March 20 marks World Rewilding Day.
Established just four years ago by the Global Rewilding Alliance, the day celebrates the herculean effort behind rebuilding ecosystems and reminds us that nature can bounce back.
Mongabay has reported on rewilding efforts from Southeast Asia to South America and beyond, with teams restoring habitats and releasing captive-bred species back into the wild, giving nonhuman animals space to thrive again.
A songbird returns to Brazil’s Cerrado
In Brazil, the great-billed seed finch (Sporophila maximiliani) has returned to the Cerrado savanna after being locally extinct for more than half a century, contributor James Hall reported.
At first sight, the critically endangered small brown bird appears rather plain, but its striking singing voice trapped it into the illegal pet trade, with some birds sold for as much as $8,000.
Since 2018, conservationists have released more than 300 captive finches into a nature reserve in southeastern Brazil. Post-release monitoring has shown they’re adapting well to the wild and have begun to breed and nest.
Zebra sharks set for comeback in West Papua
On the other side of the world, in the waters of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago, the striking zebra shark (Stegostoma tigrinum) was considered functionally extinct, with a population of just 20 individuals remaining.
To recover their numbers there, scientists working at the Shark Reef Aquarium in Las Vegas, U.S., shipped hundreds of shark eggs back to the archipelago, with the hope of having at least 500 individuals swimming free in its waters over the coming years, Mongabay’s Hans Nicholas Jong reported.
Giant anteaters reclaim their historic range
In Argentina’s wetlands, since the reintroduction of the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) to the 758,000-hectare (1.9 million-acre) Iberá National Park in 2007, multiple generations of the 2-meter-long (6-foot) mammal are now thriving in their original habitat.
The success of the rewilding effort has spilled over across the border, with giant anteaters spotted in southern Brazil for the first time in 130 years, contributor Sarah Brown reported in early 2024.
“If large mammals are coming from one region and settling in another, it’s because there is a support capacity for them. It’s an indication of the health of the environment,” ecologist Fábio Mazim told Brown.
Getting rewilding right
Rewilding isn’t as simple as just releasing animals into the wild. Experts such as Helen Senn, the head of conservation at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, who is part of a project to rewild the Scottish wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris), warns that the process takes years of careful planning, monitoring and scientific research to run smoothly and support the ecosystem while ensuring individuals that were bred in captivity can survive in the wild.
“We’re in this for the long haul, and we know that it’s going to take probably years of concerted effort to truly be successful,” she told contributor Sean Mowbray.
Banner image: A giant anteater in the Argentinian wetlands. Image courtesy of Rewilding Argentina.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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