Recently hit this follower number.

Anyone know what is significant about this number in a rewilding context?

Did you know that wolves were in Ireland that recently?

234 years.

There are trees standing that may have sheltered wolves in rain once upon a time.

Why is this important to note?

It's important to note because wolves arrived here between 34000 and 20000 years ago.

Thats how long they were on this island for, until they were wiped out.

20000 years being here > 234 years not being here

"The landscape has changed" "They don't belong here anymore" "We don't have space for them"

These arguments used against proposals for reintroduction of a species that lived on this island for 20000 years and was exterminated 234 years ago.

What are your opinions on this?

Let me know what you think?

Its roughly 8 generations of ancestors ago.

For context, when I was born 4 generations of my family were alive stretching back to early 1900s.

Thats a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.

What chaos did the functional extinction of wolves have on the island?

Explosion in mesopredators numbers?
No carrion for insects and BoPs, mammals to feed on?
Huge increase in deer numbers and subsequent rapid decrease in woodland regeneration?
Loss of cultural heritage?
Increase in spread of diseases in certain species as no control on numbers?

But why am I so insistent on talking about the big bad wolf, can't we save what we have first?
These things are not separate, the wolf is a keystone species that lived on our island for 20000 years and our ecology is coevolved to live alongside it https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/keystone-species-and-their-role-in-rewilding/

This diagram from @RewildingEurope shows the crucial benefits for ecosystems that the wolf promotes.

But wolves need a lot of room, why don't we start with something easier?

Why not the wolf, it would be a nationally transformative umbrella project addressing habitat restoration, agri-business, human-wildlife conflict, funding and management for everything under one clear goal

We don't have the woodland neccessary?
What about the Curlew?

All benefit from wolves.
Wolves need prey not woodland, they would create an ecology of fear in ungulates to allow natural regen.
Wolves scare foxes, so Curlew and other ground nesting birds benefit hugely

Does anyone know what the estimates for number of inidvidual wolves that were on island at their peak or the max carrying capacity that existed?

"We don't have the room for wolves again

There's too many people"

There's a big discussion to be had there about consolidation of people to urban centres, what we are doing with land and how we can support farmers and rural Ireland https://twitter.com/CriostoirMcCaba/status/1260500185270140929?s=19

But anyway, to wrap things up:

I just think wolves are neat and should be reintroduced to Ireland as part of nationally transformative ecological action, and have not been gone long enough for it to be an animal problem but a people problem to introduce.

This page is growing and I am looking to set up something more solid in coming months, but it's been impacted by Covid as has all of us so will keep ye updated.

I've driven down roads like that in Wicklow