This process, which is practiced when all the actions to preserve diversity have failed, represents a huge effort with a random result. Ibex, vultures, beavers … owe their presence in France only to these reintroductions.
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Vultures, on the big causses, the ibex, in the Alps, the Apon, in the waters of the Drôme and the Ardèche, the Beavers, almost everywhere on French territory: many ignore it, but These species, more or less emblematic, owe their presence on the national territory only only to “conservation translocation” operations, to use the vocabulary in force among naturalists. For about fifty years and the awareness of the blows that our society has brought to animal diversity, France has experienced dozens of reintroduction operations. “No one can tell you exactly how much the situations are varied, warns Michel Salas, director of research and scientific support at the French Biodiversity Office (OFB). Local associations with hunting federations, passing By state services, there is no single channel. On the other hand, one thing is certain, it is always a complicated operation, delicate to prepare, delicate to implement, delicate to follow. And costly. In other words, before getting started, you have to make sure you have met all the conditions. “
Florian Kirchner, in charge of the species program at the French Committee of the International Union of Nature Conservation (IUCN), completes the observation. “This is the last chance operation, the one we practice when all the actions to preserve diversity have failed or have been insufficient, he insists. It is always a huge effort with a Random result, so we cannot generalize it. But when we have a small residual population, or even individuals in captivity, we sometimes have no choice. And success can be there. “
Natural history books often bring this practice back to the reintroduction of the great tetra, in Scotland, in 1837. “But was it only to save it or to also ultimately shoot it, already at the era it was not always clear, “says François Sarrazin, professor at Sorbonne University and specialist in translocations. More indisputable was the strengthening, in the 1890s, of the last bison still in freedom by a herd raised in the Bronx zoo. No doubt the emblematic species owes its survival to him. The Norwegians proudly exhibit the successful reintroduction of musk beef in Dovrefjell, in 1932, some 40,000 years after his disappearance from Scandinavia. And the New Zealanders display the transfer, between two of their islands, at the beginning of the 20th e century, from Kakapo, this parrot unable to fly. Return of history, they again moved the animal to the twentieth e century to allow it to escape introduced predators … by man.
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