The Aurochs is about to return to the mountains of Central Europe

Both. The were talking about it on NPR.

Its pretty straightforward, the wolves chase off the coyotes, which
encourages the small animals they prey on. The deer / elk avoid some of the areas they used to hang out i, as those were natural ambush areas.

A major factor is more beaver, which of course affects stream flow.

No, I dont have a link. But if you think about how much the animal life affects the plant life, and how much that affects fun off, bank stabilization
etc you could spin off scenarios from removing a top predator. Not that they would necessarily be what actually happens, but you could think of similar ideas that show how ecosystems are totally interrelated.

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Modern cattle probably behave a lot like their ancestors. i bet the auroch would get things worked out pretty fast.

 

Beavers were a problem in upstate SC.. They would build their dams and flood acres of standing water in pine forest.. killing off all the pines. Of course there were few predators to keep things in check.

 

They are a plague in Argentina. Should never have been introduced there.

 

Around where I live, we occasionally get beavers who will build their dams close to roads and then the road will flood. It's caused a few accidents over the years, but no deaths so far that I've been aware of. When I was a boy my buddies and I used to go back into the woods and fish off a beaver dam. The thing was huge, probably 15-20 feet across. Big enough for several 13 year olds to stand next to each other with decent amounts of room in between us so we weren't snagging each other while casting.

It's really amazing to see those in the animal world who actually change their environment itself.

 

They were introduced?? Why for God's sake?

 

I dont remember the story, probably for fur. But then, its one of countless injurious introduced species.

If you've never read about cactus in Oz, its a great cautionary tale, with the strangest elements. But also an amazing success story in the end, at least as far as eradicating them. The British, for their part, no longer use red uniforms anyway.

 

yeah I recall reading about a mouse on an island(St Kilda's?) that adapted to humans so that there was a rural and house version, the house version went extinct when humans eventually abandoned the island...and there are the examples of introduced species that behaved differently in their new environments...

 

but they're important for the ecology, killing off forests would have other benefits...the problem is not having predators to control the beavers...reintroduction of wolves into former environments where it was eradicated has had a number of benefits for the ecology in those areas, their prey may not agree but overall it becomes a far healthier ecosystem...

 

The cross-breeding program was also tried on the European bison whose last wild herd was wiped out for beef by the passing armies in ww1. Following the war, some specimen remained in several zoos and those were crossbred with the American bison to diversify the genetic pool and avoid bottlenecks. In eastern Europe, the Auroch enjoys a somewhat legendary status, featured in many folk tales, and there it is known as Tur (pronounced toor or tour). The white stripe probably served for species recognition, and is also common to the primitive horses such as the Tarpan or the Przewalski horse.

 

My guess would be that at the time they were introduced, beaver fur for hats (such as Lincoln's hat) was a popular thing. Beavers were introduced to Argentina for that reason.

 

Yeah.. that makes sense to me... My grandmother had a beaver coat from the 1920s.