Rewilding Europe

[Spalea]

@Wolverine :

I'm clearly not a specialist. But if I am quite agree with your wish ("The wild plains and mountains of Europe one day should again resemble ancient prehistoric Pleystocene landsape with wisents, wild horses and aurochs roaming and hunted by grew wolves and bears"), I nevertheless think that once extincted an animal specy couldn't be recreated. Yes, we are able to create a new specy but not totally the former one.

As concerns the auroch, I just reproduce here the old book (60s) about mammals page about auroch. I appreciate the qualities of the illustrations, and - naivety ? - my view of the auroch is always clearly this one:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I translate its physical description:

"The auroch, 190 cm at the withers, is extinct but according the ancient descriptions and the skeletons, we know its appearance and its behaviour. He has a straight back, an elongated head and big curved forward horns with black points. The short and smooth coat was black with a white ray on the back and white parts of the snout for the adult bulls. The cows and the young males were brown, the calves reddish-brown. The auroch lived in small herds...".

What I note is that: the auroch was a big bovid, a really impressive beast, and if your short videos closely reproduce its appearance, I don't find the "savage character" of the extinct animal. The auroch might be a easily frightened animal which didn't let people approach it. Something like the African buffalo. And because of that, with the wisent, one of the dominant bovid of the European continent. An animal often confronted against natural predators (wolves, brown bears) and living under harsch conditions.

In fact I fear that we have recreated a pale imitation of the original animal which, because of its savage behaviour, was definitively wiped out in 1627 according to the book comments.

But I would like to be denied, to be proved wrong ! Reply