Published as an op-ed in Jyllandsposten November 17, 2021
Much has been written about the upcoming national nature parks and the concept of releasing large herbivores such as horses and cattle to restore and maintain open spaces. Among professionals, the debate has mainly revolved around the effect of having herbivores shape the landscape, while in the general debate, animal welfare has been the main focus.
Unfortunately, over time, the healthy debate has been replaced by a bitter dispute between different sides, and especially in the animal welfare debate, the tone has taken on an intransigent tone that completely overshadows the constructive debate. Personal attacks and fake news have replaced professional arguments, and many otherwise constructive debaters have chosen to withdraw from the debate in order to avoid being smeared or having their opinions dismissed.
In general, you have to ask yourself whether it is responsible in terms of animal welfare to release domestic animals such as horses and cattle into the wild in order to make nature more complex and give the animals a more natural life. In its 2018 statement on the ethical and welfare aspects of using animals for rewilding, the Danish Council on Animal Ethics addressed this very question and concluded that it can be done, provided that a number of factors are taken into account.
First and foremost, you need to choose robust breeds of horses and cattle that can withstand being outside in the Danish weather all year round. Of course, this limits the possibilities, but fortunately, existing legislation already takes this premise into account by identifying specific breeds that are robust enough to cope with the Danish climate. These include Shetland ponies and Konik horses, as well as Scottish Highland cattle and Galloway cattle, which have been used in nature conservation projects around the country for many years and are generally known for their robustness.
Secondly, you must ensure that the area where the animals are to be released can provide “dry bedding”, shelter from the elements, access to fresh water and, not least, enough food to prevent the animals from starving. This last point in particular has sparked much debate, with some opponents equating releasing animals in national parks with animal cruelty. There is no doubt that there must be enough food in the area, both in terms of quantity and quality, for the animals to sustain life properly all year round. This can be achieved by adapting the number of animals to the available food in the area – either by reducing the population ahead of the food shortage, or by culling animals that are struggling to cope as problems arise. Or both, and accepting that animals are naturally adapted to seasonal variations and can switch to other food sources once the succulent grass has been eaten – provided, of course, that the right food sources are present.
In rewilding projects, you want to avoid supplementary feeding as much as possible, as this reduces the effect of the animals eating bushes and branches when there is not enough grass, thus helping to maintain the open areas. However, should conditions develop so that reducing the animal population is not enough, you should be prepared to supplement feed to avoid the animals suffering or even dying of starvation. If this is achieved, the animals should be moved to a specially designed pen outside the national nature park so that the animals do not get used to being fed inside the park. In this way, both the desire for good nature conservation and the welfare of the animals can be met.
The prerequisite for the adaptive management of the animal population described above is, of course, that the animals are continuously monitored. And here we hit another sore point in the discussion. How often should you inspect the animals? The Animal Welfare Act states that horses should be inspected every day, while cattle should only be inspected “regularly”. There is no biological argument to distinguish between the two species, and the difference is probably due to the history of the legislation rather than a professional justification. Nor is it realistic to inspect every single animal on a daily basis in large areas. Nor is it done today in other large enclosures such as Dyrehaven north of Copenhagen. But there must be “regular” supervision that is continuously adapted to the current situation. For example, there may be individual animals that you need to keep an extra eye on, or periods when extra supervision would be appropriate. For example, during periods of extreme weather or during the animals’ breeding season when they need extra nutrition. The important thing is to adjust the supervision so that you can intervene in time if things start to go wrong. And since any food shortage doesn’t result in acute emaciation, but works over a longer period of time, regular daily monitoring isn’t necessary either. Hunger problems can be detected during “regular” inspections and thus ensure that the animals are not starving.
A third stumbling block in the ongoing debate has been statements that the animals in the national parks should “fend for themselves” and that “nature must take its course” without human intervention. However, in my opinion, this is impossible to achieve in the Danish national parks, as the animals are kept under fences and therefore do not have the freedom of movement of wild animals. The fence is necessary in order to maintain a higher density of animals inside the national nature park than outside in order to achieve the desired effect on the vegetation and to protect the surrounding communities from damage caused by the animals should they wander out of the national nature parks. By fencing national parks, we humans assume responsibility for management on three levels in particular:
- Genetically to avoid inbreeding, as animals from outside will not be able to migrate on their own.
- Demographically, to maintain a natural gender and age distribution in the flocks and avoid unnecessary fights.
- Food-wise, to ensure that animals always have access to the food they need.
Therefore, animal populations in national parks can never be self-sustaining, but are dependent on ongoing external management. The release of horses and cattle cannot be compared to the reintroduction of endangered species, which aims to re-establish viable populations of the species in question. In such populations, the animals have to live on nature’s terms and undergo the natural selection that takes place in nature. However, national parks are not about re-establishing populations of endangered species, but about introducing animals that can carry out the important processes in nature that disappeared with the loss of the previously widespread populations of large herbivores. In other words, it’s more about establishing a living nature conservation than re-establishing animal populations.
Unfortunately, the use of the term “rewilding” in national parks and a sometimes stubborn adherence to the rewilding concept’s focus on self-sustaining animal populations has built up a fierce resistance to the release of animals into the wild to restore and maintain open nature. This is a shame for the process, and there is a need for a change in the way we talk about such releases. “Conservation” is, in my opinion, a more appropriate term that perfectly describes the reason for releasing the animals and does not risk the same misunderstanding about the management of animal populations that the term “rewilding” gives rise to.
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