While the idea is not exactly high concept, a proposal for “assisted colonization,” or deliberate transplant of species to new range, is bruited about by an international lineup in Science magazine. It is getting considerable media attention this morning. Reporters are letting readers know all the reasons that some conservationists think such a strategy might have many backfires – heaven help the penguins, some say, if anybody gets it in their heads to put polar bears in Antarctica as their Arctic habitat shrinks. On the other hand, the general tactic could forestall many extinctions. It seems to make instinctive sense if it’s done with careful forethought. Critics fear it might work too well – as transplants, freed of their native predators, parasites, etc., multiply rapidly at the expense of local ecosystems and perhaps farmers’ crops.

A good list of potential applications of the idea is in the Scotsman by Jenny Haworth. While it’s gotten a bit too Saharan in southern Spain for the Iberian Lynx, she writes, it might do famously in Scotland and would fill a niche left bare since the last of the region’s native lynx got hunted out. Ditto for the mole-like Pyrenean desman, and the south of England might be fine for the Spanish imperial eagle (although, one wonders, cannot a bird of such soaring prowess shift its range unaided?).

AP’s Randolph E. Schmid (with a tagline assist from Seth Borenstein) reports one population biologist got only a horrified reaction a decade or so ago when she broached the subject. Now, it’s acceptable conversation. In here is also a report that in America’s basin and range province, residents of the alpine zones of so-called sky islands – isolated peaks – may have to be let die. There is nowhere for them to go but into the sky, it says here. Why not – aren’t there mountains farther north?, one muses. Of course, introducing some squirrel subspecies into another place to compete with a near-cousin subspecies might not be wise.

Other stories:

Scientific American David Biello leads with Southern Calif’s Quino checkerspot butterfly as an attractive candidate for what realtors call relo – and reports a few groups that on their own have begun assisting species to more pleasant neighborhoods ; New Scientist Catherine Brahic has a source saying that with the world so overrun with human influence, arguments for “naturalness” are harder to make anyway ; CBC (Can.) Paul Jay calls it the modern equivalent of Noah’s Ark ; Wired News Brandon Keim uses the polar bears-to-Antarctica idea as a reader-catcher (before dismissing that one) and enterprisingly provides a link to a similar paper in the journal Conservation Biology last year ;

Grist for the Mill:

U. Texas-Austin Press Release ; University of York Press Release ;

Pic: Hi res ; A sky island, photo by Tom Vezo (his site), and one bets there’s a species or two in trouble and stuck up there.

-CP

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