of the imported species will grow without stopping, that is, the imported species will integrate and take a natural place in the new habitat.

What used to be "taboo" is becoming accepted as a proper way of managing the environment since the renewed approach says that: in large areas, nature, the environment is not "what it was", large areas are considered "violated" and therefore need management, management that will allow violated areas to recover and reach the near future More than what was - natural.

In the past, the saying "let nature fix itself, let nature take care of itself" was accepted. But over the years it turns out that the two prominent violations of the natural conditions prevent nature from "correcting itself": global warming and the development/construction of the intensive. The warming causes the need for species to migrate, the construction prevents the species from migrating, therefore not only is it allowed to help the species, but there is an obligation to move and move species to save them.

Contrary to what was accepted until the last few years, the results of the warming will come to an extreme expression already in the coming decades (and not in the hundreds as they thought), therefore the activity to save endangered species seems more urgent today than it was ten years ago. the damages or their repair. Therefore, inaction under the assumption that "nature will take its course" may be more negative than action, but again the action must be correct, one of the activities was the attempts to fertilize the oceans, (which apparently failed), another activity is the creation of long migration corridors (thousands of km) And broad ones that will allow "genetic mixing" meaning contact between different populations of similar species. Preservation of seeds in the "seed bank" is another activity, but this one takes into account a disaster (catastrophe) and we want to prevent a disaster.

The rapid changes in environmental conditions can cause species to become trapped in habitats that are gradually disappearing without the possibility of leaving them, for example fish whose pond they live in dries up due to a stoppage of rain, a rare tree surrounded by settlements, a mammal that lives in a small patch of forest surrounded by agricultural fields, these and others need help so that their species continues to exist .

Since we said migration, it is appropriate to devote at least one paragraph to the famous migrants, the migrating mammals (those weighing over 20 kg): the American buffalo, the wildebeest in southern Africa, the caribou in the northern tundra, the chiro and the saiga in the plains of Asia, the migrants who are perhaps the most famous of all : Wildebeest and zebra herds in East Africa. All of them migrated thousands of kilometers following the grass, following the food and water, they migrated because today most of the migrants are limited by fences, roads, settlements and agricultural areas, some of the large migrants have been almost completely destroyed (the buffalo in America and others), some still migrate through territories that are getting smaller and smaller, Nature in the entire world is struggling to open and preserve corridors that will allow the continuation of the natural course of life of the migrating mammals.

Returning to the subject of the "moving" of species in the wild, which continues to be controversial, the opponents are right to fear the consequences, therefore every "moving" must be accompanied by an overview of all the data related to the species being moved, to the environment into which they are imported, to the various species in the environment and the mutual relations between them and the imported species, But after all it is better to do something imperfect than to do nothing.